QLS Classic: Bonnie Raitt

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Hey what's
up y'all? March is Women's History Month. As we celebrate
at LS, we're going to look back at this classic
episode from twenty twenty two with Bonnie Raid discussing her
journey and passion for helping blues legends benefit from their

(00:21):
trail blazing.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
You look gorgeous.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Oh thank you. You guys are be colorful and I
was going to do the green and purple and red
hair saying hello working for you.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yes, absolutely, ladies and gentlemen, this is Quest Love Supreme.
My name, of course, it is Quest Love Jenkins. We
are joined by the almighty Team Supreme members starting a
power forward. My main man, unpaid Bill, How are you, sir?

Speaker 4 (01:07):
Fantastic power forward. I like it Number four, I'll take you.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
I'm proud to say that I've gotten unpaid Bill off
the ledge and I think I made him watch his
first episode of Euphouri last night to hold me. I'm
on it, oh man.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
I had a full on panic attack and that turned
it off.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
You four year is the new uh uh, it's to me.
It's the new contraception, It's.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
The new don't do drugs.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
You have the new don't have daughter? Yeah, it's it's you.
Four is the new do not have kids? Yes? Exactly.
Laiah up next, she's our center.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
How are you on the boys and girls? I did?

Speaker 1 (01:46):
How did you know that? Yes? I just took a while. Guest,
how are you this? Uh? This lovely evening.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
I'm trying not to embarrass y'all and break into tears
as I am in the presence of a queen. So
just just just bear with me because this is it's
a lot.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Okay. So our our power forward is sugar Steve.

Speaker 5 (02:09):
You got to stop with the sports now, that's just
your go to Steve. Like I'm a small for Yeah,
I could shoot the three so it just passes me
outside and uh oh okay. They used to call me
downtown Stevie Brown.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
So all right, well I made you my power forward
still Steve, of course, my my my shooting guard right
here it Spawnico, Yes, indeed his own. How are you
the shooters and the shooters only, I'm good man, I'm
good man. I'm happy to be here.

Speaker 6 (02:41):
This, this, this interview, this is this is gonna be
a lot of fun because I remember looking in the
paper as a kid and the Lucky to Draw album
was always on the charts.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Oh my god, exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Well, that's a ladies and gentlemen, I will say, I'll
try not to show over the intro too long, but
I gotta, I gotta pull out the commermative one for this.
I'll say that our guest tonight probably the most truest
sense of the word is an artist, and the truest
sense of the word of artist that the industry has
ever known. I think for the last five decades she's

(03:18):
held the torch super high for I mean, just the
lost art of sheer authentic blues madness. In addition to
other genres of music. She's a supreme songwriter, bullseye vocalist,
hands down all star level delta blues guitar mastery. And
I'm not even gonna I'm not gonna frame it like

(03:40):
she can hang with the greats. As far as I'm concerned,
the greats are trying to hang with her. Oh and
after oh no, it gets even better. So after yeah,
two decades, after a twenty year run of Critical Claim.
At the Critical Claim release, I will that nineteen eighty

(04:01):
nine the stars aligned when after nine or ten attempts
I believe. I think it's your tenth album. The world
finally caught up to her level of soulful rock and
blues magic with a little bitty album called Nick of Time,
which in my opinion is one of the most well
deserved comeback stories. But you know, I know most artists

(04:24):
like I never left. You know. It's not like an
overnight success thing. It garnered her album of the Year accolades,
platinum glory, a whole new fan base that resonated and
related to her outlook of a generation getting mature in
a new decade, which you know, the nineties were upon
us by that point. Remember the nineties people years ago? Yes, exactly.

(04:48):
Not to be outdone, I'll say that her follow up
album luck of the draw with the immortal classic I
Can't Make You Love Me? Is it even bigger? Monster? Wait,
it's just hit me right now that my third book
might be named after a Bonnie rait Saw. I definitely

(05:09):
remember one of the last conversations Rich and I having
about naming something the food about, and I remember him,
Bonnie raid So one of my last conversations with my
manager before he passed. It's just hitting me right now.
Her legend status of course, came full circle in two thousand,
I believe, when she was inducted into the Rock and
Ball Hall of Fame. I can say for myself personally

(05:33):
that her actual story, her entire story, has been an
inspiration for me as a kind of blueprint in terms
of artists that are trying to stay true to their
integrity without and trying to find a space to also
make a living and connect with their fan base. Of course,
this upcoming summer, she'll be conducting a tour with another

(05:55):
great Nava Staples. I can go on and on and on,
but please let's just get to it, ladies and gentlemen.
Please welcome to QLs ten time Grammy winner, Master Musician, singer, songwriter,
overall legend, Bonnie Raey.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
Thank you indeed, yes in the paint with my butts here,
thank you?

Speaker 1 (06:14):
Yes, absolutely yeah. Indeed where are you talking to us
right now? From where are you at?

Speaker 3 (06:21):
I'm out in Marin County about fifteen minutes north at
Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, where it is truly
beautiful and we got some much needed rain for a
minute last night.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
Wholl I never heard of California and actually welcome rain.
Normally it's the opposite where I hear them always complaining
about rain.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
We need it. We're in a serious drought. Man, we've
got You saw those terrible wildfires.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
On the fire in the west.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, okay, we need some water.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Season wins coming, all right?

Speaker 1 (06:53):
SONI have you how long have you lived lived out
in that area?

Speaker 3 (06:57):
Well? I go back and forth to La, where I
was raised. But I got too much traffic, too much
show business. And once I got sober, about thirty five
years ago, I went I was up in the daytime
and I went, Man, this place, this is not beautiful.
And I had been there so many years. I always
wanted to move to where the redwoods were and where
I could hike and breathe the clean air and be

(07:19):
near the ocean. So I've been here like maybe a
little over thirty years, and I go back and forth.
When I rehearse and go into the show business world,
I go down to LA and then up here I'm
in the chill in the redwoods kind of.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
I love it to go to La, get your money,
and then go back home. I love it. You got
that right, So you're recommending that if I were to
choose a place to live in California because I mean,
I'll admit to you, I'm probably one of the few
people that I might pretend to be. You know, everyone
pretends that they're so jaded with LA, Like I can't

(07:53):
stand it's so fake, so phony. Whatever I'm not because
I don't live there, I still like look forward to
always coming to La Like it's still there's still a
little bit of magic luster to me.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
But you're feel the same way because I don't live
there anymore. So when I go there, I get a
kick out of it, and it's it's it's really there's
a very There's some really cool stuff in La. There's
a lot of stuff, but it's really crowded and at
some point when you're on the roads as much as
I am, and in a hotel downtown, you know, sometimes you

(08:27):
just want nature and you want some quiet, peace and quiet.
But so are you going to ask where I would recommend? Yes, Well,
I'll tell you what, if I didn't have some success
with nick of time, I probably couldn't afford to have
moved here. So that was one thing. And you know,
there's some communities that are affordable in California that are
also beautiful, but man, that you have to go a

(08:48):
long way to get there. So if you want to
be near an airport and hospital, and I don't know,
I think Marin County, Sonoma County, Napa County, those are
all great. But you got to be worried about the fires.
And you know, on the East Coast you get worried
about flooding and some extreme weather that you guys have
been having. But uh, I don't know. I just love

(09:08):
I love all the parts of California for lots of
different reasons, the same way I love all parts of
this country. I just when people ask me, what's your favorite,
I go, Man, the Northwest. No, it's New Orleans. No, No,
it's Texas, No it's but northern California is where I
choose to live because the weather's really nice. You can
go outside every day, and you know, it's kind of
in in the vicinity of some cool cultural scenes in

(09:33):
Oakland and Berkeley and San Francisco. And yet I got
the mountains and can have the solace of being in nature.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
Roger, Okay, so we're all moving next th to you
right now, we can.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
Right That means Razis is coming, because man, that's the
second highest place, you know, most expensively in the country.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
When I moved here, you know, I just on the
tail end of where I thought was going to be
a bunch of you know, hippies and drug dealers and
shrinks and stuff and just but man, it got soccer
mom pretty fast.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
I see, I see. So I start off every episode
with the same question. So you're no exception to the rule.
Could you please give me your very first musical memory.

Speaker 4 (10:15):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (10:16):
I think my dad, who was a Broadway leading man,
singing the songs from his show, with my mom warming
him up on the panel. She was his musical director
and rehearsal pianist. And I remember being really little and
hearing this big, old booming voice singing these great Rogers
and Hammerstein songs. So I'd have to say, my folks

(10:38):
playing in the house.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
Were you? What was your siblings situation? How many were you?

Speaker 3 (10:46):
Two brothers, two brothers on either side, two years old
or two years younger. I'm the only girl.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Oh wow, So okay, you were you were? What was
that like for you, like in terms of trying to
find in space? Oh?

Speaker 3 (11:01):
You know, I just ighlized my older brother and I
went I was a serious tomboy. I got the I
got the right after I stopped playing with dolls and stuff.
I I scuffed up and just was got real good
at sports and cut my hair just like my older brother.
And uh, I just got the picture early on that
women had to do all this stupid stuff to make

(11:24):
themselves pretty and liked. And I just didn't dig it,
you know. So I just sort of stayed with that
one of the guys thing for a long time. And
look how I ended up. I'm one of the guys
in my band.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
Does that mean you can really fight Bonnie?

Speaker 3 (11:39):
We well, we were Quakers, so we did. That's right,
That's right. I punched my little I got my little
brother pretty bad some one time. But no, I just
I think I love being the only girl in between
my brothers. But you know when when you hit twelve
and your brother ditches you because he's you know when
when I'm ten and he's twelve and eleven thirteen, you know,

(12:00):
they just sort of reject you, and then you're just
left to going, oh my god, what's this puberty thing?

Speaker 2 (12:04):
You know?

Speaker 3 (12:05):
Oh yeah, so all bets were off. I had to
become a girl after all.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
Okay, so I'm actually glad you said that, because I'm
currently dating a Quaker right now, get out of here.
And this and this is one of those things that
you know, like when someone's so obvious and you're afraid
to ask questions because you feel like you should know
it already. What exactly differentiates a Quaker from a civilian

(12:33):
if you will, oh.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
Well, the short version of it for lay people is,
my folks were both raised Scotch Presbyterian for my dad
and my mom was the daughter of a Methodist minister,
and they both after the Second World War they decided
to become Quakers because they were really the it's not
an anti religion, but there's no altar, there's no minister,

(12:57):
there's no people sit in a circle and you just
get Wyatt and anybody that's moved to stand up and
speak can speak. There's a pacifist a belief in pacifism
because there's that of God and every person, and if
you love the divine then you don't want to kill somebody.
The idea is to appeal to that of God and
another person and reach a conflict resolution and treat like

(13:21):
Jesus would you know, just see that of God and
the other person and turn the other cheek and try
to find a way to get along. So that's the
short skim the stone across the lake version.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
But the.

