Hi All, Just thought I would share some highlights of a great evening I had Thursday night. A friend of mine who is a performer called me last week and offered me a FREE ticket (my favortie price these days), to see Bonnie Raitt. Of course I took her up on it! A couple of days later she phoned to say she had also gotten some backstage passes for Bonnie's after-party benefit for anti-nukes! Now I was really psyched.
Bonnie looked great wearing a green fade away blouse and black pants, especially with that red hair. She opened up with Love Letter. She went on to do much of the new album which sounded pretty good. She threw in Nick of Time, Have a Heart and several other notables. Seemed everything sounded good, but Bonnie claimed to have a bronchial thing going on and apologized for her voice. Her band was very tight as well. The sold-out crowd was very pleased and very into it. In her extended encore, she of course being in Chicago, had the luxury of bringing some old blues greats out to perform with her. First off she brought out Pinetop Perkins for some blues piano. And finally as I suspected, she brought on Mavis Staples and they did a rousing version of "I'll Take you There." Well that pretty much brought down the house and ended the show. After the show about 40 of us were escorted backstage into the bowels of the theater where we waited for Bonnie patiently. My friend ran into another performer friend of hers and I ran nto Kristin Lems. Kristin Lems is a feminist folk singer and the woman who started the Womens Music Festivals back in 1974, that are still going strong. She was very sweet. I of course mentioned my Joni fanaticism. She mentioned to me that she has written a song about Joni on her new CD, "Oh Mam - Plus." Actually it's about Joan, Judy and Joni, called "The Three Madonnas." She went on to recite a couple of lines, that sort of ties the whole thing together, but I can not recall the lines verbatim. However, the gist was, that Joan (Baez) had given her her cause, Judy (Collins) had added a touch of elegance, but Joni gave her a wink and told her to be herself. Anyone interested in Kristin or this song can visit her website kristinlems.com. Back to Bonnie. She finally entered and stepped up to speak to us all and said she would make her way around to speak to each and everyone. But because of her voice we should do most of the talking. Also no autographs and just a few pictures. My friend (Dawn) who has a CD out had no plan to hand one over to Bonnie. I twisted her arm. She said she had heard that she does not accept them. I said - well then she'll just say no thanks. I saw 2 or 3 other local performers holding theirs (CDs) in hand. Finally, Bonnie approached our group and we were introduced as some local performers (ME?!). But Bonnie seemed to relax at that immediately, although she never seemed that uptight at all. My friend stepped forward and said a few words, as did one of the others and both passed her CD's which she took, no problem. In fact my friends music is very Bluesy and she told Bonnie that it may very well be her style of song. Bonnie said, "Well I'm always looking for new songs." Then it was my turn to say something - I HAD TO! So I reached out to her and we shook hands and I said how much I loved her work through the years. I added a few more pleasantries and she thanked us graciously. Then Dawn and I and the other performer posed for a picture with Bonnie. So I anxiously await the picture and my moment captured on film! The night ended with a trip to Chicago's own "B.L.U.E.S. Now grant it Bonnie may not be in my top 5 singers, more like top 10. But I really respect and enjoy her work, both muscially and politically. She really seems to have it all together. All in all a memorable night, as Bonnie Raitt is truly one of the great women in rock and roll. Peace, Susan Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/
