Bonnie Raitt

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
You look gorgeous, Oh, thank you, thank you, guys. Would
be colorful and I was gonna do the green and
purple and red hair saying hello. Working for absolutely ladies

(00:23):
and gentlemen. This is Quest Love Supreme. My name, of course,
this 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, Tess? Power Forward? I
like it Number four. I'll I'm proud to say that

(00:45):
I've I've gotten paid off the ledge and I think
I made him watch his first episode of You four
You last night. Oh man, I had a full on
panic attack and I turned it off. You four he
is the new. Uh, it's to me, it's the new contraception.
It's don't do drugs if you don't have Yeah, it's

(01:09):
it's you four is the new do not have kids? Yes? Exactly,
La up next, she's our center. I did How did
you know that? Yes? Alright, just took a while. Guests,
how are how are you? This? Uh? This lovely evening.
I'm trying not to embarrass y'all and break into tears

(01:29):
as I am in the presence of a queen. So
just just just bear with me because this is it's
a lot okay, So are our power for it is sugar, Steve.
You gotta stop with the sports analogy. That's that's just
your go to Steve, Like I'm a small for yeah,

(01:50):
I can shoot the three, so it just passes to
me outside and uh okay, they used to call me
downtown Stevie Brown. So all right, well I made you
my power forwards still, Steve. And you know, of course,
my my my shooting guard right here, Sponticcolo. Yes, Carolina's own.
How are you. I'm good man, I'm good man. I'm

(02:14):
happy to be here. This um, 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
Luck of the Draw album was always on the charts. Exactly. Well,
that's the ladies and gentlemen. UM. I will say, I'll
try not to go show over the the intro too long,

(02:35):
but I gotta I gotta pull out the commemorative one
for this. Um. I'll say that our our guest tonight,
probably the most truest sense of the word, is an
artist in the truest sense of the word of artists
at the industry has ever known. I think for the
last five decades, um, she's held the torch super high
for uh, I mean just the lost art of sheer

(02:58):
authentic blues madness. In addition to other genres of music.
She's a supreme songwriter, bull's eye vocalist, hands down all
star level delta blues guitar mastery. And I'm not even
going to I'm not going to frame it like she
can hang with the greats. As far as I'm concerned,
the greats are trying to hang with her. And after no,

(03:23):
it gets even better. So after yeah, two decades, after
a twenty year run of critical Claim after critical Claim release,
I will say that nine the stars aligned. When after
nine or ten attempts, I believe, I think it's your
tempt album. The world finally caught up to her level

(03:45):
of soulful rock and blues magic with a little bitty
album called Nick of Time, which, in my opinions, one
of the most well deserved comeback stories. But you know,
I know most artists like I never left. You know,
it's not like an overnight success thing. UM it garnered
her album of the year, accolades, platinum glory, a whole

(04:06):
new fan base that resonated and related to her outlook
of a generation getting mature, Uh, in a new decade,
which you know, the nineties were honest by that point,
remember the nineties people, Yes, exactly. Not to be out done,
I'll say that her her follow up album, Look of
the Draw Um with the immortal classic I Can't Make

(04:30):
You Love Me? Is it an even bigger monster? Um? Wait,
it's just it's just hit me right now that my
third book might be named after a Bonnie rate soul.
I definitely remember one of the last conversations Rich and
I having about naming something to food about, and I
remember him to Bonnie Rate, So one of my last

(04:53):
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 Wall Hall of Fame. UM. I
can say for myself personally that her actual story, her
entire story, has been UM an inspiration for me, um

(05:13):
as a kind of blueprint in terms of artists that
are trying to stay true to their secrety 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 great Navin Staples. UM.
I can go on and on and norm but please
let's just get to it. Ladies and gentlemen, Please welcome

(05:35):
to q LS ten time Grammy winner, Master Musician, Singer, Songwriter,
overall legend Bonnie Ray. Thank you in the paint with
my but thank you. We are you talking to us
right now? From where are you at? I'm out in

(05:55):
Marine County, about fifteen minutes north at Golden gate Bridge
in San Francisco. We're It is truly beautiful and we
got some much needed rain for a minute last night. WHOA,
I never heard of California and actually welcome rain. Normally,
it's the opposite where I hear them always complaining about rain.
We need it. We're in a serious drought. Man, we've

(06:17):
got you saw those terrible wildfires in the west. Yeah,
we need some water and the season Santa Ana winds coming.
All right? So you have you? How long have you
lived lived out in that area? Well? I go back
and forth to l A, where I was raised but
I got too much traffic, too much show business, And

(06:38):
once I got sober about thirty five years ago, I
went I was up in the daytime, and I went, Man,
this place, this, 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 a clean air and be near the ocean.
So I've been here like maybe a little over thirty years,
and I go back and forth. When I hears and

(07:00):
go into the show business world, I go down to
l A and then up here I'm in the chill
in the redwoods. Kind of love it to go to
l A, 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

(07:23):
to be. You know, everyone pretends that they're so jaded
with l A. Like I can't stand it, so fake,
so phony. Whatever I'm not because I don't live there,
I still like look forward to always coming to l A.
Like it's still there's still a little bit of magic
luster to me. But you're still feel the same way
because I don't live there anymore. So when I go there,

(07:43):
I get a kick out of it, and it's it's um,
it's really there's a very there's some really cool stuff
in l A. 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 in a hotel downtown,
you know, sometimes you just want nature and you want
some quiet, peace and quiet. But so were you going

(08:05):
to ask where I would recommend. 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 uh, you know, there's some communities
that are affordable in California that are also beautiful, but
man that you have to go a 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,

(08:28):
Sonoma County, Napa County, those are all great, but you've
gotta 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 I love all the
parts of California for lots of different reasons, the same
way I love all the parts of this country. I
just when people ask me what's your favorite, I go, Man,

(08:50):
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 is really nice. You can go
outside every day, and you know, it's kind of in
in a vicinity of some cool cultural scenes in Oakland
and Berkeley and San Francisco, and yet I got the
mountains and can have the solace of being in nature. Roger, Okay,

(09:15):
so we're all moving next one to you right now.
We can, because man, that's the second highest place, you know,
most expensive place in the country. All right. When I
moved her, 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 it got soccer mom

(09:35):
pretty fast. I see, I see um. So I started
off every episode with the same question, So you're no
exception to the rule. Uh, could you please give me
your very first musical memory. Oh, I think my dad,
who was a Broadway leading man, singing the songs from

(09:56):
his show with my mom warming him up on the piano.
She was is 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 plan in the house. Were you?
What was your sibling situation? How many two brothers? Two

(10:21):
brothers on either side, two years old or two years younger.
I'm the only girl. Oh wow, so okay you were
you were? What was that like for you, like in
terms of trying to find space? Oh, you know, I
just ilized my older brother, and I want I was
a serious tomboy. I got the I got the right

(10:42):
after I stopped playing with dolls and stuff. I I
scuffed up, and uh 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
themselves pretty unliked. And I just didn't dig it, you know,
So I just sort of stayed with that one of

(11:03):
the guys thing for a long time. And look how
I ended up. I'm one of the guys in my band.
That mean you can really fight, monny. Well, we were, well,
we were Quaker, so we did, right, That's right. I
punched my little I got my little brother pretty bad
some one time. But no, I just I think, um,
I love being the only girl in between my brothers.

