Last year, Bonnie Raitt’s album Just Like That soared to a number one release on Billboard and initiated the ongoing namesake tour. Her 50 plus year career includes Grammys, addiction and recovery, social and environmental activism and a kind of down home commitment to performing the music she does best – a mélange of blues, country, rock and pop. Whatever the genre she seems to instill a sense of organic realism that makes it so easy for listeners to relate to the tunes and lyrics.
The album Just Like That (Redwing Records) contains ten songs where Raitt’s singing and strumming on acoustic guitar is backed up by go-to musicians – and was made at Studio D Recording in storied Sausalito. The recording was nominated for four 2023 Grammy awards and won two Grammys for Song of the Year (Just Like That) and Best Americana Performance (Made Up Mind). This tune has a feel of funky blues nostalgia infused with drumming, rhythmic shifts and lyrics like “It starts out slow with go ahead and go pretty soon the melody is like a rainstorm tin roof symphony. Perhaps like a new age Pastoral Symphony of Beethoven (?)
Because of or in spite of a classical music background, my take is that Raitt’s approach is rooted in a folk-blues tradition where an out pouring of heart and soul is a big part of each song’s delivery and message – which in this recording seems to focus on the melancholy and disenfranchised. In Just Like That she projects a palette of nuances and sweet toned lyricism to end the sentimental ballad that seems to linger long after the track has ended – the musical inspiration perhaps drawn from her Quaker upbringing. It stands alone as another Raitt classic. No wonder it received a Grammy.
Although Raitt’s style is light years removed from composers like Schubert and his 500 plus songs, there is an earthy quality about her work that reflects the emotional impact of a lifestyle filled with ups and downs – not unlike what Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Shostakovich and others experienced. Lyrics and pretty tunes have equal importance in art songs and operas – so Just Like That, Livin’ For The Ones, Waitin’ For You To Blow and stark vision of Down The Hall are examples of how Raitt spins words and music into personalized poetry. Even the album’s assortment of other selections by lyricists have a tinge of the dark side of reality which seems to be a theme of this recording. After all, the most introspective works are often among the best works and there are many to choose from in now classical composers like Adams, Glass, Heggie and Ades.
Raitt’s mother was an accomplished pianist and her father – well, John Raitt, the Broadway musicals guru of Carousel, Oklahoma and The Pajama Game, among others. Raitt has referenced his comment about stage performance that certainly rings true for his daughter who doesn’t hold back in sharing a talent with global audiences. “Make every night an opening night,” he said. Her Just Like That tour continues next month with concerts in California (Indio, Long Beach, Santa Ynez, Santa Cruz, Sacramento) and ends in October after appearances in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and the US.