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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

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
How I measure success is getting to make another record and being able to the come back to the same town and play again cause you sold out the last time.
BONNIE RAITT

Able Getting Play Records Time
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 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.”
BONNIE RAITT

Age Best Guy Look Looks Married
The generation I grew up in was the beginning of “stand up for yourself,” whether being a singer-songwriter or a feminist. In my college years, the feminist movement was really coming to fore, so we wouldn’t have put up with guys treating us less than equal.
BONNIE RAITT

College Equal Feminist Years
I’m happy to have been a positive influence.
BONNIE RAITT

Influence Positive Influence
With slide guitar, you’re just hanging this piece of glass on your hand. It’s a really beautiful instrument in that it’s so responsive, you’re just slipping your hand back and forth.
BONNIE RAITT

Beautiful Glasses Guitar Instruments
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
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.
BONNIE RAITT

Convince Downside Incredible Music Talent
I don’t think there’s ever been any music quite like what we came up with.
BONNIE RAITT

Advertising Agencies Thinking
I can’t make you love me, if you don’t.
BONNIE RAITT

Happen Life Love Make
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
My parents would drag me out to perform for my family, like all parents do, but it was a hobby – nothing more.
BONNIE RAITT

Childhood Hobbies More Nothing Parent
Playing guitar was one of my childhood hobbies, and I had played a little at school and at camp.
BONNIE RAITT

Childhood Guitar School
There are a lot of people that never get their stories told.
BONNIE RAITT

People Stories Told
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.
BONNIE RAITT

Guitar People Want
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
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.
BONNIE RAITT

Education Position Women World
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 was already doing really well in terms of my goals, to keep my fans coming back.
BONNIE RAITT

Back Coming Goal Really
I think my fans will follow me into our combined old age. Real musicians and real fans stay together for a long, long time.
BONNIE RAITT

Music Real Thinking
The experiences of life make all your emotions, I think, deeper.
BONNIE RAITT

Deeper Emotion Experience Make
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
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
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
The fifth member of my band is my non-profit work.
BONNIE RAITT

Band Member Profit
How unthinkable that, in a country of such bursting plenty, so many people are facing ongoing hunger and poverty.
BONNIE RAITT

Country Garden School

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Bonnie Raitt Quotes