(11:25):
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, they
just sort of reject you, and then you're just left
to go, oh my god, what's this puberty thing? You know?
So all bets were off. I had to become a
girl after all. Okay, so I'm actually glad you said

(11:45):
that because I'm I'm currently dating a Quaker right now,
get out of here. And this is 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 ready, What what exactly
differentiates a Quaker from a civilian? If you will? Oh, well,

(12:09):
the short version of it for lay people is um.
My folks were both raised Scotch Presbyterian for my dad
and my daughter. 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

(12:30):
no minister, there's no people sit in a circle and
you just get quiet, and anybody that's moved to stand
up and speak can speak. There's a pacifist 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. And the idea is to appeal to that
of God and another person and reach a conflict resolution

(12:54):
and treat like Jesus would you know, just see that
of God and the other person and turn the other
you can try to find a way to get along.
So that's the short skim the stone across the lake version.
But the social, the social version of Quakers is they're
the ones on the ponchos on the Peace March that
helped band the bomb. They stood up for social justice,

(13:16):
they stood up for humanitarian They go all around the
world and are accepted in areas of conflict because they
don't take sides. The 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

(13:37):
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 non violence and love thy neighbor
come to come to roost. And the Quakers really well,
so you're okay, You're okay. Now I get sounds like Quakers.

(13:59):
Oh grace, he is trying to turn me into a Quaker.
I get it. Though, 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 l A. I turn
on a black gospel station on Sunday mornings, and 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. So there was absolutely no

(14:22):
musical worship, not none on no, not none of none
of that. But we you know, we sure made up
for it. I just remember playing a lot of ping
pong and Sunday school. Really, she's about to turn a
lot of people listening. Well, well, you know that your parents,
you know, Quaker meeting, you're really quiet. It's like meditation
and group meditation, and kids are squirmy, you know, so

(14:44):
you're you're probably too squirmy to be a Quaker. You
don't even this explains everything. I didn't realize. This is
where my life is headed. Yeah, but 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

(15:07):
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 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. They don't even use buttons. Remember that Witness

(15:31):
movie with I love that. I love that, but ivan
nevill was in my band for a long time, and
and he said, our expression was Alexander good Enough played
the boyfriend that was piste off that Kelly McGillis was
harboring Harrison Ford. And he comes out wearing her ex husband,
her dead husband's clothes and are way too small from

(15:51):
and good Enough looks looks at him, goes very plain,
very plain. So that's what I haven't said. I haven't
said the rest of his time with us, I said,
how are you doing? He's going small, little little quest
Love Supreme Tidbit Trivia in nineteen four. Um so my

(16:15):
for those I mean, for the three of you who
listen to the show that don't realize my beginnings. Uh,
my father was a notable oldies do wop 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. And
as you know, you get up in age, like around

(16:36):
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 when the roots
were first starting. Uh, my dad was actually offered the
role of Daddy Glove and Witness. Whoa man. It's one

(17:03):
of my bis regrets when like some guy walked up
to him. It's like Lee and he came to a show.
It was like Lee, I'm such a fan of yours
and there's a script. They sent a script to Witness
to the house and I was like, two small you
could do. But you know, my my father was very
insecure about his reading and talked himself out of what

(17:26):
I call he manuted. He said he was chicken. Yeah,
I got offered a role by in Death Becomes Her
there's a bartender. They ended up writing it out, but
Tracy Allman 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 whoa. Turn the cameras on, I get nervous.

(17:47):
So but I I really you know, there's I understand
that getting too chicken. When it comes down to being
on the film. It never reminds me that I'm currently
reading a book right now, that it's sort of my bible. Um,
I gifted it to about two friends for Christmas. It's

(18:09):
written by an author called Gay Hendricks and it's good
friend of mine. Yes four. Chapter four is 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.
But wow, I didn't even know he put me in
a book. I hope it was all good stuff. What's
about me? It was the chapter. Um, the Big the

(18:30):
Big Leap is basically, you know, as I as I've explained,
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 program to not enjoy happiness for more than

(18:54):
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, shoot, I
forgot to turn the oven off, or is my mom okay? Right?
And so it's it's because I know so many artists

(19:16):
that are sort of subconscious self saboteurs. Yeah. Um, but
he talks with the territory. So he talks about how
you made a decision to to leave your comfort zone,
and he says that we all have something called the
upper limit problem, which is you get to a you

(19:39):
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
your Nickel Time moment, like literally you you you you

(20:03):
saw yourself getting on stage accepting the award. I did well.
I did. There was a cassette when I first got sober,
I got a Lazarres 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 and someone from another realm and you don't even

(20:26):
know where they care was, But I mean, that was
what's so cool. 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 would happen. And I I said, oh,

(20:49):
this is crazy. And you know, I had been dropped
by my label. I hadn't made the album with Nicked,
time signed a new contract yet. And I just had
this beautiful rebirth of being sober. I just took to
it really well, and and I was healthy, had 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

(21:09):
at the Grammys in this gold jacket and I'm thanking
people at the podium at the Shrine Auditorium. And he
they said, now picture yourself and go up about thirty
degrees and 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,

(21:30):
and see see what happened. So I did it, you know,
just for goof and then forgot all about it. And
then it wasn't until luck of the 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

(21:51):
I had really just made that leap. And and I
remember Gate saying how I asked him how he was doing,
and Gay said, I'm really happy I made it this
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 could
your dad could have been a movie star. Yeah, well,

(22:12):
I'm 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 the Pandemic started, this is
the book that I feel like has resonated with my community.

