The Great Raitt---Right, Right!

(Bonnie Raitt at the Paramount Theater, Seattle, November 12, 2005)
By Dian Hassel

Bonnie Raitt gave a high-energy, musically tight, musiculturally diverse and artistically precise performance at The Paramount in Seattle last Saturday night. She was so immediately engaging that I forgot my usual routine, listing the performance catalog in my moleskine notebook. Her band includes those who have been with her for a good piece of time: George Marinelli on guitar, Jon Cleary on keyboards, Hutch Hutchinson on bass and Ricky Fataar on percussion. The opening act, Maia Sharp also provided backup vocals and saxophone on three or four songs, maybe more.

They opened with a New Orleans song, dedicated to and mostly performed by Cleary, who hails from the Big Easy---rats, can’t remember the name of the song. Then they went into God Was in the Water That Day---both songs recorded before the Katrina disaster.

Other songs included (not in order): Nick of Time (dedicated to her deceased parents),
Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About, Gnawin’ On It (for “Scott,” lucky Scott), an early early song of hers that is honky-tonk bluesy with many words including “roadmap,” Women Be Wise. She performed all of the Maia Sharp songs that are on Bonnie’s new CD, Souls Alike. Raitt is a generous lead performer---not only bringing her opening act on four or five times and singing all of Sharp’s songs that are on the CD---she also stands sideways when others in her band have solos---however, she looks GREAT playing sideways, so it’s win-win for everyone on stage, and, I might add, everyone in the audience.

At one point, playing sideways, she squatted and pointed her guitar like a good weapon and rose up easily while still playing, no hand up or anything---so how many 50-somethings can do that?? She celebrated her 56th birthday last week and told the crowd that her band and crew came out in their boxer shorts with a cake---each guy had a letter on his boxers spelling out POLES ALIKE. Later, when a crew member handed her a guitar, she quipped, “Which letter were you?”

Her only political comments were aimed at Governator Arnold and were brief. As is the norm at a Raitt concert, many pro-environmental groups were there, handing out and selling stuff. The house was sold out and ecstatic about the show---many standing ovations and two encores---the first encore she did a ballad by Sharp, and THE SONG I WAS THERE TO HEAR, I Can’t Make You Love Me---Cleary perfectly made the introduction his own, not an easy feat following the incredible Bruce Hornsby keyboard intro on the recorded version of this anthem. The last encore was a tribute song to a recently deceased bluesman (again, sorry I forgot to write it down) and regaled the late Robert Palmer by singing Doctor, Doctor, Give Me the News.

Maia Sharp is a cosmic force in the making. She opened the evening with an hour-long set, 11 songs---Maia on guitar, with a bass player and a drummer, both excellent. The sidemen’s instrumentals were lyrical. At one point, she sat at the keyboard and started a song---all of a sudden, you hear a slide guitar and yes, Bonnie strolls onto stage with her ax, no intro, and plays and sings back-up for Maia. Just as nonchalantly, she strolls off.

Bonnie, in addition to her pro-environmental advocacy, has championed the effort to get royalties for some of the now-elderly blues folks who were the foundation of a big part of what we call “rock” now. Raitt played for 1-½ hours. It seemed like fifteen minutes. Watching Bonnie on stage, she is clearly physically impacted by the music. Some of it lifts her up, some of it clearly devastates her. Ditto, the audience.