Speaker 3 (13:34):
Social version of Quakers is they're the ones on the
ponchos on the peace March that helped ban the bomb.
They stood up for social justice, they stood up for
humanitarian They go all around the world and are accepted
in perias of conflict because they don't take sides.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Always slavery.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
Quakers had a belief that everybody was equal and that
nobody was above anyone else, and they got persecuted from
it and shoved out of England because they wouldn't take
their hat off to the king, and they were thrashed
and flogged in public. So I like their kind of
rebel spirit, and I like their the teachings of real
nonviolence and love thy neighbor come to come to roost

(14:18):
and the Quakers really well, so you're.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Proud, Okay, you're okay, now, I get get it.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
Sounds so badass like Quakers.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
Oh, Gracie's trying to turn me into a Quaker. I
get it now.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
Well, you don't have to listen to a boring sermon.
That's for sure, but I'll tell you what I missed
the music because there, you know, I listened to gospel
music in la I turned on a black gospel station
on Sunday mornings and go, man, that's I dig the
Quakers and all that. But when you're when you're eight,
you don't want to hold still for an hour, you know.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
So there was absolutely no musical worship, not none whatsoever.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
No none, none of that. But we, you know, we
sure made up for it. I just remember playing a
lot of ping pong in Sunday school.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
Really, she's about to turn a lit people.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
Well, well you know that your parents, you know, a
Quaker meeting, you're really quiet. It's like meditation, a group meditation,
and kids are squirmy, you know, so you're you're probably
too squamy to be a Quaker.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
You This explains everything I didn't realize. This is where
if my wife is headed.

Speaker 3 (15:21):
Yes, you could do worse. You could do worse. You know,
Quakers are really cool there. They stand up for their beliefs. There,
they go to jail and conscientious objectors and you know,
they got a great history fighting slavery and being on
the right side. And now Richard Nixon was a Quaker.
But that's a different way, different different branch or Quakers

(15:42):
that had a minister. And you know, they also are
really simple. They don't believe in, you know, buying stuff
and adorning themselves with things that you don't need. It's
not as severe as the Shakers who don't even use buttons.
Remember that Witness movie with Yes, I love that, I
love that. But Ivan Neville was in my band for

(16:02):
a long time and he said our expression was Alexander
good Enough played the boyfriend that was pissed off that
Kelly McGillis was harboring Harrison forties. He comes out wearing
her ex husband, her dead husband's clothes and are way
too small from and good Enough looks looks at him,
goes very plain, very plain. So that's what I haven't said.

(16:24):
I haven't said the rest of his time with us,
I said, how you doing? He's going small?

Speaker 1 (16:31):
A small, little little quest of supreme tidbit trivia in
nineteen eighty four. So for those I mean, for the
three of you who listen to the show that don't
realize my beginnings, I'm My father was a notable oldies

(16:51):
duop singer back in the fifties. You know, kind of
made a living in the in the seventies and eighties
on the on the you know, on the on the
duop circuit. As you know, you get up in age,
like around your forties and your fifties, so does your
fan base. And of course, like the way that my
life is now, where you know, all the CEOs of
all these companies or whatever like went to college back

(17:13):
when the roots were first starting. Uh. My dad was
actually offered the role of Danny Glover in Witness.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
Whoa Man.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
It's one of my big regrets when like some guy
walked up to him like Lee, and he came to
a show and was like, Lee, I'm such a fan
of yours. And there's a script. They'd sent a script
to Witness to the House, and I was like, so
small you could do it. But you know, my my
father was very insecure about his reading and talked himself

(17:50):
out of Oh, like he what I call he manifuct it.
He's said he was chicken. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
I got offered a role by in a Day becomes
Her There's a bartender. They ended up writing it out,
but Tracy Ullman did it, but I was too chicken man.
I mean, I'm pretty ballsy on stage. You know, I
got one personality. But in my real life, you know,
acting is like, oh, turn the cameras on. I get nervous.
So but I you know, there's I understand that getting

(18:18):
too chicken when it comes down to being on a film.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
That reminds me that I'm currently reading a book right
now that is sort of my bible. I gifted it
to about two hundred of my friends for Christmas. It's
written by an author called Gay Hendricks, and it's called
The Good Friend of Mine. Yes four. Chapter four is

(18:43):
about your story and it's just in me. I didn't
even make the connection that I'm actually talking to you
right now.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
But wow, I didn't even know he put me in
a book. I hope it was all good, stuffy.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
It's about me.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
It was the chapter the Big The Big Leap is basically,
you know, as I as I've a explain if there
was ever a story that I wish that I could
give to people, that I give the story to people
that I feel that are on the rise to another plateau,
because basically, Gay Hendrick says that we are psychologically programmed

(19:18):
to not enjoy happiness for more than thirty seconds before.
We instantly like I gotta have a moment right now
where it's like, yo, I'm so excited to talk to
Bonnie right right now. But then in the back of
my mind, I'll say, oh shit, I forgot to turn
the oven off, or is my mom okay? You stay
in the moment, right And so it's it's because I

(19:40):
know so many artists that are sort of subconscious self saboteurs. Yeah,
but he talks y. So he talks about how you
made a decision to leave your comfort zone, and he
says that, uh, we all have something called the upper

(20:01):
limit problem, which is exactly you get to a you
get to a sky's a limit place where you're just
like I'm comfortable here, I'm comfortable doing my podcast, I'm
comfortable doing this, and I don't want to do anything else.
And how you made an active decision to uh move
into uncomfortable spaces and he basically said that you manifested

(20:24):
your nick of time moment like literally you you you
you saw yourself getting on stage accepting the award.

Speaker 3 (20:32):
I did well, I did. There was a cassette when
I first got sober, I got a Lazarus you know
some channel guy. Somebody gave me these cassettes and this
guy was channeling this person who doesn't talk anything like
this other guy. I don't know if you guys have
ever heard anybody the channels someone from another realm and
you don't even know what they care about.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
I do this all the time, Yes, I mean that
was what's so cool?

Speaker 3 (20:56):
And I and I remember doing this thing like it said, concentrate.
You know, picture yourself doing something that you really really
would like, like either be married with kids and playing
with them on the carpet, or something that is just
out of the realm of possibility, but you wish what happened.
And I said, oh, this is crazy. And you know,
I had been dropped by my label. I hadn't made

(21:19):
the album with nikked Times signed a new contract yet,
and I just had this beautiful rebirth of being sober.
I just took to it really well. And Mi I
was healthy, I'd lost a bunch of weight, and I
was just so grateful and I picture I said, Okay,
I'll pick the wackiest thing I can think of. I'm
standing on the stage at the Grammys in this gold
jacket and I'm thanking people at the podium at the

(21:42):
Shrine auditorium, and they said, now picture yourself and go
up about thirty degrees and hold that image from the
back as if you're looking down from another plane. And
hold that for about thirty seconds, you know, a few
times a day, and see what happens. So I did it,
you know, just for a goof and then forgot all
about it. And then it wasn't until luck of the

(22:04):
draw that I turned to Don was and I said,
oh my god. He said something about, you know, manifesting,
and I went get out of here because I had
totally forgotten that I had really just made that leap.
And I remember Gay saying how. I asked him how
he was doing, and Gay said, I'm really happy. I

(22:25):
made a decision to be happy. He said, all you
have to do is make a decision to overcome that
self doubt in the back of your mind. And your dad,
your dad could have been a movie star.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
Yeah, well, I'm literally that. I'll say that that book.
There's about ten books I recommend, but of all, I'll
say the forty books I've read in the last two years,
basically since like March of twenty twenty, when the pandemic started.
This is the book that I feel has resonated with

(23:01):
my community, Like this morning, I gave it to Janelle James,
you know, like the second, like the second that I
hear any artists do a self doubt thing, Like we
have a friend named j Nel James who's like excellent
stand up comedian and she's now pivoting into uh comedic

(23:21):
actress on a show called Abbot Elementary killing. It is
killing that ship is the lead?

Speaker 3 (23:27):
Is she the lead of it? She is?

Speaker 2 (23:32):
She's really funny, She's like the.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Cramer, right, And so I told her, like, you're so
good that I will. I mean, I don't know why
with with with the television Academy, I haven't been as
vigilant as I've been with the Tony's and the Oscars
and the Grammys. But I told her, I'm actually going
to send it in my form so that I can
vote for you to be Best Supporting Actress. But she

(23:57):
kind of like duck and dies like oh no, you
know whatever, And this that triggers me, And instantly I
was like, nope, I'm giving you this book right now.
Like nothing triggers more than self doubting people.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
So it's called The Big Lead to everybody listening, and
it is available on iBooks and I'm buying it and
not waiting to be the two hundredth and ten friend
to get it.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
I will buy it before you.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
It's okay, well I got fifteen dollars, Come on, man, Okay, yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
Get no, seriously, it's it's a short book. It's I
get an audio book. You'll be finished in two days.
But it's probably the most crucial book. And literally the
Bonnie Rate chapter is what I'm using right now. Cool
for my situation in four weeks.

Speaker 4 (24:44):
So I like that Bonnie Rate didn't even know that
there was a chapter about them.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
Me too, Yeah, I like that I didn't even make
the correlation that the person that made me do my
morning mirror exercise is. I'm talking to it and I
totally forgot that it's good.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
And so what's this?

Speaker 3 (25:01):
This synchronicity of this stuff is pretty amazing, isn't it.
Clearly you guys have your pastor over there in the corner.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
But wait, so, Bonnie, do you do more?

Speaker 1 (25:12):
Now?

Speaker 2 (25:13):
Do you do more manifesting? Do you do more?

Speaker 3 (25:15):
Kind of like you know, I try to try. I
know that, I mean I can't really say I ever
did that. I've told people about the miracle of that
because I just because especially because I forgot about it
and then that exact thing happened. But I think if
you imagine something that you really want, Like when I
have friends that are ill, I picture them up and

(25:37):
about and recovered, and I picture that really hard and
that trick about this not from Gay Hendrix, but the
channeling Blizaarrest that's standing above and looking down at the
you know, burning that into your mind that here's my
friend who's ill. Not only is he out of bed,
but he's walking around taking a you know, we're taking

(25:59):
a walk in the park. I'm gonna go get some
get a salad someplace, you know, and just imagine that.
Just picture us and just picture it pictured. I think
there's really great point.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
I'm doing it like I think a lot of people
who are listening me play. When I get this kind
of information music, I'm not.

Speaker 1 (26:16):
I'm chuckling because it's just hit me that this might
be the six quest Love Supreme in a row that
that has been more about self improvement, and like like
we're about to be lifestyle improvement instead of music.

Speaker 3 (26:30):
Yeah, you know what you gotta fix. You gotta fix
the inner, the inner to get the outer. You know
what I mean, music comes to all comes from the
same source. If you got, as Robert Johnson said, stones
in my pathway, you know you got to move them
out of the way and let that, let that flow happen.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
Absolutely I agree with you.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
I mean, self self doubt. Self doubt is an interesting
source of songs. I mean, I wrote a funk jazzy
song on my new record call waiting for you to
oh about the little Devil on your shoulder, just going
come on, I just I know you're gonna mess up.
Come on, have another piece of pie, you know, stay
up late, forget lie about returning those emails. You know,
oh I meant I did send them. You know, all

(27:13):
that ways that you you flirt with the dark side,
and you know that's just part of being human and
then you forgive yourself and pay attention and move on.
But you know, you got to pay attention.

Speaker 7 (27:28):
I was excious to know Bonnie about your sobriety. You say,
you know it spent thirty five years.

Speaker 3 (27:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (27:33):
Sobriety is something that it's tough in any aspect, but
particularly in the context of the music business, I imagine
it's you know, even crazier.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
How have you say sober all these years?

Speaker 3 (27:43):
Well, for starters, that the inspiration of seeing how many
people didn't make it, you know, losing friend after friend
to either deliberate or accidental or just lifestyle caught up
with them. And that doesn't even have to be you know,
drugs and alcohol. It can be workaholism or you know,
gambling or food or whatever. You know, the ways that

(28:06):
you're just kind of filling that hole. And once you
understand about the addictive personality that and you know a
lot of us just developed an allergy to drugs and
alcohol as we got in our For me, a lot
of us in our late thirties couldn't get away with
what we got away with for those first twenty years.
And it just didn't look good. You know, I got fat,
I got I mean, I wasn't messing up my shows.