(22:36):
Like this morning, I gave it to Janelle James, you know,
like you said the second like the second that I
hear any artists do a self doubt thing. Like we
have a friend named Nel James. He's like excellent stand
up comedian and she's now pivoting into uh comedic actress
on a show called Abbot Elementary killing it and she's

(22:59):
killing that is she the lead? Is she the lead
of it? The principal? Yeah, she's really funny. She's like them, 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.

(23:21):
But I told her, I'm actually going to send it
in my my form so that I can vote for
you to be Best Supporting Actress. But she kind of
like duck and dodges, like, oh, no, you know whatever, No, no, no,
and this that triggers me. And instantly I was like, no,
I'm getting you this book right now. Like nothing triggers
more than self doubting people. So it's called The Big

(23:44):
Lead to everybody listening, and it is available on I Books,
and I'm buying it and not waiting to be the
two hundred and ten friends to get it. I will
buy it before it's okay, come on, okay, yeah, no, seriously,
it's it's a short book. It's get thinking an audio book.
You'll be finished in two days. But it's probably the

(24:06):
most crucial book and literally the Bonny Raid chapter is
what I'm using right now. Cool for my situation in
in four weeks. So I like the Bonny Raid. Didn't
even know that there was a chapter about me. Yeah,
make that the person that made me do my morning

(24:29):
mirror exercise is I'm talking to it and I totally
forgot that. It's great. This this, this synchronicity of this
stuff is pretty amazing, isn't it. Clearly you guys have
your pastor over there in the corner. But way so, Bonnie,
do you do more? Now? Do you do more manifest
than do you do more? Kind of like, you know,

(24:51):
I try to think 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 it's
actually 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 pictured them up and about and recovered, and I

(25:13):
picture that really hard. And that trick about this not
from gay Hendrix, but the channeling per lizarre's the standing
above and looking down at 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 a walk in

(25:33):
the park and gonna go get some get a salad someplace,
you know, and just imagine that, just picture us, just
picture it pictured. I think there's really great. I'm doing
it like I think a lot of people are listening,
you know, play when I get this kind of information
using I'm not I'm chuckling because it's just hit me
that this might be the six quest let suprem in

(25:55):
a row, that that has been more about self improvement,
and like like we're about to be lifestyle improvement instead
of music. You know what you gotta fix. You gotta
fix the inner, the inner to get the outer. You
know what I mean, music come to all comes from
the same source. If you got, as Robert Johnson said,

(26:16):
stones in my pathway, you know, you gotta move them
out of the way and let that let that flow happen. Absolutely,
I agree with you. I mean, self self doubt and
self doubt is an interesting source of songs. I mean,
I wrote a funk jazzy song on my new record
called Waiting for You to Blow about the little Devil
on your shoulder, just going. I just I know you're

(26:38):
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 admit it. I did send them.
You know, all 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 and move on. But you know, you gotta pay attention.

(27:02):
I was just just to know Bunny about your sobriety said,
you know, it's been thirty five years. Uh, sobriety is something,
um that is it's tough in any aspect, but particularly
in the context of the music business. I imagine it's
you know, even crazier. How have you say sober all
these years? Well, for starters, that the inspiration of seeing
how many people didn't make it, you know, losing friend

(27:24):
after friend to either deliberate or accidental or just lifestyle
caught up with him. 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 you're just kind of filling that hole.
And once you understand about the addictive personality or that.

(27:46):
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. I mean, audiences love blues
singers that are heavy, you know, and have manned problems.

(28:07):
Oh look at her. You know that's the Mary J.
Blige syndrome. We see only like her when she's depressed.
When she said, you know, we want 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 the girl. So anyway, howlways, stay sober. Um.
I it's it wasn't. I was really lucky and really

(28:29):
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 in those rooms
and those meetings, their professional parties, so their stories are better,
they're funnier there. You know, we all help each other,
so it's not something you do alone. But it's really

(28:52):
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 been at meetings in Russia
and Australia with like pirates down by the docks, you know,
guys that look like Popeye with no teeth, with a
hundred and fifty tattoos. Really, and you hear those stories
about how they stay sober. You know, it's kind of

(29:14):
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 the time, but it's not. I always
wondered about that because there's been a few times where
I thought that I too would have to sort of
flirt with circles of of meetings and whatnot. And then

(29:37):
I always talked myself out of it, because you know,
I felt like post social media age, like there's no
such thing as being anonymous. There was never there was
never any trepidation of like, you know, oh my god,
it's sucking violent rates sitting here in our a circle
with you know that sort of thing. Or I was

(29:58):
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
doctor's ones, because doctors are afraid they're going to run
into their patients. You know what I'm saying that the
cattle bring my mom and it didn't go well. You know,
now I know why you know in the laws. I mean,

(30:21):
imagine going to an a meeting and seen your the
judge that sent you your know, so I could dig
while people go to a community industry in our industry. So, um,
I'm I've been doing a zoom meeting with people that
are in the industry and people are really respectful and

(30:42):
and every we all need the same thing. So the
musicians meeting really gave me the confidence in the anonymity
and took the pressure off. Um. 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 in your story. So
but you know, if I've walked down Fifth Avenue with

(31:03):
Whoopi Goldberg. I don't think she could ever disguise herself. So,
you know, quest 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. Okay, No, No, I've
gotten away with many a non crime crime in terms

(31:26):
of his hat gang sarcastic. Yeah, it's all about hats,
and for me, it's covering up this little skunk streak
I've had. So I want the only real color I
have on my head, but the and if I don't

(31:46):
wear I make up. Man, people do not get it.
But when I check in my luggage outdoors on the
cat and the curb at the airport, guys going give
him something to talk about. The reporters always always know
it's me. Now we just check in, check in with
a you know, kiosk. But can you tell me, do

(32:08):
you remember the first record that you ever purchased? Yeah,
it was Odetta 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. We should also

(32:32):
mention that your your father's the legendary John Ray, theater
actor and Broadway music leading man. Yeah, from Carousel and
Pajama Game in 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 you n kids, you know, just every

(32:54):
every stripe, every possible permutation of religion and color and background.
And 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 Bayez, and I went
home and begged for a guitar for Christmas and just

(33:14):
sat there and taught myself to play until my little
fingers were bleeding. And that's that was that Odetta record.
She continued to be an inspiration to me, but that
was I never heard a voice like that in my life.
So you were self taught or did you have any
lessons at all. I had piano lessons for five years,
but that the teacher didn't want to let me learn.
Back then, they didn't let you learn pop music, so

