There were so many great music and political scenes going on in the late ’60s in Cambridge. The ratio of guys to girls at Harvard was four to one, so all of those things were playing in my mind.
BONNIE RAITTI don’t want to sound like a self-help book, but it really has been transformative for me to take a look at my relationships in a new way and see my part in them. Everybody’s going through that.
More Bonnie Raitt Quotes
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I have a really full life, both within music and outside it.
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And just the problem of young women not getting an education, not being able to have an equal position in the cultures all around the world.
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Leading a band and producing yourself and picking cool tunes and putting a show together takes a lot of thought, and a certain amount of courage.
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People write me letters and thank me for turning them on to Fred McDowell and Sippie Wallace, and that’s partly my job this time around.
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You create the happiness and the balance that you have, and your own power. This is one thing that I know to be true.
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The fact is that this conversation is going on at every level at every age, we’re all going, “God, what a jerk I’ve been,” “How could I have married that guy?” or “How could I have done this or that?” With time, this is the gift of being older, that you get to look back and say, “It wasn’t all about them.”
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I don’t know if I’m a heroine; I’m just somebody that can cheer the troops by singing to folks, and have receptions after the show, and tithe a dollar of every ticket sale for all kinds of different great charities and social action groups.
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My career is based on the slow build of an audience based on putting on a good show live and putting out a record every couple of years.
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I don’t want to discredit people’s opinions of me, but you talk about the violin or the cello or lead guitar where you have to learn tons of chords, that’s much more difficult.
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Distribution has really changed. You can make a record with a laptop in the morning and have it up on YouTube in the afternoon and be a star overnight.
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I grew up in Los Angeles in a Quaker family, and for me being Quaker was a political calling rather than a religious one.
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In blues, classical and jazz, you get more revered with age.
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Those of us who grew up in the ’50s and ’60s, we had the dream that this could be turned around, and the earth could be back in balance, and that we could level the playing field with men and women and pay, and you know, minority groups having equal opportunity.
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Religion is for people who are scared to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there.
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I’m sure I would have been considered a more significant artist if I was a singer-songwriter. It’s just not the way I roll. I love being a curator and a musicologist.
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I think we have responsibilities to be active in the things we believe in, regardless of what our job is.
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I learned by experience that you can change your circumstance. It’s as simple as the serenity prayer; it’s a very, very real thing.
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Im happy to say that at 62, I think Ive reached that point where stuff doesnt bother me as much, and my gratitude level has gone way up.
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My parents would drag me out to perform for my family, like all parents do, but it was a hobby – nothing more.
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How unthinkable that, in a country of such bursting plenty, so many people are facing ongoing hunger and poverty.
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The talent on YouTube is incredible, and it can spread like wildfire. The downside is that it’s very hard to convince the younger generation that they should pay for music.
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I’m one of those people who just doesn’t plan my personal life. I plan my professional life.
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It can unite kids and musicians, everybody, whether they’re leftist or rightist, or radical, or Republican, because energy is energy. But in fact, it is a real political struggle – it shows people that it’s big business against the people.
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When they were putting oil rigs up and down the California coast, the whole issue of safe energy and the addiction to fossil fuels really came into focus.
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If we are truly each other’s keepers, let’s support school lunches, food stamps, neighborhood garden projects, and so many other wonderful programs working to put an end to this cruel and needless blight once and for all.
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I have been really heartened by how much coverage there has been about inequality of pay across the board, between the entertainment industry and almost every industry worldwide.
BONNIE RAITT