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I’ve watched my peers get better with age and hoped that would happen with me.

Bonnie Raitt

I grew up in Los Angeles in a Quaker family, and for me being Quaker was a political calling rather than a religious one.
BONNIE RAITT

Calling Political Religious
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
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
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.
BONNIE RAITT

Artist Jobs Musicologist Writing
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 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
The anti-nuke movement has important and far-reaching implications for grassroots organizing.
BONNIE RAITT

Kids Real Struggle
The women’s movement resurgence of standing up for so many things that were kind of sleepy there for a decade or so, there’s been a reawakening and I think the consciousness movement in general is dovetailing with a lot of recovery and self-empowerment.
BONNIE RAITT

Consciousness Recovery Resurgence Self Thinking
I’m in a relationship, and I’ve been in one in a while, but all the people I’ve been with at various points – and I’ve had sequentially monogamous relationships my whole life – were all the right people at the right time.
BONNIE RAITT

Life Momogamous People Right Time Whole
I was already doing really well in terms of my goals, to keep my fans coming back.
BONNIE RAITT

Back Coming Goal Really
The fifth member of my band is my non-profit work.
BONNIE RAITT

Band Member Profit
I think we have responsibilities to be active in the things we believe in, regardless of what our job is.
BONNIE RAITT

Believe Jobs Responsibility
You don’t have to look a certain way to have a hit record.
BONNIE RAITT

Looks Records Way
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 happy to have been a positive influence.
BONNIE RAITT

Influence Positive Influence
Jazz and blues fests are everywhere now, and Americana is going strong on college radio. What I’m hearing is an appreciation of real music.
BONNIE RAITT

Appreciation Real Strong
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
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.
BONNIE RAITT

Age Amount Courage Long People Together
I finally learned to accept that I can’t make radio play blues any more than I could get Reagan out of the White House.
BONNIE RAITT

House Play White
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

I’ve watched my peers get better with age and hoped that would happen with me.

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I’ve watched my peers get better with age and hoped that would happen with me.

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