(33:37):
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. So by the time I was around
other guitar players and saw that you play E in
this position and you're supposed to use your fingers for this,

(33:59):
for that were too late. I already was doing it.
So you know, every time I've heard you speak about music, um,
either you know, like you'll do these shows where you'll
you'll tell stories or whatnot, Like I always felt like
you were a serious musician and serious advocate for like

(34:21):
all these blues grates that you know that aren't 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 British 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

(34:43):
just like just like pop music. You know. L A
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 Bleach Tip Land, and you know,
it just was too plastic instead of at the time,

(35:05):
I wanted to be a beat nick and a jazzer,
and I was. I was a member of Core and
Snick and you know, because we were Quaker, I just
couldn't wait to get old enough to go to Glen
Village and yeah, and I was like reading sing Out
magazine and I just wanted I went to camping that

(35:26):
in the East Coast with all these liberal, lefty international
counselors and campers and I and l A just seemed
really plastic. So I loved not 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

(35:48):
and and you know, Fats Domino was like a god
to me. You know, Chuck Barry, Come on, Chuck Barry
was like the most gorgeous guy had ever seen, and
he played the hell out of the guitar are 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

(36:12):
antennas gave R. C. A O the channel Master and
he said, hey, Bonnie likes music, and he gave me
a box at twelve Ray Charles albums that you know,
at that age, at twelve, I would have never been
able to afford or even know him about. So I
got genius plus soul equals jazz. I got Ray Charles
and Betty Carter the album dedicated dedicated to you, you know,

(36:33):
all the named after the cities. I mean, you talk
about learning 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 Aretha Franklin and Stacks
and Sam and Dave total soul music hound. But I

(36:57):
didn't hear about electric blues until the Rolling Stones play
Little Red Rooster and holl And 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, Okay, I was gonna stay that. Um.

(37:17):
I worked with Marshall Chess a few times, um, 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 too sort of
loosen up and get with the times of like black
psychedelic rocking and all these things, Like especially with the

(37:38):
Muddy Waters record. Uh, what was the wait, Steve, didn't
you engineer that project? That? H we did? Like it
was electric Muddy Yeah, the Electric Mud stuff. So when
I mean I didn't, I didn't engineer the original electric
But how about no, no, but yeah, that was one

(38:01):
of the greatest fold out album cover pictures of all time.
That in Isaac Hayes, the fold out picture that turned
into a poster where I had them in my house
Isaac and Muddy like hello, really, that's what I was out.
I was out the house by this, So what I
wanted to know was okay, So as a true fan

(38:24):
of the blues, like I know that older blues fans,
some of them scoffed that, like you know yourself, like
similar to to Dylan getting some pushback for going Electric,
that there was some authentic blues fans that felt like,
you know, like now these guys are trying to sell
out to get a younger uh, to get the hippies

(38:47):
and you know, to get a wider audience and all
those things. But did those particularly now for from my standpoint,
I loved Electric Mud Like half half the first Cyper
solo album is from you know, the Electric Mother record
and what's the other title? Uh, what's his name? Hates me?
Fathers and sons? Well no, no, there the titles. Really

(39:09):
he hates this album. Uh it was like a sarcastic
album title, like Muddy Waters hates his second album more.
Oh god, I don't know. I just didn't. I wouldn't
relate to those records. So right, no, no, no, but
I meant like for you to hear at least I
mean I ever think that you release in your early
teens when that came out, did you well. I was

(39:32):
in the middle teens and I didn't dig it. You know,
I love those early Muddy Waters records. I'm the greatest
playing of any band ever Hollin Wolf, Muddy Waters, Johnny
Hooker's original records. Oh geez, Electric Mud 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 Mundy a

(39:52):
long time. I did buy it, but I haven't heard
it in a long time. But I did have that
album in the robes, I mean, and 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

(40:13):
with you know, English guys, and I just didn't think
it sounded as good as the originals. I was. I
was prejudiced the other way, you know, as ouray because
even now with hip hop, like there's a lot of
our greats that you know, have decisions to make, like
should they readjust there? Like for example, Nas is a

(40:37):
great example of that. Like right now Nas is about
to see probably relieve some of his best success, sort
of getting a little younger with who's who's producing this
record with hip boy, which, of course, you know, his
older fans are like, you know that that NAS made

(40:58):
five years ago is like, you know, that's their north star,
and you know, I'm happy for his success. I'm happy
for his success now. But you know, but I 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 in nostalgie, bro,

(41:18):
like you know, the ears, the 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 bored. And people
have the right to go more commercial if that if
they're sick of being obscure or it's you know, but
you've gotta really dig it. You gotta love what you're
the combination of your new collaboration and being put through

(41:42):
the new producers. You gotta love it and not do
it for commercial reasons, in my opinion, need to have
that commercial success. 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 it like that's
what you were talking about earlier about what's special about

(42:02):
your music in a way is because when and that's
what a mirror 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. Well,
that was a lot of things happened at that particular
time where my my my guild, you know, the Recording
Academy gave me some props at a time when the

(42:24):
public at large, like I've never been nominated for a
People's Choice or Word American Music, a Order, any of
that kind of stuff. So it was really five thousand
people were voting for Grammys, and I think Don Henley
and Tom Petty probably canceled each other out, and I
just kind of eked by by a few, you know,
And here, I mean, it's sold a million before you're
the people's champion, you don't feel like, you know, no,

(42:45):
I like being a cult artist. And and after that
initial first two albums, Nick of Time and look at
the drawing, 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, and no,
I don't even think I was on there that long.
And every time you make a relationship with radio and

(43:05):
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. I would love sneaking up on you
on it. You know, it went from seven million records
to two million because there was nobody coming to the
show as it was no relationship. I didn't go to

(43:27):
the radio stations. They didn't have any free tickets for
me to say a load of 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. And but you know, I'm happy
selling three thousand seats at the Beacon Theater two nights

(43:48):
at the Beacon. That's that's a hell of a crowd,
you know for me. So I'm grateful to have no pressure.
I never wanted the pressure of having to follow up
another recor good with us 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,

(44:09):
There she goes, she did it again. But you know,
like everybody else, I have my favorite albums of my
favorite artists, and but while I'm on that, I just
have to say, you're 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 slaid me,

(44:29):
that's my that's my jam. If I could have one,
if I could only have one artist on a desert
island for the rest of all life, it would be
Bruce Hornsby. Does just listen to the introduction of I
Can't Make You Love Me? Or the end of Innocence
for Mandolin Rain, I don't know. Oh my god, oh