(28:28):
I mean, audiences love blues singers that are heavy, you know,
and have man problems. Oh look at.

Speaker 1 (28:34):
Her, you know that's part of it. I mean, ye,
that's the Mary J. Blige syndrome. We seemed only like
her when she's depressed. What She's said, you know.

Speaker 3 (28:43):
What, you know, Eda lost a lot of weight. She said,
I wonder if people are still gonna want to come
see me, you know, I said to the girl. So anyway,
how I stay sober? I's it wasn't. I was really
lucky and really blessed because there's a whole lot of
people in our industry who had to stop. And I'm
one of the people that needed to stop. It worked
better for me right away. And because of those people

(29:06):
in those rooms, in those meetings, there are professional partiers,
so their stories are better, they're funnier, they're you know,
we all help each other, so it's not something you
do alone. But it's really the community. I know anywhere
in the world when I have issues, I can go
to any meeting, either virtually or in any town. I've

(29:26):
been in meetings in Russia and Australia with like pirates
down by the docks, you know, guys that look like
Popeye with no teeth, with one hundred and fifty tattoos,
you know, like, and you hear those stories about how
they stay sober. You know, it's kind of a cool fellowship.
So it was. It was an unexpected, non cult kind
of a thing I thought. I thought it was going
to be a bunch of moonies talking about Jesus all

(29:48):
the time.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
So it's not. I always wondered about that because there
been a few times where I thought that I too
would have to sort of flirt with circles of meetings
and whatnot. And then I always taught myself out of it,
because you know, I felt like post social media age,

(30:10):
like there's no such thing as being anonymous. But there
was never there was never any trepidation of like, you know,
oh my god, it's fucking violent rate sitting here in
our circle with you know, that sort of thing.

Speaker 3 (30:23):
Or I was really nervous about it, which is why
in my case and a lot of my other friends,
there was a musicians meeting. You know, I know there's
lawyers ones, there's doctors ones, because doctors are afraid they're
going to run into their patients, right, you know what
I'm saying. That's my mom And it didn't go well.
You know now, I know why. You know, in the laws,

(30:46):
I never thought about it. I mean, imagine going to
an AA meeting and senior the judge that sent you
your other away, you know what I mean. So I
could dig why people go to a community industry in
our industry. So I've been doing a zoom meeting with
people that are in the industry, and people are really

(31:07):
respectful and we all need the same thing. So the
musicians meeting really gave me the confidence in the anonymity
and took the pressure off. But then I just wear
a hat and I don't even People don't know it's
me when I go on the road. If I go
to a meeting, you know, they just don't. They're only
interested in your first name and your story. So but

(31:27):
you know, if I've walked down Fifth Avenue with Whoopy Goldberg,
I don't think she could ever disguise herself. So, you know,
Ques Love, you might have a hard time being anonymous,
but I think if you just pick and you get
used to it, it's after about the second meeting, you
don't even think about it.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
Okay, No, No, I've gotten away with many a non
crime crime in terms of his hat game. Sarcastic, I'm surious.

Speaker 3 (31:59):
Yeah, it's all bad hats, and for me, it's covering
up this little skunk streak. I want the only real
color I have on my head. But the and if
I don't wear I make up.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
Man.

Speaker 3 (32:14):
People do not get it. But when I check in
my luggage outdoors on the cat and the curb at
the airport, guy's going give them something to talk about.
The porters always skycaps, always know it's me. Now we
just check in, check in with a you know, kiosk.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
But can you tell me do you remember the first
record that you ever purchased?

Speaker 3 (32:39):
Yeah, it was Odetta Wow Getta. It was like I
didn't have a lot of money, but I spent my
allowance on a record store where we could go into
Wallack's Music City and put the headphones on, and I
went to summer camp while my dad was on tour
doing Broadway shows in regional theaters and summer stock.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
John Reid, we should also mention that your father's the
legend Daria John Raye, theater actor.

Speaker 3 (33:02):
And Broadway music leading man. Yeah, from Carousel and Pajama
Game and Oklahoma. So he made his living touring three
months every summer. And their friends had a Quaker friends
had a camp with all counselors from all around the
world and un kids. You know, just every every stripe,
every possible permutation of religion and color and background, and

(33:26):
we all went to this camp, and our counselors were
mad for folk music, so that's how I got way
into it, and I idolized my counselor, and she turned
me onto Odetta and Joan Baez, and I went home
and begged for a guitar for Christmas and just sat
there and taught myself to play till my little fingers
were bleeding. And that was that Odetta record. She continued

(33:47):
to be an inspiration to me, but that was I
never heard a voice like that in my life.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
So you were self taught or did you have any
lessons at all?

Speaker 3 (33:55):
I had piano lessons for five years, but the teacher
didn't want to let me learn. Back then, they didn't
let you learn pop music, so I switched. I had
gotten pretty good on the guitar, taught myself to fingerpick,
but I never had any lessons, so I do positions
of the chords and the slide guitar. I play on
the wrong finger because I taught myself entirely in my
room without anybody showing me, and I played by ears.

(34:18):
So by the time I was around other guitar players
and saw that you'd play e in this position, and
you're supposed to use your fingers for this for that
chord too late. I already was doing it.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
So you know, every time I've heard you speak about
music either, you know, like you'll do these shows where
you'll tell stories and whatnot, Like I always felt like
you were a serious musician and a serious advocate for
like all these blues grates that you know that aren't

(34:50):
really championed by like the mainstream press and whatnot. But
I always wanted to know, because I mean, you're coming,
you're coming of age when the bridg this invasion starting
and all these things, like in your teen years, like
you just didn't listen to like the Archies, Yummy Yummy yummy,
or just like just like pop music.

Speaker 3 (35:14):
You know, LA was all that. When I was in
junior high school, it was a super fad for the
beach boys, and surfing came in, so all the guys
had their hair like Dennis Wilson and bleached to blonde,
and you know, it just was too plastic instead of
At the time, I wanted to be a beatnik and
a jazzer, and I was. I was a member of

(35:37):
Core and Snick and you know, because we were Quaker
I just couldn't wait to get old enough to go
to Dantas Village and yeah, come back, and I was
like reading sing Out magazine and I just wanted I
went to camping that yeah, in the East Coast with
all these liberal, lefty international counselors and campers, and I

(36:00):
and La just seemed really plastic. So I loved when
people have asked me, how did you get into R
and B and blues? And I said, you know, early on,
I knew the difference between Bill Haley and Little Richard
and Pat Boone. And you know, Fats Domino was like
a god to me. You know, Chuck Barry, come on,

(36:21):
Chuck Berry was like the most gorgeous guy I'd ever seen,
and he played the hell out of the guitar. His
grooves were hilacious. So Fats. You know, Lloyd Price, oh
my god, I mean. And then somebody gave me when
I was twelve, a guy who sold Channel Master TV
Antennas gave rca own the channel Master and he said, hey,

(36:42):
Bonnie likes music, and he gave me a box of
twelve Ray Charles albums that I you know, at that age,
at twelve, I would have never been able to afford
or even knowing about. So I got Genius plus soul
equals jazz. I got Ray Charles and Betty Carter, the
album dedicated dedicated to you, you know, all the yeah
named after the cities. I mean, you talk about learning

(37:03):
how to sing? That was between listening to gospel on
Sunday on the radio and all of the R and
B records that I just mentioned, you know, Major Lance,
and then Motown came in. That was it. I was
just the Motown until Loretha Franklin and Stacks and Sam
and Dave. Total soul music hound. But I didn't hear
about electric blues until the Rolling Stones played Little Red

(37:27):
Rooster and Holland Wolf and Muddy Waters, and then I
got I think, like a lot of kids in the
mid sixties, we got turned onto our own musical heritage
by the Brits. So I was just a total blues hound.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
Okay, I was going to stay that. I worked with
Marshall Chess a few times, you know, in the early Arts,
and he was telling me stories about trying to convince
his dad and a lot of the older blues artists
on that label to sort of loosen up and get
with the times of like Black Psychedelic Rocket and all

(38:01):
these things, Like especially with the Muddy Waters record. What
was the wait, Steve, didn't you engineer that project? But
uh we did, like it was Electric Mud, Yeah, the
Electric Mond stuff. So when I mean I didn't, I
didn't engineer the original Electric.

Speaker 3 (38:21):
Mud I'm not, no, no, but yeah, that was one
of the greatest fold out album cover pictures of all time.
That in Isaac Cayes, the fold out picture that turned
into a poster. I had him in my house, Isaac
and Muddy like hello, really only no, no, I was out.

(38:42):
I was out the house by then, Okay, okay, yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
So what I wanted to know was okay, so as
a true fan of the blues, like I know that
older blues fans, some of them scoffed that, like yo yourself,
like similar to to Dylan getting some pushback from going Electric,
that there were some authentic blues fans that felt like,

(39:06):
you know, like, now these guys are trying to sell
out to get a younger, to get the hippies, and
you know, to get a wider audience and all those things.
But did those particular Now from my standpoint, I loved
Electric Mud, Like half the first Cipercillo album is from
you know, the Electric Mud record and what's the other title,

(39:29):
what's his name? Hates? Well, no, no, there the titles.
Really he hates this album. It was like a sarcastic
album title, like Muddy Waters hates his second album more.

Speaker 3 (39:42):
Oh god, I don't know. I just didn't. I didn't
relate to those records, so.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
Right, no, no, no, But I meant like for you to
hear at least. I mean, never think that you released
in your early teens when that came out, did you. Well?

Speaker 3 (39:57):
I was in the middle teens, and I didn't dig it.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
You know.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
I love those early Muddy Waters records, I mean as
some of the greatest playing of any band ever, Hallan Wolf,
Muddy Waters, Johnny Hooker's original records, Oh geez, Electric Mind. Yeah,
I'm not a big psychedelic I didn't like I got
the playing on some I didn't. I haven't heard Electric
Mond in a long time. I did buy it, but

(40:20):
I haven't heard it in a long time. But I
did have that the album in the robes, I mean,
and his hair come on it was and then I
had no idea I'd be like, really good friends with
Muddy all those years later, so you know, we we
I wanted to have an open mind about the sessions
that they did with you know, English guys, and I

(40:41):
just didn't think it sounded as good as the originals.

Speaker 1 (40:44):
I was.

Speaker 3 (40:46):
I was prejudiced the other way, you know, as.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
Or because even now with hip hop, like there's a
lot of our greats that you don't have decisions to make,
like should they readjust their like For example, Nas is
a great example of that. Like right now, Nas is
about to see probably some of his best success sort

(41:13):
of getting a little younger with who's producing this record
hit boy with hip Boy, which of course, you know,
his older fans are like, you know the album that
Na's made twenty five years ago is like, you know,
that's their north star. And you know, I'm happy for success.
I'm happy for success now, but you know, but I

(41:34):
also feel like maybe that's us also secretly just saying
that we wish that time would stand still. That's exactly
what it is. You can never compete with nobody's nostalge.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
Bro like you know ears, don't you know if your
ears don't dig something. I mean, everybody's got the right
to do whatever they do in their musical path, and
nobody wants to get stuck or boor And people have
the right to go more commercial if that if they're
sick of being a obscure, it's you know, but you
got to really dig it. You got to love what
you're the combination of your new collaboration and being put

(42:08):
through the new producers. You gotta love it and not
do it for commercial reasons, in my opinion, is because you're.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
Not guarantegued to have that commercial success.

