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I have a really full life, both within music and outside it.

Bonnie Raitt

I’m proud of the way I rearrange and put things together, like a chef who makes a great meal, or a filmmaker who puts together a story – it’s casting, editing, cinematography.
BONNIE RAITT

Editing Stories Together
Elvis might have compromised his musical style a bit towards the end, but that doesn’t mean that artists from the rock n’ roll/folk-roots culture – of which he was not really a part – shouldn’t get better as they get older, like the great jazz or blues artists.
BONNIE RAITT

Artist Great Mean Musical Rocks Style
How unthinkable that, in a country of such bursting plenty, so many people are facing ongoing hunger and poverty.
BONNIE RAITT

Country Garden School
I can’t make you love me if you don’t, You can’t make your heart feel something it won’t.
BONNIE RAITT

Feels Heart Love Something
One of the biggest obstacles I’ve overcome in my life was thinking I didn’t deserve to be successful.
BONNIE RAITT

Successful Thinking Years
Whether you’re playing it on the guitar or on the dance floor, you’re in that moment.
BONNIE RAITT

Dance Floor Guitar Movement Playing
The one thing I know is that if you’re not paying attention, it will come back to bite you.
BONNIE RAITT

Attention Bites Knows
In my early twenties, if I wasn’t getting good enough at it, then people would not come and see me. Anybody who has lasted this long – I hope we get better with age.
BONNIE RAITT

Age Better Enough Getting Good Longer
It is still a surprise when people tell me that I’ve had an influence on them, particularly when it’s someone I really respect.
BONNIE RAITT

Influence People Surprise
I think that we have a unique opportunity as performers and artists to be kind of the town criers and also to get more people to listen, so that’s a blessing and a responsibility that I take very seriously.
BONNIE RAITT

Artist Blessing Responsibility
We can choose, you know, we ain’t no amoeba.
BONNIE RAITT

Adages Amoeba Knows
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.
BONNIE RAITT

Coast Country Focus Issues Oil
Pat Benatar might need a rock band, but I can just sit with a blues guitar for an hour and a half and do folk songs and great contemporary ballads, and not many people can pull that off.
BONNIE RAITT

Contemporary Guitar Need Rocks Song
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 RAITT

Girl Great Guy Music Political Scene
In blues, classical and jazz, you get more revered with age.
BONNIE RAITT

Age Classical Jazz More
There would be no rock and roll or rhythm and blues without Leo Fenders’ contribution … the tone is everything
BONNIE RAITT

Everything Music Rocks Roll
Sometimes I’m more true when I’m up onstage than I’m able to be in my regular life. It’s not as exciting to be at home, but I’ve got to learn how to make that work, and then I will be an ordinary woman.
BONNIE RAITT

Able Home Learn Ordinary Regular
We did a two month tour with Taj Mahal that was really healing and cathartic and a good distraction after my brother passed away. Then I knew I wanted to take a year off, and it was really nice to have that chance to fall apart.
BONNIE RAITT

Brother Fall Knew Nice Off Year
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.
BONNIE RAITT

Careers Couple Years
I think my fans would be upset if I confined my shows to one city for a long period of time.
BONNIE RAITT

City Confined One Period Think Time
The consolidation of the music business has made it difficult to encourage styles like the blues, all of which deserve to be celebrated as part of our most treasured national resources.
BONNIE RAITT

Celebrated Encourage Made Resources Style
I like to think I get better with age, but maybe absence makes the heart grow fonder.
BONNIE RAITT

Get Better Heart Thinking
I’m honored when young people say they’ve gone to school on slide guitar with my records. But people get their influence from my live shows and records and YouTube, not me personally.
BONNIE RAITT

Guitar People Personally School
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.
BONNIE RAITT

Circumstances Prayer Real Simple
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.
BONNIE RAITT

Back Balance Dream Men Opportunity
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

Boards Culture Entertainment World Worldwide
I’m one of those people who just doesn’t plan my personal life. I plan my professional life.
BONNIE RAITT

People Plans Professional Life

I have a really full life, both within music and outside it.

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I have a really full life, both within music and outside it.

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