(44:52):
my god, that's the one for me. Sharka and you
you guys talked about that on this show. I learned
a whole lot on the show was great. Wow, thank
you talking about basketball. There was a lot of basketball
that show too. Yeah, thank you, basketball player. I feel

(45:14):
like we should add this interview right now, that's a
pretty good So can you tell me what led to
you're signing to Warner Brothers in in in the beginning? Lie?
What the process was? Well, because I wasn't expecting to

(45:37):
do this for a living, and I just happened to
be dating the Dick Waterman who managed son House in Mississippi,
Fred McDowell and had helped rediscover son Um, 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, we've already had our

(45:57):
older black guy this month. Why should we pay you
guy hundred bucks? And we got him for five you know,
excuse me. So he he consolidated him and kind of
a guild of badass and Ray kept their prices up
and didn't let them, didn't get them these young blues
fans that were managing these guys, was running them ragged.
They were like in their sixties and making them play

(46:18):
three shows a night and taking half their money. And anyways,
as sortid story, but Dick Waterman was really instrumental in
bringing Buddy Guy and Junior Wells out of Chicago Big
Bar Arthur crewed up. He got the Royalty finally got
Royalty reform and Elvis Presley. Finally, after after Arthur died,
they settled the estate with Elvis Presley and they finally

(46:40):
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 from my heroes. I didn't. I
wasn't threatening, I was cheap. I played my own guitar,
you know. I carried my own guitar, didn't need a band,
and um, I got my foot in the door just
opening were my heroes and somebody Dick's lawyer, Nat Weiss, well,

(47:06):
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 brought Dick and I went
to the meeting when when and Nat White said, no,
I think you should sign with Atlantic. And meanwhile we

(47:27):
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 since
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 uh interest in me. But

(47:49):
I always knew I wanted to go with Warners because
they had Ray Cooter and Randy Newman and James Taylor
and I went out to l A on Capitol's dime
and played at the Troubador and did a show case.
But in the afternoon I snuck over to Warner Brothers
and said, I want to come on your fable. I asked,
I asked for a hundred asked for a total artistic control.

(48:12):
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 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 So wait

(48:34):
a minute, you're saying that you were out there too
to talk to Capital. They paid for the trip. Yeah, 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 Couter were like, you know Apollo

(48:56):
and Zeus. To me, you know, that was just and
the and Warner by as that said, we make our
money from Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. We don't care
if you're you're not a hit record. You can do
whatever you want. You know, little they had, little, you know,
they gave that 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

(49:18):
so righteous. Who was the CEO of a Warner at
that time? That right Freedom? Well, Mo Mo, Austin and
Joe Smith were the Repries and Warner Brothers to two
pairs in the same funky old building that no longer exists.
So they were a family kind of a journant, you know.
It was like, so, yeah, can you also this is

(49:42):
what I always wanted to know. Um, I don't know.
I think one trip the Japan, I think I've ran
across like a Warner Brothers E p K. Where not
since the days of Motown that I see this thing
were like all the and her Brother's artists would travel
together like I think it was looking at like old

(50:05):
gram Central station footage, but it was like the Doobie Brothers,
Bonnie Ray No, No, the gram Central Station. Then it
was like was it always like that where there was
a Warner Brothers touring season where they So I 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 I made six

(50:27):
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 and dubies.
It was just like, yeah, and they had that thing
where Team A would play this city with this set

(50:48):
of equipment and then Team B would they 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. Okay,
so there they were really like a family based absolutely
and then it was way before Warners was at the

(51:10):
end of the seventies, Warners Electra and Atlantic formed WEA
when he got a big, giant 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
billion selling. So then when I renegotiated my deal, when

(51:32):
I was up for resigning, Walter Yetnikov tried to get
me to come over to CBS. When he turned James Taylor,
who had been languishing at Warners, he was a big
hit because and he said, I'll do for you what
I did for James Taylor, and Warners was so piste.
They matched his offer and then they penalized me for

(51:52):
it because I wasn't bringing in the big bucks, you know,
so it was all about It was all about money
after that. You know, was gonna say during that initial period,
when you know, you had the you had the buzz,
you had the critical Claim um Ship, you even got
the cover of Rolling Stone um for you, did you

(52:15):
were you personally like? Because oftentimes with like I have
the same situation, well not 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 and say, like, yeah,
but you guys don't care about that, because you guys

(52:37):
are real artist. You don't need to know we I
would like to. I would have liked to given my
band a raise, you know what I mean. And and
and run a runaway my version of Del Shannon's run Away,
kind of like Love and Happiness. I did this kind
of al green thing and had my and and you know,
I thought it was a hip idea. It started one

(52:59):
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. 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 can go by after they

(53:22):
see the show. So, you know, everybody bitches about being
missed not promoted, but you know, I thought they didn't
do as great a job as what I was hoping.
But I agree that my music isn't that commercial. And
I don't look like Stevie Nicks, 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

(53:45):
you know, uh, you know, like my other female compatriots.
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, where, well
then Linda Ronstad, Emmy, Lou Harris, Phoebe Snow you know, yeah,

(54:07):
we were all we were all on tour all together. Okay,
that's what I ask you. Did you get to tour
with these ladies? 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 Little Fair
that we that they finally had women on the same bill.
That didn't happen to Little Fair, But I mean I

(54:27):
could have I could have done another woman, but it
was made. It made for a better show if you
had a little bit of a just you know, at first,
I was playing with Muddy. You know, I had Mose 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

(54:48):
the songs that 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. But the piece that you did was interesting
that you said was since you toured when you were one.
I was just curious because you were one of the
only females on tour at that time, and you're touring
with you don't know, Emmy Lou, Emmy Lou and Linda
and Maria. We know there was lots of women touring

(55:09):
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,
we own That's what I was saying. Like back in
the days, 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, because you know, if you're if you're the
only girl in the entourage, you look pretty good at

(55:32):
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 organizations, which which you have to be
careful because you're still on that bus together for another
ten months if it doesn't work out awkward. You know,

(55:52):
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. I know that

(56:15):
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? Uh from your childhood?
Did you really bond with personally? Uh? And in your

(56:37):
in your first time not not post nick of time,
not John Lee Hooker era, but like in your initial
era and initially Mississippi. Fred mcdowalen 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 it was alive that I had access to, and
we just clicked as I later in the nineties, when

(56:58):
I got to know him better and played a lot
of shows together and did a duet. Johnny Hooker and
I became really close, as did Ruth Brown and Charles
Brown and I. In the middle of the nineties, we
all toured a lot together. But but early on Fred Mcdowalan,
Sippy Wallace and I toured together. Sippy came out of
retirement in nineteen seventy two at the ann Arbora Blues

(57:18):
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 start send the checks, and she
came out on stage. It was only going to do
a gospel song, but she's she heard us rehearsing women
be wise her song and the trailer, and she said, oh,
maybe I'll just had a soprano player come right up
to her ear and huh. But she probably hadn't sung

(57:42):
it in thirty years, and she said, well, I'll just
do that one song, and then people went apes ship
and then she toured 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 Dr
John on the key boards that you've got to check out.

