Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Raitt's 1971 debut opens with the thrumming blues/folk-rock gem "Bluebird" --between her beautifully soulful singing, textured voice and the song's perfect arrangement, she announced herself as a new and impressive talent. Thankfully (for some) this is miles away from the more mainstream pop music she hit with in the '80s.

Bonnie Raitt's debut album features an unusual collection of songs performed by an
unusual assortment of musicians. And Bonnie is something out of the ordinary herself. She
has been traveling the blues-festival circuit since 1968, playing the Boston-New
York-Philadelphia folk run, since 1970. Now she has done something unusual with her first
Warners album. In August, Bonnie rented a fishing camp on a Minnesota island, s... More >

A singer-guitarist (and occasional composer) who renders all the Collins/Baez melodrama superfluous. Raitt is a folkie by history but not by aesthetic. She includes songs from Steve Stills, the Marvelettes, and a classic feminist blues singer named Sippie Wallace because she knows the world doesn't end with acoustic song-poems and Fred McDowell. An adult repertoire that rocks with a steady roll, and she's all of twenty-one years old. (Grade - A-)