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I don’t think there’s ever been any music quite like what we came up with.

Bonnie Raitt

Whatever role we were in our family of birth, we take on this persona and in your 20s and 30s in particular, you end up thinking that’s you and that isn’t necessarily you.
BONNIE RAITT

Birth Roles Thinking
With the new ways of getting music out, you don’t need a label if you’re a legacy artist.
BONNIE RAITT

Artist Legacy Needs
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
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
I 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.
BONNIE RAITT

Book Everyone Relationship Self Sound
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
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
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’ve watched my peers get better with age and hoped that would happen with me.
BONNIE RAITT

Afterlife Age Get Better
The fifth member of my band is my non-profit work.
BONNIE RAITT

Band Member Profit
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
I didn’t have to be a pop singer with a certain look. When I started, there was really a revolution in natural artists with blues and folk artists crossing over; otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to get started.
BONNIE RAITT

Artist Looks Revolution Singers
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.
BONNIE RAITT

Around Partly People Thank Time Write
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’ve been lucky enough that I can gather all sorts of experiences and find inspiration by traveling around and by spending time with people I admire.
BONNIE RAITT

Admire Inspiration Lucky People
In 1967 I entered Harvard as a freshman, confident – in the way that only 17-year-olds are – that I could change the world.
BONNIE RAITT

Creating Government Years
How unthinkable that, in a country of such bursting plenty, so many people are facing ongoing hunger and poverty.
BONNIE RAITT

Country Garden School
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
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
I’m glad I get singled out for my slide guitar-playing, which isn’t that difficult to do. I didn’t take guitar lessons, but I just love the way it sounds, almost like the human voice.
BONNIE RAITT

Guitar Human Lessons Voice
It’s incredible to see labor unions and environmentalists getting together to stop the corporate mentality that destroys both jobs and the environment.
BONNIE RAITT

Corporate Environment Jobs Together Work
I don’t think there’s ever been any music quite like what we came up with.
BONNIE RAITT

Advertising Agencies Thinking
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
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
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
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
Playing guitar was one of my childhood hobbies, and I had played a little at school and at camp.
BONNIE RAITT

Childhood Guitar School

I don’t think there’s ever been any music quite like what we came up with.

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I don’t think there’s ever been any music quite like what we came up with.

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