(58:02):
It's like nine eight one maybe or seventy nine. But anyway,
Miss Cip Freend McDowell. He passed away when I was
twenty one, like only 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 grandparents figures in

(58:24):
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 and Ruth Brown
and Charles Brown who I got to celebrate and have
deep relationships with so my heroes. You know, I got
to be friends with. It's a lot of history that
you know, God Lee, Yeah, I was gonna ask uh

(58:45):
your history and your relationship with another get talk god
Stevie Ravan. Oh my god, I'm gonna have to put
lipsic on for that. Would know, what was your relationship
like working him? What was your guys friendship? Like we
were mutual fans of each other. We got to be
friends in Austin, Texas when I would come through and play,

(59:09):
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, not just in
blues but in all kinds of music. You know. 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,

(59:30):
how did you hear about that? And you know, he said,
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 Ray Vaughan, about the Vaughan Brothers,
and his first album came out, and you know, if

(59:50):
you're a blues guitarist and a fan, the word of
Stevie Ray got blasted out into the stratosphere when he
played guitar on Let's Dance by David Bowie. I mean,
that's one of the baddest asked, solos are performances. And
then I met him. I saw him play. We toured together,

(01:00:11):
we were party mates, and we were sober mates. You know,
he his his He got sober a few months before
I did. Not long after our tour together, by the way,
and uh, and I saw him coming. He came out
on stage and played the night he came out of rehab,
and he just he was worried that he wasn't gonna
have the same edge, and he played. He burned a

(01:00:33):
hole in the sun that night. It was incredible. His
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 comment, you know, the greatest guitar
player in my lifetime that I've ever heard. When you're
interacting with these with these blues greats, um, is it

(01:00:53):
dismaying to them? Number one? Is it dismaying to them
that they're not receiving more support from a black or
fan base. Um? I can, I can. It's a sort
of parallels to my situation, where like there was definitely

(01:01:14):
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 it? Is it mind blowing to them that this,
like this white woman from from California is doing more

(01:01:38):
than knowledge than you know, then the other black people.
But but my other thing is um and I really
wish and I guess I have to also do the
work because I would say that the blues is probably
the one area of music that I've really really haven't,

(01:02:01):
you know, sunk my teeth into what is what is
the criteria. It's hard in your mind for what makes
a great blues man, blues woman a blues player, Like
are you listening for tone? Are you listening for next? Theory?

(01:02:21):
Like just yeah, you know. It's it's that it's so
inf of what 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. Um And what
makes me go crazy for the people like liking Hot

(01:02:44):
Lightning Hopkins or Johnley Hooker's Crawling Kings 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 good tour player or
a piano player. The it's one thing, you know, Memphis

(01:03:05):
Slim was just you can't separate his body movements from
his voice from his piano plan. Fred McDowell the same thing,
Johny 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 there, the pain that's so deep
because it's so might be my black people. Yeah that

(01:03:30):
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. And I was gonna say
that it's too much of a minder for me personally,
but yeah, but I mean it's it's the way that
it came up when when I started out was what
what right do you have to sing the blues? You're
a white girl from California, daughter of a Broadway singer.

(01:03:53):
For God's sake, how come you you know? I said,
you know, I didn't even think about it. I just
liked the music and I needed to teach myself how
to plan it, to enter and 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 of saying 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,

(01:04:14):
I was, I was made to be on the earth
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 there's still in
these oppressive exploit of record contracts that they didn't know

(01:04:34):
any better, didn't have access to legal fee, lawyers advices.
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 it's look out there and see all those white people,

(01:04:56):
and he goes, You know, I wasn't expecting to be
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
sun House 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 were delighted. He said,

(01:05:16):
I love playing these colleges. All these girls like laying
at my feet in the hotel room afterwards when I'm
playing the blues all night long. And these guys are that,
you know, treating 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 be be celebrated and appreciated. He said, I

(01:05:37):
don't care what color they are. I'm just glad they
dig it, you know. But but Muddy didn't have a
problem with Stevie Ray or Lowld 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
impressed them, they you were and you were in the
club play. So without without me being really controversial with

(01:06:04):
this next question, good, 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, when
you know, my mind is getting more open to all
types of music or whatever. So a guy like me,

(01:06:28):
we'll buy a copy of Physical Graffiti by Zeppelin. And
you know, and I think when you're a teenager, like
between twelve and twenty two, your your mind is just
open to everything, especially if you're a music fan. Like

(01:06:48):
if you look at my record collection from twelve to
twenty two, it would be somewhere between the Ohio Players
and Debbie Gibson and and no. But just like Lightning Hopkins,
like I was just open to everything. So yes, exactly.
So my whole thing is, you know, I I can't

(01:07:12):
divorce myself from really being in love with like Jimmy
Page's guitar work on the Zeppelin records. And it's the
only when I got older, when I started like going
back and reading old reviews like of course we're revisionist history,
like Rolling Stone will say, you know, Rolling Stones will
do complete issues dedicated to Zeppelin, but back then, how

(01:07:35):
much of a like this is fraud? Like in the
same way where hip hop heads might call out an
m C who isn't really of the ilk of the
culture that you know got more success and whatnot, you know,
got so. But the thing is is that even now

(01:07:57):
when I still listen to Zeppelin, like I can't it,
and there's still older cats are just like man, funk
that ship. That's fake blues, Like, listen to the real ship.
But it's like in my wrong and thinking that. And
I'm using like in my Time of Dying as an
example where they're doing like bottleneck blue slides and all

(01:08:18):
those things. Yeah, Like, is we're 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
clapped in, I'm talking about age, Like what do you
what are your feelings on those like on you know,

(01:08:39):
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 a question of, uh,

(01:09:04):
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. And your in your
interviews and in your songwriting credits, you don't take credit
for a song that Willie Dixon wrote only settled thirty

(01:09:27):
years later. So you know, there's just basic ship like
don't steal people's stuff, you know, pay some I don't.
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 played his musicianship Jimmy Page is unbelievable. Unbelievable.