Speaker 3 (42:16):
Yeah, and if your fans don't dig it, you know,
that's you know, it's their choice to stick with the
older stuff, you know, but.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
Be rate of it, right, Like that's what you were
talking about earlier about what's special about your music in
a way is because when and that's what Amir was saying,
when you can stay true to yourself and still reach
these levels of success and you know, crossover, but you're
not changing who you are.

Speaker 3 (42:39):
Well, that was a lot of things happened at that
particular time where my my guild, you know, the Recording
Academy gave me some props at a time when the
public at largic I've never been nominated for a People's
Choice or American Musical ord or any of that kind
of stuff. So it was really five thousand people were
voting for Grammys, and I think Don and Tom Petty

(43:01):
probably canceled each other out and I just kind of
eked by by a few, you know, got me out
a year. I mean it sold a million before.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
You're the people's champ.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
No, I like being a cult artist. And after that
initial first two albums with Nick of Time and look
at the draw, and then all of the regime that
promoted me got fired at Capital and I had eight
presidents in the fifteen years that I was on that label.
I don't even think I was on there that long.
And every time you make a relationship with radio and

(43:31):
they come to your shows after the show on tour,
and you have these relationships with the promotion people, and
then they fire everybody and bring in new people that
have no relationships. My third album that should have done
just as well, would Love Sneaking Up on You on it,
you know, went from seven million records to two million
because there was nobody coming to the shows. It was

(43:52):
no relationship. I didn't go to the radio stations. They
didn't have any free tickets for me to say low
to them afterwards, and you know, it just petered out.
And then frankly, the agism and the music business. You know,
at forty five, almost every woman especially gets booted off,
even VH one, so you become the legacy artist. But
you know, I'm happy selling three thousand seats at the

(44:13):
Beacon Theater two nights at the Beacon. That's a hell
of a crowd, you know.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
For me.

Speaker 3 (44:19):
So I'm grateful to have no pressure. I never wanted
the pressure of having to follow up another record with
it be compared to how successful this one was. I
just want to artistically keep getting good reviews and having
people go, she did it again. There she goes, she
did it again. But you know, like everybody else, I
have my favorite albums of my favorite artists. And while

(44:42):
I'm on that, I just have to say this show
has had some of the most incredible conversations with people
that I love and goes so deep. The one with
Bruce Hornsby just slayed me. Oh man, Oh wow, that's
my jam. If I can have one, If I can
only have one artist on a desert island for the
rest of all life, it would be Bruce Hornsby, Why

(45:03):
Bruce does just listen to the introduction of I Can't
Make You Love Me? Or the end of Innocence Mandolin Rain.
Oh my god, Oh my god, that's the one for me.
Shaka and you guys talked about that on the show.

(45:24):
I learned a whole lot on the show was great.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
Wow, thank you. I'm glad.

Speaker 3 (45:33):
You talk about basketball. There was a lot of basketball
in that show too.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
Yeah, right, thank you a basketball player.

Speaker 4 (45:40):
I feel like we should end this interview right now.
That's a pretty good exactly.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
So can you tell me what led to your signing
to Warner Brothers in seventy one? In the beginning, yeah,
what the process was?

Speaker 3 (46:00):
Well, because I wasn't expecting to do this for a living,
and I just happened to be dating the Dick Waterman
who managed Son House and Mississippi, Fred McDowell, and had
helped rediscover Son the father of Delta Blues, and brought
him out and put a lot of the blues artists
under one agency so that these club owners couldn't say, Hey,

(46:22):
we've already had our older black guy this month, why
should we pay you guy eight hundred bucks? And we
got him for five hundred you know, excuse me. So
he consolidated him in kind of a guild of badass
and Ray kept their prices up and didn't didn't get
them these young blues fans that were managing these guys,
was running them ragged. They were like in their sixties

(46:43):
and making him play three shows a night and taking
half their money. And anyway, it's a sordid story, but
Dick Waterman was really instrumental in bringing Buddy Guy and
Junior Wells out of Chicago. Big Barthur crued up. He
got the royalty, finally got royalty reform in Elvis Presley. Finally,
after after Arthur died, they settled the estate with Elvis

(47:05):
Presley and they finally got some money for That's all right, mama,
I mean just the man was so I had I
had access to opening the shows for my heroes. I didn't.
I wasn't threatening. I was cheap. I played my own guitar,
you know, I carried my own guitar. I didn't need
a band, and I got my foot in the door
just opening for my heroes. And somebody, Dick's lawyer, Nat Weiss, well,

(47:32):
it was the lawyer that was handling. He was Brian
Epstein's partner in the States, and he George Harrison wanted
Buddy Guy on Apple and Eric Clapton wanted him on
rso so they were they they brought Dick and I
went to the meeting when when and Nat wise said no,
I think you should sign with Atlantic. And meanwhile we

(47:53):
became friends, and I was playing the gas Light opening
for Fred McDowell and Nat came down and he went, oh, man,
you got you got something there. And so he called
all these record labels and had them send scouts down.
And the other scouts saw the other scout and they went,
what did this guy know? You know? So he drummed
up this interest in me. But I always knew I

(48:15):
wanted to go with Warners because they had Ry Cooter
and Randy Newman and James Taylor. And I went out
to La on Capitol's Dime and played at the Troubadour
and did a showcase. But in the afternoon I snuck
over to Warner Brothers and said, I want to come
on your label. So I asked, I asked for a
hundred I asked for one hundred percent total artistic control.

(48:38):
I said, don't give me. I'll just give me the budget.
I'll make the record, no advance. If I save anything
after making the record, I'll buy myself a new Volvo
or something. And I said, just get don't tell me
when to play record with, who to work, what to sing,
and how to look. And I work my ass off
for you. And they went for it at twenty one.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
So wait a minute, you're saying that you were out
there to to talk to Capital.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
They paid for the trip.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
Yeah, right, and instead you Wow.

Speaker 3 (49:12):
Well, I mean I was open. I was open to it,
but in my heart if I could get Warner Brothers interested,
Randy Newman and Right Cooter were like, you know, Apollo
and Zeus to me, you know, that was just it
and the and Warner Brothers that said, we make our
money from Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. We don't care
if you're not a hit record. You can do whatever

(49:33):
you want. Wow, you know, little they had Little movie,
you know they gave we believe in you. You're not
a singles artist. We have the grateful debt. We'll make
our money from these other guys. So I thought that
was so righteous.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
Who was the CEO of a Warner at that.

Speaker 3 (49:47):
Time, well, Mo Austin and Joe Smith were the Raprise
and Warner Brothers to pairs in the same funky old
building that no longer exis, So they were a family
kind of a joint, you know.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
It was like, so, yeah, can you also this is
what I always wanted to know. I don't know. I
think one trip to Japan, I think I've ran across
like a Warner Brothers e b K. Where not since
the days of Motown did I see this thing where

(50:24):
like all the Warner Brothers artists would travel together, Like
I think I was looking looking up like old Graham
Central Station footage, but it was like the Doobie Brothers,
Bonnie Ray Graham Central Station. It was like, was it
always like that where there was a Warner Brothers touring
season where they Well, I.

Speaker 3 (50:45):
Didn't get to go. I had so many I worked.
I was booked like six months in advance for the
ten months of the next year. And I made six
albums in seven years and stayed on the road to
hold my old twenties. I don't know how I did it.
But the Warner Brothers Music Show I didn't get to
go on. They went to Europe. I don't know. They
must well, you must have known if they went to
Japan together. But it was little feet mantros to doobies.

(51:08):
It was just like, yeah, and they had that thing
where Team A would play this city with this set
of equipment and then Team B would they'd leave the
sound system and then swap it and take the train
and go over. But I didn't I never heard of
another label doing that. There was such a hip idea.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
Okay, so they were really they were really like a
family based.

Speaker 3 (51:31):
Absolutely, And then it was way before Warners was at
the end of the seventies, Warners, Electra and Atlantic formed.
We had a big, shiant corporate building and you know,
Thriller and Rumors sold twelve million copies and Thriller was huge,
and Miami sound Miami Vice soundtrack records just went were

(51:54):
billions sellings. So then when I renegotiated my deal when
I was up for resign, Walter Yettnikov tried to get
me to come over to CBS. When he turned James Taylor,
who had been languishing it Warner's, they made me. He
was a big hit because and he said, I'll do
for you what I did for James Taylor and Warners
was so pissed they matched his offer and then they

(52:17):
penalized me for it because it wasn't bringing in the
big bucks. You know, I was going to say, it
was all about it was all about money after that,
you know, I.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
Was going to say, during that initial period, when you know,
you had the you had the buzz, you had the
critical claim. Shit, you even got the cover of Rolling
Stone for you, did you were you personally like? Because
oftentimes would like I have the same situation. Well not

(52:48):
even I like both Fonte and I kind of came
from situations where like, we have massive critical claims with
our product, and oftentimes I think people would just come
up to me like, yeah, but you guys don't care
about that, because you guys are real artists. You don't
need to grow a real artist.

Speaker 3 (53:07):
No, I would have liked to. I would have liked
to given my band a raise, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (53:12):
Right? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (53:13):
And run Away my version of Del Shannon's Runaway, kind
of like Love and Happiness. I did this kind of
al green thing and had Michael, and you know, I
thought it was a hip idea. It started one of
many covers that I like to rearrange, and they in it,
and it got up to number twenty, and then they
just didn't put the damn records in the stores. You know,
I wasn't a priority, and so that pissed me off.

(53:35):
You know, it pissed me off that I was doing
harder work than my record company wasn't following through all
they needed to do. If I sold three thousand seats,
there should be at least three thousand records in that
town that people could go by after they see the show. So,
you know, everybody bitches about being miss not promoted, but
you know, I thought they didn't do as great a

(53:56):
job as what I was hoping. But I agree that
my music isn't that commercial and I don't look like
Stevie Necks, you know what I mean. I mean, I
didn't have that. I didn't have that thang that makes
you go from a respected artist to you know, you know,
like my other female compatriots.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
I was sitting here trying to think who who were
buying these peers at the time, because you were talking
about being on tours as you were twenty something. I
heard all these male names and I'm like, well.

Speaker 3 (54:26):
Linda Ronstadt, Emmy Lou Harris, Phoebe Snow. You know, yeah,
we were all we were all on tour all together.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
I was.

Speaker 2 (54:37):
Okay, good, That's what I want to ask you. Did
you get to tour with these ladies.

Speaker 3 (54:41):
No, we just went to each other's show because we
had our own band and crew to pay for so
we There wasn't until the Lilith Fair that we that
they finally had women on the same bill.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
That didn't happen to Lilith Fair.

Speaker 3 (54:53):
But I mean I could have I could have done
another woman, but it was made made for a better
show if you had a little bit of a dis
you know. Well, at first I was playing with Muddy,
you know, I had Mos Allison, and I had Sippy
Open and Ruth Brown and Charles Brown. So I had
I had some debts to pay and showcase people that,
you know, I wanted to showcase. But I had a
lot of singer songwriters that that wrote the songs that

(55:15):
I put on my records, and I owed it to
them to give them as I build up my following.
I love to be able to showcase Chris Smith.

