|
Bonnie Raitt Shakes It Up
New Album Shows off Blues Performer's Range
 Hear the on-air version of Bonnie Raitt's interview with Scott Simon.
Hear Web-only excerpts of Bonnie Raitt's interview with Scott Simon.
May 4, 2002 -- Silver Lining, Bonnie Raitt's 16th album, may be her most varied to date.
The album ranges from her trademark slide-guitar-driven roadhouse blues to ballads to acoustic experiments with Malian musicians. Given the diversity of the material, she was glad to have a group of highly versatile studio musicians on hand for this outing, she tells Weekend Edition Saturday's Scott Simon. "They can basically play anything between that Zimbabwean jump-up song 'Hear Me Lord' to 'Wherever You May Be' -- this beautiful ballad -- to 'Silver Lining'."
Raitt's recording method remains the way she's always preferred it. "I really don't belabor the records that much," she says. "I get the right people in the room, I make sure there's just enough rehearsal to get the key correct, and then we just let 'er rip."
The nine-time Grammy winner says working with the Malian musicians, including renowned guitarist Habib Koité, was a little strange, given the participants and the material. "Here was this anomaly," she says, "of a white girl from Los Angeles teaching a blues feel from a John Lee Hooker groove to musicians from the West African soil the slaves were originally from, who don't play the blues. And I'm trying to explain why this rhythm goes like this, and they're playing a kind of sunny, beautiful African-derived mixture, but they don't know what I'm singing about."
Additional Resources
• Visit the Bonnie Raitt Web site
• See Bonnie Raitt's discography
• Read about Raitt at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Web site
 Search for more NPR coverage of Bonnie Raitt.
|