(01:09:48):
Yeah no, and Eric Clapton unbelievable, Stevie Ray, Jimmy Hendrix.
You know, I didn't. I didn't look at it as colors,
I didn't look at it as gender. I just went
this guy is a badass, you know, that kind of things. So,
but in terms of the debt, that white artists, oh
black artists, these music they are making money from you

(01:10:09):
better start sharing. You take a knee financially as well
well you created. Yeah, it just always wanted to know, like,
were they authentic in their presentation? In addition to I
think they I think they built on they built something
completely different, you know, like when the Stones do you

(01:10:32):
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 it moves you or not, if they mean it.
I think that's got It's got a validate, a valid
reason to to exist. And your brilliance is brilliance, no

(01:10:55):
matter what genre comes stems out of you know, So
I know I may not be I may not be
answering that very no no, no, I get so okay. Um.
As many people know the show, I I Bleed Purple.
And you know, one of the very first times that

(01:11:16):
I've heard about you in my teen years was when
Prince was going to sign you to Paisley park Um.
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 Never

(01:11:40):
it never got it, never got that far. I mean
he 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 the record company.
So he pulled a rug out of me and twenty

(01:12:01):
five people, and 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 um, 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,

(01:12:21):
why don't you come on over to Paisley Park. And
warners will have to take a little lesson on how
to treat somebody. So we talked about it. I said,
I don't want to go do a whole Prince record,
and uh, I know you don't want to come over
in my my wheelhouse. So if we can really meet
in the middle and come up with something that's equally

(01:12:42):
mine and yours, um, that would be great. And you know,
we had some couple of wonderful evenings together playing music
and watching sly Stone 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

(01:13:05):
had a solo acoustic duo gig and Colorado plan 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

(01:13:28):
on my thumb, my weight, and my body and I
pulled my thumb off ligament and I couldn't play. So
I called Princeton said we got 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 gonna take

(01:13:50):
this opportunity while I got this cast on to 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 him, 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

(01:14:12):
the songs and you know, did all the tracks, 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. But there was one of the sets
of lyrics was something I would never You know, honey,
you can mess around all over town, but we're still

(01:14:32):
cool because there's something I like about being your fool.
But you know, I need an m a N real man.
I mean it was funky as many 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

(01:14:55):
went to called my brother in Minneapolis. I said, I'm
on my way and he said for what. Prince extended
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 a great artist, great artist that a lot

(01:15:19):
of wonder the things for women guitar players, Annie, 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, Yeah, thank you,
That's how I feel about it. And and I like
the tone. The tone that I pick is because that's

(01:15:41):
how I hear it picks up where I leave off,
you know, So I and Lord George from Little Feet
is the one that 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 mcdoalash wouldn't
do that, And you know, Ray Cooter and LOLd George
are the masters. And then now we got Derek Truck.
So just but anyway, I heard, uh, I heard slide

(01:16:04):
guitar when I was about fourteen, when I got some
country blues records and I taught myself to play a
tune to an open tuning, and I soaked the label
off a corus seed in cold bottle, and I put
on 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 my grandpa had

(01:16:25):
a lap steel that he played hymns on where drew
the bar across the neck of the guitar. So I
just pretended that that was it and just listen to
that record and went quite and I taught myself to
play from those Records and then just honed it down.
You know. Eventually I had to go to electric because
a lot of the keys of the blues that I

(01:16:46):
like are Um, my voice is five keys up and
if I put the capo halfway up the neck, I
can't get the octave without on a longer neck. So
that's why I went electric. Um of course, Uh, well
I'm safe into the show because he hasn't done a
show yet. But Steve and I worked um with our

(01:17:08):
with our good friend Don was Could you talk about
the relationship with Don and um how Willner blessed rest
in peace the Great? He called Don up and said,
I would love to have you and Bonnie Rates sing
baby Mine from Dumbo for this Disney tribute I'm doing.

(01:17:30):
And he called me and said the same thing. He said,
I don't know if Meanwhile, I'm like a complete was
not was Hound, you know that's right? That is my jam.
Those guys, those lyrics with that singer, those singers and
the Ned music. I went nuts for them and so
on the session it went so beautifully. It's one of

(01:17:51):
my favorite tracks I've ever cut, This beautiful Disney tribute
Little One Closure. Ah. We did like a that daaaa,
the baby a mine? You know right now? That did

(01:18:13):
it too? 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. So
we were It was a love affair, you know, and
we just he came to my acoustic show outside of

(01:18:33):
l A. We're playing this club claud the coach House,
and I think he came to that and he saw
me just playing my stuff with just in a guitar
like I did the first four years of my career
before I could afford a band, and he said, you know,
let's me And I said, would you want to do
a record together? And he said, yeah, but I want
to do a record where let's base it on if

(01:18:54):
you could sing the song on the guitar or the
piano and and make me know that it's a Bonnie
rate song. Then forget that, forget that who's in the band,
Just start with what you Let's pick the songs that
worked just by yourself, even though we used a band.
That's how we made Nick of time, we didn't have
a big budget, and I suggested my drummer Rickie Faitar

(01:19:16):
and you know, Hud Hutchinson, and we had Ben mont
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 on luck of the draw
from was not was So I told him he didn't
know about Ed Cherney, and I said, then there's this
engineer that does Roy Couter and David Linley El rayo

(01:19:39):
X Records. We got to see if he would do this,
because you know he did get Rhythm by Ray Couter.
That album is one of my favorites. And uh so
we met ed and the three of us just hit
it off and we went in the studio together and
then we just we love each other, showed up in
the music show. Did I was just thinking that, like,

(01:20:00):
in making that record for you, the temptation to go
to your sweet spot, which is the authentic blues, that
the 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 definitely

(01:20:24):
a noticeable sonic difference in that record and your previous albums, So, like,
what kept you from hitting your upper limit in terms
of oh, I see what you're saying. What what like
you know, like this is do clean? Like this is
not bluesy enough. Well, I mean I don't do only

(01:20:45):
blue songs, so you know, I always have a Oh
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
nrb Q songs and you know, fabulous Underbirds and Chuck
Barry kind of thing, and then there's funk tunes, and
there's a lot of the ballads are very stripped down,

(01:21:08):
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 um.
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 terms of the sound

(01:21:30):
of it, that's Ed Cherney is really you know, he
knows we want to really organic sound, and you get
the right players. And I don't know if it's this
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 in,
which mike's to use on which instruments, and you just
let it happen. You know. You don't rehearse, you don't

(01:21:51):
open the oven door and try to you know, you
just set the stage and let it go. You know.
That's how That's how I've 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
is 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.