Speaker 2 (55:22):
But the piece that you that was interesting that you
said was since you toured, when you were twenty one.
I was just curious because you were one of the
only females on tour at that time, and you touring
with you.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
Oh no, Emmy, Lou and Linda and Maria. We know
there was lots of women touring and I'm sure country
I don't follow country music much, but I think they
were all touring, but not with you. No, no, wed Wow.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
So that's what I was saying, Like back in the day,
it seemed like you were on tour. You know, it
was a lot of fellas, a lot of folks that
you looked up to. But that must have been an
experience in itself and lessons that you learned in that way.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
Oh yeah, because you know, if you're if you're the
only girl in the entourage, you look pretty good at
two in the morning. I'm getting no, but I mean,
I'm not, I'm not. I'm just saying that sometimes you
date within the which which you have to be careful
because you're still on that bus together for another ten

(56:14):
months if it doesn't work out, awkward.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
You know, I'm one of those people that can sort
of attest to you know, I've been really careful on
meeting my heroes. Some of them have been magical. Some
of them have been not magical. Okay, yeah somewhere assholes.

(56:40):
I know that because you're such a champion for like
all these authentic blues artists, of them all, like who
of that legendary circle that you grew up listening to
from your childhood did you really bond with personally in

(57:03):
your first time not post Nick of Time John Lee
Hooker era, but like in your initial.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
Era and initially Mississippi. Fred mcdoll and I got to
be very very close. He's one of my favorite of
the Delta blues men and one of the only ones
that was alive that I had access to, and we
just clicked as I later in the nineties when I
got to know him better and played a lot of
shows together and did a duet, Johnley Hooker and I
became really close, as did Ruth Brown and Charles Brown

(57:31):
and I in the middle of the nineties, we all
toured a lot together, but early on Fred mcdollan and
Sippy Wallace and I toured together. Sippy came out of
retirement in nineteen seventy two at the Annarbor Blues and
Jazz Festival. I didn't even know she was alive. I
cut three of her songs before I found out, looking
to where to send the checks, and she came out

(57:53):
on stage and was only going to do a gospel song,
but she's she heard us rehearsing Women Be Wise her
song in the trailer, and she said, oh, maybe I'll
just had a soprano player come right up to her
ear and she probably had sung it in thirty years
and she said, well, I'll just do that one song,
and then people went ape shit. And then she toured

(58:15):
for the next fifteen years, including us together. And there's
a classic David Letterman clip with Sippy Wallace and I
singing Women Be Wise with Doctor John on the keyboards
that you got to check out. It's like nineteen eighty
one maybe or seventy nine, okay, but anyway, Mississippi from McDowall.
He passed away when I was twenty one, like only

(58:38):
a couple of a couple of years after I started
being close friends with him and we toured together. It
was a heartbreaking. I ended up losing a lot of
the older semi grandparent figures in my life that I
got close to. And you know, I was very close
to Muddy Waters and he passed away. And thank goodness
for John Lee and Ruth Brown and Charles Brown who

(58:59):
I got to celebrate and have deep relationships with so
my heroes.

Speaker 2 (59:05):
You know, I got to be friends with There's a
lot of history that you know.

Speaker 1 (59:08):
Got Lee.

Speaker 7 (59:09):
Yeah, I was gonna ask your history and your relationship
with another get tar god, Stevie Rayvaughn.

Speaker 3 (59:16):
Oh my god, I'm gonna have to put lipsic on
for that.

Speaker 7 (59:21):
Get your Would you like to know what was your
relationship like working with him? What was your guys friendship like?

Speaker 3 (59:28):
We were mutual fans of each other. We got to
be friends in Austin, Texas when I would come through
and play, you know, one of my favorite hangouts and
places to play where the music in New Orleans and
Minneapolis and Austin, the black and white music scene was
not so segregated. It was really a lot of interplay,

(59:48):
not just in blues, but in all kinds of music.

Speaker 2 (59:51):
You know.

Speaker 3 (59:51):
That's one of the reasons when I met Prince and
he said, oh, I've always dug your music, you know,
And I said, well, how did you hear about that?
And you know, he said, what, you know, how did
you anyway, It's one of those things where the fabulous
Thunderbirds and I did a lot of touring together. But
I first met them in Texas with the at Anton's
Legendary Blues Club, and the word went out about Stevie

(01:00:12):
Ray Vaughan, about the Vaughn Brothers, and his first album
came out, and you know, if you're a blues guitarist
and a fan, the word of Stevie Ray got blasted
out into the stratosphere when he played guitar and Let's
Dance by David Bowie. I mean, that's one of the
baddest ass solos are performances. And then I met him,

(01:00:34):
I saw him play. We toured together, we were party mates,
and we were sober mates. You know, he got sober
a few months before I did. Not long after our
tour together, by the way, and I saw him come.
He came out on stage and played the night he
came out of rehab, and he just he was worried

(01:00:55):
that he wasn't going to have the same edge, and
he played. He burned a hole in the sun that night.
It was incredible, as Mom was sitting right there on
the side, just going and I said, Okay, that's it.
That's all bets are off. This guy's on a comet.
You know, the greatest guitar player in my lifetime that
I've ever heard.

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
When you're interacting with these with these blues grates, is
it dismaying to them? Number one? Is it dismaying to
them that they're not receiving more support from a black

(01:01:34):
or fan base? I can. I can. That's sort of
parallel to my situation, where like there was definitely a
period where it's just like, you know, the first seven
years of my career, I was just like, wait, I
guess the music that we're doing really isn't attracting the
fan base that looks like I do. And so is

(01:01:56):
it mind blowing to them that this, like this white
woman from from California is doing more of the knowledge
than you know then other black people.

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
But we talk about it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
But my other thing is, and I really wish and
I guess I have to also do the work because
I'll say that the blues is probably the one area
of music that I've really really haven't you know, sunk
my teeth into what is what is the criteria in

(01:02:33):
your mind for what makes a great blues man? Blues woman,
a blues player, like are you listening for tone? Are
you listening for dexterity?

Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
Like it just yeah, you know, it's it's that it's
so ineffable. It's really hard to explain because when people
say to you, you know, I want to send you
on some songs, what are you looking for? I'm going well,
And then people send me identical copies of something to
talk about or I can't make you love me, and
I go, you know, I already did that. I don't know.
I gotta find something new. And what makes me go

(01:03:08):
crazy for the people like liking Lightning Hopkins or Johnley
Hooker's Crawling King Snake Blues or Mississippi Fred McDowell, it's
the soul and the intensity of what is revealed in
their vocal and their body language and their marriage. If
they're a guitar player or a piano player. The it's

(01:03:29):
one thing, you know, Memphis Slim was just you can't
separate his body movements from his voice from his piano
plan Fred McDowell, the same thing Johnley Hooker, Oh my god,
you know it's the darkest haunting. I don't want to
say it's the blues is only about the hurtful things
or the pain that's so deep, because it's.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
So that like one of the reasons black people might
not be just running to it is because we've been
going through it and we made it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
I was going to say that it's too much of
a minder for me personally, but.

Speaker 3 (01:04:06):
Yeah, but I mean it's it's the way that it
came up when and when I started out was what
right do you have to sing the blues? You're a
white girl from California, daughter of a Broadway singer. For
God's sake, how come you?

Speaker 1 (01:04:20):
You know?

Speaker 3 (01:04:20):
I said, you know, I didn't even think about it.
I just liked the music and I needed to teach
myself how to play it to entertain myself in my room.
I didn't ask to this. I didn't say I was great.
I didn't say I had the right to do this.
If you don't like the way I sing it, don't
come to my gig, you know. But I'm not trying
to be black. I'm not trying to usurp income. If anything,
I was, I was made to be on the earth

(01:04:43):
to showcase why artists of that generation never got royalties
and why they rhythm and blues pioneers that line our
record shelves never saw a penny because they're still in
these oppressive, exploitive record contracts that they I didn't know
any better, didn't have access to legal fee, lawyers advices.

(01:05:04):
They just were not cutting people in more than two
percent of royalties, and out of that they had to
pay for everything. So, you know, in the early days
when people would say, I would go up and ask
Sippy and Fred and Muddy like, how do you feel
when they look out there and see all those white people?
And he goes, you know, I wasn't expecting to be

(01:05:25):
invited to go to England or to go to invite
it to the Newport Folk Festival. I didn't expect for
CBS to offer me a record deal, you know, for
Sunhouse and all this. A lot of these people were
retired for twenty five years and they were rediscovered by
young white blues fans and they they were delighted. He said,
I love playing these colleges. All these girls like laying

(01:05:46):
on my feet in the hotel room afterwards when I'm
playing the blues all night long, and these guys are
they're you know, treated me like I'm the second coming,
you know, he said, you know what it's like to
be ignored for all those years and not get to play,
and then be celebrated and appreciated. He said, I don't
care what color they are. I'm just glad they dig it,
you know. But Muddy didn't have a problem with Stevie

(01:06:10):
Ray or Liel George or Mike Bloomfield or me or anybody.
If if somebody could play, they that's the thing. If
you could sing and play and impress them, they were in.

Speaker 2 (01:06:19):
You were in that club, you better play.

Speaker 1 (01:06:28):
So without without me being really controversial with this next question, good,
good problem here you go, No, no, no, no, because
this is I think this is my one chance to
ask this question. Okay, so back in nineteen ninety ninety one,
when you know, my mind is getting more open to

(01:06:48):
all types of music or whatever. So a guy like
me will buy a copy of Physical Graffiti buys Zeppelin,
and you know, and I think when you're a teenager,
like between twelve and twenty two, your mind is just

(01:07:11):
open to everything, especially if your music fan. Like if
you look at my record collection from twelve to twenty two,
it'd be somewhere between the Ohio players and Debbie Gibson
and no, but just like Lightning Hopkins, like I was
just open to everything. So my oh yes, exactly. So

(01:07:33):
my whole thing is, you know, I I can't divorce
myself from really being in love with like Jimmy Page's
guitar work on the Zeppelin records. And it's only when
I got older when I started like going back and
reading old reviews, like of course we're revisioning his history,
like Rolling Stone will say, you know, Rolling Stones will

(01:07:55):
do complete issues dedicated to Zeppelin, but back then, just
how much of a like this is fraud? Like in
the same way where hip hop heads might call out
an MC who isn't really of the ilk of the
culture that you know got more success and whatnot, you know,

(01:08:17):
got so. But the thing is is that even now
when I still listen to Zeppelin, like I can't and
there's still older cats are just like, man, fuck that shit,
that's fake blues like listening to the real shit. But
it's like, am I wrong in thinking that? And I'm

(01:08:38):
using like in My Time of Dying as an example
where they're doing like Bottleneck Blue Slides and all those things. Yeah,
like is where critics just hard and guarding the gate
or was that a problem with a lot of the
English blues guys. And I'm talking about Clapton, I'm talking

(01:08:58):
about age, Like, what are your feelings on those like on?

Speaker 3 (01:09:05):
You know, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton and Keith Richards
are just I mean, when people fall in love with
music and they adopt a style that's not comes from
where they grew up. Somehow, the whole culture got the
blues somewhere in the mid sixties, we all got discovered
and everybody was just nuts for it. And so it's

(01:09:28):
a question of what you do with that appropriate you know,
it could be appropriation or it could be just absolute passion.
But I think it's a good idea to try to
give it back and share the stage and pay props
to the people that originated the music. In your interviews
and in your songwriting credits, you don't take credit for

(01:09:49):
a song that Willie Dixon wrote only settled thirty years later.
So you know, there's just basic shit like don't steal
people's stuff. You know, I'm not saying I'm not saying
they did. I'm just saying I'm okay. So, but I'm
just saying how did I feel about the do I did?
I like the way they.

Speaker 1 (01:10:07):
Played, like his musicianship, like and when you're.

Speaker 3 (01:10:11):
Jimmy Page is unbelievable, unbelievable. Yeah, yeah, no, and Eric
clapped in unbelievable Stevie way, Jimmy Hendrix. You know I didn't.
I didn't look at it as colors. I didn't look
at his gender. I just went this guy's a badass,
you know that kind of thing. So, but in terms
of the debt that white artists, oh black artists, these

(01:10:33):
music they are making money from, you better start sharing.
You take a knee financially as well.

