In the fall of 1970, while opening for Mississippi Fred McDowell at the Gaslight Cafe in New York, she was seen by a reporter from Newsweek Magazine, who began to spread word of her performance. Scouts from major record companies were soon attending her shows to watch her play. She eventually accepted an offer with Warner Bros. who soon released her debut album, Bonnie Raitt, in 1971.
The set starts with Raitt’s first album followed by more of my favorites.
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The astounding thing about Bonnie Raitt's blues album isn't that it's the work of a preternaturally gifted blues woman; it's that Raitt doesn't choose to stick to the blues. She's decided to blend her love of classic folk blues with folk music, including new folk-rock tunes, along with a slight R&B, New Orleans, and jazz bent and a mellow Californian vibe. Surely, Bonnie Raitt is a record of its times, as much as Jackson Browne's first album is, but with this, she not only sketches out the blueprint for her future recordings, but for the roots music that would later be labeled as Americana. The reason that Bonnie Raitt works is that she is such a warm, subtle singer. She never oversells these songs. She lays back and sings them with heart and wonderfully textured reading. Her singing is complemented by her band, which is equally as warm, relaxed, and engaging. This is music that goes down so easy. It's only on the subsequent plays that you realize how fully realized and textured it is.
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