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
Right, But you created that always, Yeah, I just always
wanted to know, like, were they authentic in their presentation?
In addition to I think.

Speaker 3 (01:10:51):
They I think they built on they built something completely different,
you know, like when the Stones do you Gotta Move?
I mean they're not doing it exactly. They can't sound
exactly like some older guy. But you just do the interpretation.
And if you don't like hearing, you know, it's just
up to the listener whether they think it's authentic, if

(01:11:13):
it moves you or not, if they mean it. I
think that's got it's got a valid, a valid reason
to to exist. And you know, brilliance is brilliance no
matter what genre comes stems out of you know, So
I may not be I may not be answering that
breat no.

Speaker 1 (01:11:30):
No, no, I get it. I got to get it.
So okay, as many people know what the show, I
bleed Purple. And you know, one of the very first
times that I've heard about you in my teen years
was when Prince was going to sign you to Paisley Park.

(01:11:50):
And I've heard those demos, I've heard I need a man.
I've heard at least four or five of the songs
he was going to submit to you. Can you talk
about that? What was what was that whole period like
when you were about to sign the Paisley Park.

Speaker 2 (01:12:05):
Well, it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:07):
It never got that far. I mean I had been
dropped by Warners right when I was getting ready to
go on tour with Stevie Ray Vaughan, and you know,
we had six months of band and crew work and
I had to pull out because without any promotion or
any album to sell, we just weren't going to be
able to promoter didn't want to take an act that
didn't have support from a record company. So he pulled
the rug out of me and twenty five people, and

(01:12:29):
I had to go on tour just as a duo
with a bass player and try to make a living
and pay my bills. But everybody else was out of work,
and we were normally touring all the time. We didn't
sell records. We just made our living touring. So somewhere
in a couple of years in Prince called and said, man,
you got a raw deal. Why don't you come on
over to Paisley Park and warners will have to take

(01:12:52):
a little lesson on how to treat somebody. So we
talked about it. I said, I don't want to go
do a whole prints record, and I know you don't
want to come over in my wheelhouse. So if we
can really meet in the middle and come up with
something that's equally mine in yours, that would be great.
And you know, we had some couple of wonderful evenings

(01:13:14):
together playing music and watching slicestone and staple singers and
screens that were the size of the wall, you know,
And I got to go in his closet and see
his clothes and see just you know, it was really
fun to get to know each other and we had
a lot of music that we loved in common, and
so I had a solo acoustic, a duo gig and

(01:13:35):
Colorado playing ballrooms and ski resorts, which I could make
good money because I didn't have to pay for the band,
so my fans got to see me up close and
do acoustic versions of my songs. So I was doing
really well. But I went on a ski. It took
a ski lesson and fell on the skis and broke
my landed on my thumb with my weight of my body,

(01:13:56):
and I pulled my thumb off ligament and I could play.
So I called Prince and said we got a postpone it.
But you know what I did. It turned out to
be a blessing in disguise. And because I was heavy
and I wanted to I said, Man, if this works out,
I got to make a video with this guy. And
I'm like thirty forty pounds overweight, and I'm going to
take this opportunity while I got this cast on to

(01:14:20):
go to get to the musicians meeting and hang out
with my old buddies that I used to party with,
but just be sober with them and I'll, you know,
ride my bike and lose some weight and by the
time I see Prince, I'll be ready to be filmed,
or at least more ready. So that was a blessing.
And then I went to Minneapolis and he had already
cut the songs and you know, did all the tracks

(01:14:41):
but in the wrong key, so they weren't in my key,
and there wasn't any place for me to add any
musical ideas except just to play some slide on a
couple of things right. But there was one of the
sets of lyrics with something I would never You know, honey,
you can mess around all over town, but we're still
cool because there's something I like about be in your fool,

(01:15:06):
But you know, I need a a n real man.
I mean, it was funky ass Minia. I mean, you know,
he's just We could have done some really cool stuff together.
And he went off on tour in the summer. We
made plans. I canceled my tour with my band and
went to called my brother in Minneapolis. I said I'm
on my way, and he said for what. Prince extended

(01:15:28):
his tour and never called me. So I put my
guys out of work to make the record with him,
and he never called me. And just stayed over in Europe.
So it was not it was not a happy ending,
but still great artists, great artist did a lot of
wonderful things for women guitar players.

Speaker 4 (01:15:48):
Honnie, when did you pick up the slide? When did
that become a thing in your arsenal? I have a theory.
You were talking about matching guitars with voices. I feel
like for some in some way the side stunk your voice.

Speaker 3 (01:16:00):
Yeah, that's thank you. That's how I feel about it.
And I like the tone that I pick is because
it's how I hear. It picks up where I leave off.
You know, so I and Lowell George from Little Feet
is the one who gave me a compressor so I
could hang the note longer because I asked him, I said,
how are you holding that note? Because Fred mcdalla shouldn't

(01:16:22):
do that? And you know Ry Coooter and Lowell George
are the masters. And then now we got Derek Truck.
So just but anyway, I heard I heard slide guitar
when I was about fourteen, when I got some country
blues records and I taught myself to play. I tuned
to an open tuning and I soaked the label off
a chorus seat and cold bottle, and I put on

(01:16:43):
my middle finger and I just I played. I didn't
have any lessons, but I hadn't seen anybody do it,
but I imagined it was like my grandpa had a
lap steel that he'd played hymns on where he drew
the bar across the neck of the guitar. So I
just pretended that that was it and just listened to
that record and went quite and I taught myself to

(01:17:04):
play from those records and then just honed it down.

Speaker 1 (01:17:07):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:17:07):
Eventually I had to go to electric because a lot
of the keys of the blues that I like are
my voice is five keys up and if I put
the KPO halfway up the neck, I can't get the
octave without on a longer neck. So that's why I
went electric.

Speaker 1 (01:17:23):
You of course, Uh, well, I'm safer end of the
show because he hasn't done a show yet. But Steve
and I worked with our with our good friend Don
was could you talk about the relationship with Don and.

Speaker 3 (01:17:40):
Hal Willner blessed rest in Peace the Great?

Speaker 1 (01:17:43):
Yeah? Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:17:45):
He called Don up and said I would love to
have you and Bonnie rates saying baby mine from Dumbo
for this Disney tribute I'm doing, and he called me
and said the same thing. He said, I don't know. Meanwhile,
I'm like a complete was not was Hound, you know
that's right. That is my jam. Those guys, those lyrics

(01:18:06):
with that singer, those singers and the music. I went
nuts for them, and so on the session it went
so beautifully. It's one of my favorite tracks I've ever cut,
This beautiful Disney tribute Little One Close. Ah. We did
like a baby oh mine, you know right now?

Speaker 1 (01:18:36):
That did it too?

Speaker 3 (01:18:40):
Oh, thank you. I never thought Don would turn out.
He was a big fan of my early records, and
he couldn't believe that I was a fan. I could
like quote every Dad I'm in jail, you know, I
could quote all these was not was songs.

Speaker 4 (01:18:53):
So we were.

Speaker 3 (01:18:54):
It was a love affair, you know, and we just
he came to my acoustic show outside of l We
were playing this club called the Coach House, and I
think he came to that and he saw me just
playing my stuff with just in the guitar like I
did the first four years of my career before I
could afford a band, and he said, you know, let's
make and I said, would you want to do a

(01:19:15):
record together, and he said, yeah, but I want to
do a record where let's base it on if you
could sing the song on the guitar or the piano
and make me know that it's a Bonnie Ray song,
then forget that, forget the who's in the band, just
start with what you Let's pick the songs that work,
just by yourself. Even though we used a band, that's

(01:19:36):
how we made Nick of time. We didn't have a
big budget. And I suggested my drummer, Rookie Fetar and
you know Hutch Hutchinson, and we had benmont Tench, and
we had Mark Goldenberg and you know, we just had
a stellar group of players, including Randy Jacobs. But he
might have been unlucky the draw from what was not

(01:19:56):
was So I told him he didn't know about Ed Journey,
and I said, man, there's this engineer that does ry
Cooter and David Linley lreo X Records. We got to
see if he would do this, because you know he
did get Rhythm by Rykooter. That album is one of
my favorites. And so we met ed and the three
of us just hit it off and we went in

(01:20:17):
the studio together and we just we love each other.

Speaker 1 (01:20:22):
It showed up in the music.

Speaker 2 (01:20:23):
It show did I was just thinking that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:27):
In making that record for you, the temptation to go
to your sweet spot, which is the authentic blues, that
the that authentic raw sound. At any point did you
were you nervous about kind of And I'm not saying
cleaning it up as in, you know, compromise, but there's

(01:20:50):
definitely a noticeable sonic difference in that record and your
previous albums, So the like, what can you from hitting
your upper limit in.

Speaker 3 (01:21:03):
Terms of oh, I see what you're saying.

Speaker 1 (01:21:05):
What what like you know, like this is too clean?
Like this not bluesy enough.

Speaker 3 (01:21:09):
Well, I mean I don't do only blue songs, so
you know, I always have a there's a Jackson Brown
and Eric cat Love has No Pride and Angel from Montgomery.
I mean, there's there's a breadth of R and B
and rock and roll like n RBQ songs and you know,
fabulous Thunderbirds and Chuck Berry kind of thing, and then
there's funk tunes and there's a lot of the ballads

(01:21:32):
are very stripped down, you know, the ones that I
did on the Glow, and almost every record has some
kind of heartbreak song that's stripped down to just guitar,
piano and bass. And so for me that the way
we approached Nick of Time wasn't that different than some
of the other records that I've done. And it's just
song driven, you know, whatever the song needs. And in

(01:21:55):
terms of the sound of it, that's ed Cherney is
really know, he knows we want to really organic sound
and you get the right players and I don't know
if it works for you guys, but if you get
the right song and the right players in the room,
and you get an engineer that knows where to put
the mics and which mics to use on which instruments,
and you just let it happen.

Speaker 1 (01:22:16):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:22:16):
You don't rehearse, you don't open the oven door and
try to mine, you know, you just set the stage
and let it go.

Speaker 1 (01:22:23):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:22:23):
That's how That's how I'd been making records for since
the green Light album and later the you know, earlier
the Glow, I did a record with Peter Asher, who's
known to be, you know, a pretty slick producer. But
I just said I want to do everything live, so
anyway that I didn't. I mean the bluesy thing. The
only blues song on that record is the Road's My

(01:22:45):
middle Name. And I wanted to do that with the
fabulous Underbirds in Texas, so we went down there and
did that. But that Jerry Williams song, real man, man,
that's just that's right, and that's that's my I could
have done that song at any point in my career.
And similarly with thought Ain't Gonna Let You Break My
Heart Again? With Herbie. Oh, you know, we just got

(01:23:05):
really lucky with both those lucky the drawing nick of
time and you know, the subsequent records. We great songs,
great players, and I find the songs and bring them
and I and we had the terrific core band, So
I don't want to I gotta pay props. People don't
pay enough props to the band because that's what those
That's why that music is so special too.

Speaker 7 (01:23:28):
So how does your how did your life change like
to take us through, you know, from going just from
you know, all those years going from Warner and just
going through that journey to finally getting paid dirt?

Speaker 1 (01:23:38):
What does that mean?

Speaker 3 (01:23:39):
Right? Well, I got a lot less free time, because
when when you're a political activist that use your your
voice and your money and ability to fundraise. When I
didn't mean so much, I didn't get so many tribes
calling me for Native American justice benefits and planned. You know,
when I when I was a bigger deal, I could

(01:24:01):
when I go on I'd got invited on the Tonight Show,
and I got invited on Good Morning America, and I
could we had just formed the Rhythm and Blues Foundation
in nineteen eighty eight, and I could go on every
TV show and talk about how those artists that we
owe everything too never got paid, and let's make a
donation and do the benefit for you know, health, get

(01:24:22):
some health insurance for some of these icons that we
all love so much. And I make my living doing
the songs of so Anyway, the biggest difference was lifestyle.
You know, I could have some financial security, I could
move up to Northern California, I could pay my band better.
I could really raise money and attention for the causes
that I love. But I got really busy and in demand.

(01:24:45):
And that's sometimes I look back at being more care
free when I was less of a big deal, and
I wish sometimes I could go back to that that
easier time, but it's not. I don't spend a lot
of time looking back.

Speaker 1 (01:25:03):
At the highlight what was like the highest of highs
in terms of well, I mean, I would imagine that
being a critical favorite and a favorite of the industry,
that you pretty much met your peers, But just like,
was there someone that you finally got to work with

(01:25:24):
or at least become friends with that you're otherwise pre
nineteen eighty nine life couldn't imagine, you know, were you
Oh that's a good thing, buddies, or you know, I'm
playing like yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:25:37):
Yeah, no, I hear what you're saying. Well, I was
blessed with being respected by so many musicians that I
wanted to work with it. I really did. If you
look at my guest discography, you know, there's like a
lot of people who I wished I could have signed
with that I you know, Willie Nelson and all kinds
of blues artists and R and B artists. So I
did get to record with a lot of people already

(01:25:58):
be even before that, but afterwards making a record with
my dad and getting them a record deal on Angel
Records in the middle of the nineties and singing Hey
there with a forty two piece orchestra. That was some heavy,
beautiful stuff because I you know, here I am helping
Ruth Brown and Charles Brown, and I would say that
singing Merry Christmas Baby with Charles Brown and we got

(01:26:21):
to move to the outskirts of town with Ruth Brown
two of the great highlights of my life. To be
able to showcase and take on the road Ruth Brown
and Charles Brown. Put them in hotels they deserve to
stay in the whole time, give them a tour bus
that they couldn't even believe they were in. And at
that point in their life. For me to be able
to turn around and do something for some people that

(01:26:43):
mean so much to me, that was the high point
of that success. And singing with my dad and Ruth
and Charles and okay, John Lee, you can It's just
it was deep. It was deep and still deep. And Tuts,
Oh my god, the house.

Speaker 1 (01:27:00):
That's right, You're part of the other. How won the project? Right?
How's always putting weird albums together? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:27:08):
Well I had. I had cut True Love Is Hard
to Find on nine Lives in eighty five, Yeah, eighty six,
and then Tuts and I did it and then and
you want to gram me on that album Reggae, you know,
True Love, which is all duets, you know, to have
John Prine and Toots Gone, I mean, and how yeah.

(01:27:29):
I wrote a song on my new album called Living
for the Ones who didn't make it. It's all about that, honey.

Speaker 2 (01:27:35):
What is your dad? I want to ask you this
earlier on is your dad and your mom?

Speaker 1 (01:27:38):
Like?

Speaker 2 (01:27:38):
What did they think about where your music went? Since
he came from them? You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (01:27:44):
You know when I started doing I'm Built for Comfort
and Not for Speed, you know Willie Dipson song that
Wolf did, and they were they were in the audience
at the Second Fret, you know, in Philadelphia off a
Rittenhouse Square, and they came to my first gig and
I wasn't going to do Spider in the Fly by
the Rolling Stones, but I ended up singing built built
for Comfort, not for speed, just me and acoustic guitar

(01:28:06):
and a bass. I think that embarrassed my dad a
little bit. So I think here's how they felt. They
were delighted that the world thought I was talented. They
were dismayed I didn't finish college, but then they could
tell that it was I got lucky and that the
lifestyle I was living, partying a lot. And I don't

(01:28:26):
think they I don't think they dug that too much.
So my dad always said, if you want to sing
better and not worry about losing your voice or catching
colds on the road, just take a little bit better
care of yourself. And they were really happy when I
quit trashing myself, which wasn't all the time, but after
the shows, you know, right, yeah, after the shows. I
never let anything get in the way of my show

(01:28:48):
because I didn't sell records, so I you.

Speaker 1 (01:28:50):
Know, that show was everything.

Speaker 3 (01:28:53):
I had to be really good every damn show. And
that's what my dad taught me. Every night is opening night.

Speaker 2 (01:28:58):
And why it should be mentioned didn't graduate. You did
go to some really amazing colleges, right.

Speaker 3 (01:29:04):
So I did go to Harvard for a couple of years.
But man, this college of Johnny Hooker and being on
the road with Mississippi Fred McDowall was a better college
than any you know, And and I yeah, and I
wish and they all wish that Blues was not a
bad experience for most black people. They would have been

(01:29:27):
great if their grand niece and grandchildren wanted to go
into it. You know what I mean, it's an institutional
racism that in the community where blues people should be
on stamps and taught in the schools, and blues artists
should be revered and paid and treated like that jazz
is treated in Europe, you know what I mean. It

(01:29:47):
should we should just be lifting up roots music of
all kinds, not just blues, and the people who it
should be taught so that little kids can really appreciate
their own heritage and you know, and dig BB King
and actually go see him, you know. So you have
to be just being me and Eric Clapton talking about
BB King.

Speaker 2 (01:30:07):
Now you want to add more to the curriculum the
critical race theory, no, no boon?

Speaker 1 (01:30:11):
Yeah yeah, okay. A question always wanted to know in
your post nineteen ninety one life. Is there any concert
that you've ever given in which your fan base is
fine if you don't do I can't make you love me? Oh,

(01:30:32):
He's always wanted to know. With signature songs, you know,
there's a point where Nirvana just stopped doing smells like
teen Spirit, and sometimes artists will shy away from doing
their signature song all the time. But for you, how
do you feel about that song of all of.

Speaker 3 (01:30:49):
Your Oh, I would not do a show without Angel
from Montgomery or I Can't Make You Love Me because
those people, a lot of them haven't seen me in
a long time.

Speaker 7 (01:30:58):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:30:59):
Some people didn't see me last time through, and maybe
they haven't seen me in six or seven years, and
they love that song. And so I got to do
it for the people that you know, and I try to.
I try to be as real and new every single night,
every song. I don't ever post.

Speaker 1 (01:31:16):
You have to, Yeah, you have to. It's the opening
night every night. Yeah, someone is I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:31:20):
And I remember I remember being on both sides of
that I can't make you Love me, I haven't it,
you know where somebody said I had to tell them
I didn't love him that way anymore, and and they
and they said, could you just could you still stay
through Christmas? Oh man, that was some you know what

(01:31:42):
past the piece and you're looking at the person's mom
and you just you just you just broke their heart.
And then I've been on the side where my heart
was broken, where someone said, you know, I love you,
but not that way anymore. It's just not working out,
you know, somebody that can stay home and cook for me, right,
you know, we can't even talk about that song.

Speaker 2 (01:32:03):
Like literally, I was sitting in my living room with
my seventy one year old mother her seven year old friend,
and we were talking about your music, and she was
like that one song. She's like, don't I'm about to
go it is and bring a tear song? Do you
know this is the blue I do?

Speaker 3 (01:32:18):
And I know how many men cry when they hear
that song because I get the letters saying I've never
seen my husband cry. And when I turned and looked
at him and there were tears, you know that, she
said it repaired a whole lot of hurt that we had.

Speaker 2 (01:32:34):
Ya, I mean, I mean it makes sense. It makes sense.

Speaker 3 (01:32:37):
And you know who wrote that song is a guy
who used to be in the Cincinnati Bengals. What was
a professional so what that was written by? Mike Read
was a Cincinnati Bengal and Alan Shamblin wrote the words.
And those two guys and and Mike Read wrote a

(01:32:58):
song on nick of Time called too Soon Toll but
no of course, because he wrote I can't make you
love me too? And he's like this big bear of
a guy. Oh, I love it, and he writes this
and he has a voice break your heart like Michael McDonald.

(01:33:19):
I know, Michael McDonald, excuse me. I'm right with you, Leah.

Speaker 1 (01:33:21):
I'll tell you that I love even though I love,
I can't make you love me for me too soon
to tell is my favorite song of yours.

Speaker 2 (01:33:34):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:33:34):
I love that song. And wait till you way do
you got to call Mike Read and tell him how
much you love those songs?

Speaker 1 (01:33:42):
He now knows it because we just said it. That
that that is mind That is mind blowing to me.

Speaker 3 (01:33:50):
I mean it's yeah, because you know, six foot four
football player does not normally sit down and write. But
then look at Hornsby.

Speaker 1 (01:33:58):
You know what I'm saying, Yeah, big people have heart.

Speaker 4 (01:34:05):
I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:34:09):
A big club, Bill, get out of here. I thought
Bill was trying to say.

Speaker 3 (01:34:17):
I'm saying like he's like, my guys, you guys, I
should just I'm just gonna sit back and let you
guys clown because this is too good terrible.

Speaker 5 (01:34:26):
Are you all?

Speaker 3 (01:34:27):
Are you all in the same city?

Speaker 1 (01:34:30):
No, some people are like three people are I'm in
New York right now, I'm in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Speaker 2 (01:34:38):
Oh, I love Carolina Park. Yes, I'm in the Park.

Speaker 1 (01:34:45):
I'm gonna wrap this up surdly, but I definitely have
to ask, how did you feel when you got inducted?
It's like, how do you think she felt? A mirror?
But how did for you to be inducted in the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Speaker 3 (01:35:03):
It was outrageous, And you know, I don't know if
I really deserve to be in, but I knew that
I had lasted a long enough time to qualify and
they didn't have enough women yet. And as a woman
lead guitar player, as a champion of unpaid royalties and
debts to artists that didn't get their props, it just thought,
why that damn museum is there? And the organization so

(01:35:26):
a role model for activism and guitar play and leading
a band. I'll take it because I want to inspire
the next generations of women musicians and activists and righteous
people trying to get that royalty reform and get the
songwriters paid by the streaming service directly and not go
through the record labels. Come on, I mean, there's all

(01:35:48):
these people that wrote the songs that I made my
career on that haven't seen a penny from all those streams,
so you know, I'm not going to shut up about it.
So anyway, I was happy to be in there because
I didn't read a lot of negative press about she
doesn't deserve it, So that was I was worried about that.
And you know, we all get worried about social media

(01:36:09):
because my feelings get hurt. So I don't look at
I don't look at a lot of the responses in
case people saying I wish you'd just shut up about
Native Americans, you know, pipelines, you.

Speaker 2 (01:36:19):
Know, listen. Meanwhile, I was about to ask you what
causes are closest to your heart? Right now?

Speaker 3 (01:36:22):
We need to know election protection, okay, okay, okay, Democracy
is a good one. Democracy is nice when that works.
So election protection, the climate climate you know, fiasco, and
and the fact that food and access to health care
and education, the inequities and income and opportunity are just

(01:36:46):
number one. You know, we just got to get there's
just too many justice, equal pay for everybody, but you know,
the health care system what you name it, but food
equity and health care equity and education equal a equal opportunity.
Climate change, but man, the democratic hijacking of democracy in

(01:37:08):
this country by the right wing is just you know,
we got fascism on our door right here, you know,
knowing kids yourself did that. We got to get everybody
out to the polls Purple.

Speaker 2 (01:37:19):
That's where we live.

Speaker 1 (01:37:20):
It is it is weird that just the basic, just
basic human needs are now seen as justice causes. It's crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:37:33):
It is crazy for you.

Speaker 1 (01:37:35):
For you now, is there anything in your career that
you have yet to bucket list that you you wish
to to achieve?

Speaker 3 (01:37:49):
Oh, I've never been asked that.

Speaker 1 (01:37:52):
I love your passive aggressive way. I'm here of asking you.
At with Bonnie Rae, we did.

Speaker 3 (01:38:01):
Get to play They backed me up on Used to
Rule the World. It was a badass version too. It
was really great. I would love to work with Keith.
I would love to. I would really love to re
up the Womad Festival where there is an unbelievable collaborations

(01:38:25):
of like Paul Brady, Habib Corte from Molly, Paul Brady
from Ireland, Liz Wright, you know, Esperanza, me a Mere
you know reggae guys. I would have put bolts in there,
but you know what I'm saying, Like a touring womad
across pollination of fertilization of music, that it doesn't matter

(01:38:48):
what genre it is. It's just great where we can
hear each other every night. I mean Jackson Brown, Sean Colvin,
Bruce Hornsby and myself with David Linley went on tour
as a supergroup in nineteen ninety. It was just fantastic.
In the summer, we just had a little window of
time and we all got to sing and play on
each other's songs. And I'd like to do that again.

(01:39:10):
I don't know. That was probably too amorphous an answer,
but do you guys know what what womad was. It
was fantastic.

Speaker 1 (01:39:17):
When you say Keith who what Keith?

Speaker 3 (01:39:20):
Keith Richard's you know, I forgot, I forgot where I was. No, No,
I you know, I was just thinking on the top
of my head. I said, Keith. But you know, in
my world there's one Keith, but there's more Keith Sweat.
You're right, Keith Urban.

Speaker 1 (01:39:41):
I was thinking Keith Thomas as well, the producer.

Speaker 3 (01:39:45):
Oh my gosh, thank you for remind give me a
reality check. No, I mean that guy who together we
will stand there and be weathered together. You know, I
don't know if you. He loves playing the piano and
singing almost Hogy Carmichael kind of stand and he's really
good and I love the versions of that he does
of those songs. It would be really fun to do
to do something with him.

Speaker 1 (01:40:07):
Well, we we now know that you have manifest magic, so.

Speaker 3 (01:40:12):
You can make that wal Mad festival. But we have
to keep COVID under control so we can go across
borders and be safe.

Speaker 1 (01:40:19):
Yeah, I say by May that it'll I'm saying right now,
I am you're manifesting. I'm manifested by May, mainly so
we can get Fante at the house in time for
the roots picnicking.

Speaker 7 (01:40:31):
Talk about it, and we was all thinking, it's out there,
it's outside, man, it's outside, it's cool.

Speaker 1 (01:40:37):
But yeah, yeah, I don't do end of If it's outside,
it's it's cool. Now, I will say this COVID and
no COVID two days don't Yeah, I don't know. I'm cool,
but not two days two day. Oh No, I've been
having the time my life. By ray, there you go.

Speaker 2 (01:40:55):
There.

Speaker 3 (01:40:57):
I could go to so many places right now, but
I just met so I'm not going to go there.
But in my mind I have got I'm going in
my mind about what you've been up to.

Speaker 1 (01:41:07):
Ben's been self work, just working on myself. You know.
It gave me time just to slow down. I dropped
like forty pounds and spend more time with my family. Like, yeah,
I'm cooling.

Speaker 3 (01:41:17):
There's been some good stuff about it. For sure. I
made a record surprise, and I'm probably I probably would
have made a different kind of a record, but you know,
it's been nice to have. But I missed touring, Oh
my god, I miss playing live. Yeah, And I just
got to say, I tape your show every night and
watch it the next day, and I love you guys.

(01:41:39):
I wish I could have a whole separate series of
when you guys play on the you know with Jimmy
the show. I wish we could hear you're playing all
the way through. John Baptiste too, those guys, you do
all that work and those tunes.

Speaker 2 (01:41:54):
Yeah, absolutely, we had him on the show too. It
was a really good show.

Speaker 1 (01:41:58):
Yes We're good boy.

Speaker 3 (01:42:01):
That that that video for Freedom and the videos on
his record he was. I mean, I wish to just
let him dance around for a while and make me happy.

Speaker 1 (01:42:09):
I hope this is his. I hope this is his
nick of time year for the Grammys.

Speaker 3 (01:42:13):
Wow, I hope so too.

Speaker 1 (01:42:15):
I'm going there nomination, so.

Speaker 3 (01:42:17):
You know, I know, Okay, No, he's gonna. Oh and
can I just thank you for Summer Soul.

Speaker 1 (01:42:23):
Oh, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:42:25):
And I know you're gonna this is gonna be your
nick of time at the Oscar.

Speaker 1 (01:42:28):
Yes, talk about it, come.

Speaker 3 (01:42:34):
Up top now.

Speaker 1 (01:42:37):
Anyway, thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (01:42:42):
I just have to ask you, did you have to
tune in with Sly and all those guys that much
in tune on every damn note. You don't have to answer.

Speaker 1 (01:42:55):
Here's the fun I'm so glad you only because you
asked that question. All right, I'm gonnadmit one cheat that
I did once. I did only two cheats on the
on the movie because uh, sing a simple song was
an e. I cheated the intro drone that they did

(01:43:19):
to that key and the cat because they did it
that the drone was in another key and they went
too then they went to sing a simple song.

Speaker 3 (01:43:28):
But no, no, no, I mean very cool, very cool.

Speaker 1 (01:43:32):
But for the most part, I will say that everything
that you heard was this one from the soundboard in
nineteen sixty nine. Like literally, damn, he did maybe zero
point one percent of mixing, like we we barely touched
touched the board man.

Speaker 3 (01:43:53):
Now does that guy does the guy who mixed that
and recorded that, did he get a little taste?

Speaker 1 (01:43:58):
Yeah, give the engineer.

Speaker 3 (01:44:01):
So here you go, my big baby, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:44:07):
Gi me, the legendary jim Jimmy Douglas. He did. He
did amazing grace for me, the Franklin like Jimmy Douglass
has been all the timberlands like early stuff. Yeah, like
he's been for fifty years, like the man. So yes,
he he was my.

Speaker 3 (01:44:21):
Engineer, the original guy, the original origin.

Speaker 1 (01:44:28):
Believe it or not. That was a rough mix, Like,
gives me a rough paycheck. Then dude, he's dead. He
got well.

Speaker 3 (01:44:40):
I gotta say that was a really great Yes, he
does have family. That was a great mix.

Speaker 1 (01:44:45):
And thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:44:46):
Some of the baddest singing live I've ever heard in
my life.

Speaker 1 (01:44:50):
Thank you, Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (01:44:53):
We really are so grateful. And when you say there's
more footage.

Speaker 1 (01:44:57):
I get, yes, there's more, and we'll I can make
an announcement and like may for after after the oscars,
I'll make.

Speaker 3 (01:45:06):
I'm manifesting that right, now now I will take you.

Speaker 1 (01:45:10):
Yes, I will take all your infestations.

Speaker 3 (01:45:13):
Come and see us with We're going to be with
Lucinda in New York, but then we're going to be
with Mavis on the road, and you'll probably still be
to be You'll be you'll be having to be in
New York doing your nightly gig.

Speaker 1 (01:45:23):
No, I will come to see and to my area.
I will see this because I'm all about flowers. To
to our to our great.

Speaker 3 (01:45:33):
Said you want to, oh sake you. I was thinking Mayvis,
would you know, but I thank you for considering that.
I'm that, I'm all the things that you said the intro.
I'm really very very very tight.

Speaker 1 (01:45:47):
I do not not anybody gets on the show, you know,
like we we have to love you. And well Bill
Sherman was our first guest. So there you.

Speaker 2 (01:45:58):
And there you go. And get the new album too.
I was just gonna mention the new album. I was
playing ahead just like that. Just make sure you go
get the new.

Speaker 1 (01:46:09):
Bonnie Ray album.

Speaker 3 (01:46:10):
Oh I hope you dig it.

Speaker 2 (01:46:12):
I do it delivers. I will say this, it delivers.
It definitely does. I was like, Bonnie has given us
what we need.

Speaker 3 (01:46:18):
There's a great soul ballad on there called Blame It
on Me. That's there's a funk tune that I wrote
that mixes Eddie Harris Lesmacann with the Commodores, So you
gotta check it out called Waiting for You to Blow.
And I'm really proud of it because I wrote every
little drum part and every keyboard part, every little horn part.
So anyway, blame on me?

Speaker 1 (01:46:38):
Who? What were you? Did you write? Blame it on me?
Is that?

Speaker 2 (01:46:41):
No?

Speaker 3 (01:46:41):
I didn't. A guy who wrote it sang it on
the two guys wrote it and sang it on a
Facebook performance and they sent me the link and I went,
what wow? Yeah, And you know what's really fun about
this week? And I know we got to go, but
this is the week as the record comes out and
the middle of April and the single hits this week,

(01:47:02):
I could call because the streaming services are going to
start listening listing the tracks. So I got to call
the songwriters that didn't know I cut their song. And
I've chad since last June. I knew I was gonna
Did I cut it right? So I had to sit
on it and I got to make that call on Hi,
It's Bonnie I know, you know, we don't know each other,

(01:47:24):
but I really loved that song that I heard back
in nineteen, you know, two thousand and nine, and I
ended up cutting it, and this guy's just flipping out.

Speaker 1 (01:47:32):
Man, that's life changing, that billy.

Speaker 7 (01:47:39):
Now, Bonnie, I just want to say, I just you know,
I just remember I just got up on your early
ketog maybe probably like ten years ago. And you know
it was a good buddy, a guitar player friend of mine,
Chris Berner. He put me up on like your early
records and just for me, just a part of my childhood.
Just again, luck of draw, luckily Draw Nickel time. Those

(01:48:00):
records were everywhere. You couldn't escape them. And so you're
just definitely someone when I talked to younger artists, I
definitely mentioned you was just you know, an example of
perseverance and how just staying in the game. You just
never know, like I had no idea. I mean, I was,
you know, ten when Nikko Time came out. I thought
you were a new artist. I had no idea, you
know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:48:20):
And so just to see yeah, and you know it
wasn't I lucky to be forty when I got it,
because I would have fucked myself up if I don't
know if you can say that, Oh no, say that,
but I'm saying that. You know, the people that can,
like Taylor Swift and Nora. I mean, a bunch of
people have gotten really famous early. They're handling themselves much

(01:48:41):
better than my generation would have done. And if I
had hit it big.

Speaker 2 (01:48:45):
Y'all didn't have social media.

Speaker 3 (01:48:46):
I'd be dead.

Speaker 1 (01:48:47):
Yeah, yeah for real.

Speaker 2 (01:48:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:48:50):
Well but you know, we thank you very much for
your artistry and this is definitely an island having you on, Michelle.
Thank you for ladies and gentlemen on behalf of of
course Love Supreme, fant Ticcolo, you Unpaid Bill and Sugar, Steve,
the Great Bonnie Radio. My name is Questlove. We will
see you on the next Goverent welcome.

Speaker 3 (01:49:07):
All right, you guys, God, bless day, safe.

Speaker 1 (01:49:17):
M's Love Supreme is a production of iheartnet Radio. For
more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Episode Transcript

Hosts And Creators

Laiya St. Clair

Questlove

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