(01:22:15):
The only blues song on that record is the Roads
my 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 and similarly with Ain't Gonna let you break my
heart again with Herbie. Oh, you know, we just got

(01:22:39):
really lucky with both those luck of the drawn 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

(01:22:59):
that's why that music is so special too. So how
did your how did your life change like to take
us through, you know, from going just from you know,
all those years going from water and just going through
that journey to finally getting paid or what does that mean? Well,
I got a lot less free time because when when
you're a political activist that use your your voice and

(01:23:20):
your money and ability to fund raise. 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
when I go on I got invited on the Tonight Show,
and I got invited on Good Morning America, and I

(01:23:41):
could We had just formed the Rhythm and Blues Foundation
in and I could go on every TV show and
talk about how those artists that we owe everything to
never got paid, and let's make a donation and do
the benefit for you know, health, get 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,

(01:24:03):
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. And that's sometimes
I look back at being more carefree when I was

(01:24:24):
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 at
the highlight. What was like the highest of highest in
terms of well I mean, I would imagine that being

(01:24:45):
a critical favorite and and 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
or at least become friends with that your otherwise pre
nine life couldn't imagine? You know that I'm playing Yeah,

(01:25:11):
you know, I hear what you're saying. Well, I 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 even before that, but afterwards making a record with

(01:25:36):
my dad and getting him 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 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 to
move to the outskirts of town with Ruth Brown two

(01:25:58):
without great highlights of my love to be able to
showcase and take on the road. Ruth Brown and Charles
Brown put him in hotels they deserved to stay in
the whole time, give him 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 mean so
much to me, that was the high point of that success.

(01:26:20):
And singing with my dad and Ruth and Charles and okay,
John Lee, It's just it was deep. It was deep
but still deep. And Tut's oh my god, Oh yeah, right,
you're You're a part of the other. How one of
their project? Right? How is always putting weird albums together? Yeah? Well,

(01:26:42):
I I had I had cut true love is hard
to find on on a nine Lives and five, yeah,
eighty six, and then Tuts and I did it and
then and you want to grab me on that album
regg you know, true love, which is all duets, you know,
to have John Prin and Toot's Gone, I mean and
how Yeah. I wrote a song on my new album

(01:27:04):
called Living for the Ones who didn't make it. It's
all about that, honey. What is your dad? I want
to ask you this earlier on with your dad and
your mom, like, what did they think about where your
music went since you came from now? You know what
I mean? When I started doing I'm Built for Comfort,
not for speed, you know. Willie Dipson song that Wolf did,
and they were They were in the audience at the

(01:27:25):
Second Fret, you know, in Philadelphia, off a writtenhouse square,
and they came to my first gig and I I
wasn't gonna do Spider and the Fly by the Rolling
Stones or that. I ended up singing built for built
for comfort, not for speed, just me and acoustic guitar
and a bass. I think that embarrassed my dad a
little bit. So I think here's how they felt. They

(01:27:45):
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 that got lucky and that the
lifestyle I was living, partying a lot, and I don't
think that 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

(01:28:08):
colds on the road, just take a little bit better
care of yourself. And they were really happy when I
quit trash and myself, which wasn't all the time, but
after the shows, you know, after the shows. I never
let anything get in the way on my show because
I didn't sell records, so you know, that show was
everything I had to be. I had to be really

(01:28:28):
good every damn show. And that's what my dad taught me.
Every night is Opening Night, and why it should be mentioned,
and why you didn't graduate. You did go to some
really amazing colleges. So I did go to Harvard for
a couple of years, but fan this college of Johnny
Hooker and being on the road with Mississippi Fred McDowell
was a better college any you know, and and I

(01:28:50):
and I yeah, and I wish and they all wish
that blues was not a bad experience for most black people.
There would have been 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

(01:29:10):
people should be on stamps and taught in the schools,
and blues artists should be revered and paid and and
and treated like that jazz is treated in Europe, you
know what I mean. It 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,

(01:29:34):
and dig bb king and actually go see them, you know,
so you have to be just be me and Eric
Clapton talking about bb King. Now you want to add
more to the curriculum critical race theory. So okay. The
question I always wanted to know in your post, is

(01:29:54):
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? Because I always wanted to know
what signature songs? You know, there's a point where Nirvana
just stopped doing smells like teen Spirit, and sometimes artists

(01:30:15):
will shy away from doing their signature song all the time.
But for you, how do you feel about that song
of all of your 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. You know. Some people didn't
see me last time through, and maybe they haven't seen

(01:30:37):
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 past. Now you have you have to, yeah,
you have to. It's the opening night every night yet
someone is here. I mean, and I remember, I don't
I remember being on both sides of that I can't

(01:30:59):
make you love me having to you know where somebody
said I had to tell him 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 passed the piece and
you're looking at the person's mom and just you just

(01:31:22):
you just you just broke their heart. And then I've
been on the side where my heart was broken when
someone said, you know, I love you, but not that
way anymore. It's just not working out. You know, somebody
that could stay home and cook for me, right? Do
you know we can't even talk about that song? Like literally,
I was sitting in my living room with my seventy
one year old mother her seven year old friend, and

(01:31:42):
we were talking about your music and she was like
that one song. She's like, don't play, don't let go
and bring it to your song? Do you know I do?
And I know how many men cry when they hear
that song because I get the letters said I've never
seen my husban and cry. And when I turned and
looked at him, and there were tears. You know that.

(01:32:04):
She said it repaired a whole lot of hurt that
we had. I mean, it makes sense, it makes sense.
And you know who wrote that song is a guy
who used to be in the Cincinnati Bengals. What professional
that was written by? Mike Read was a Cincinnati Bengal
and Alan Shamblin wrote the words. And those two guys

(01:32:29):
and Mike Reid wrote a song on nick of Time
called too Soon to Tell But now of course because
he wrote I Can't make You Love Me too, And
he's like this big bear of a guy and he
writes this and he has a voice break your heart
like Michael McDonald. Don't say Michael Michael. I know Michael McDonald.

(01:32:54):
Excuse me. I'm right with you, Lea. That's the guy
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. Thank you. I love that song.
And wait, doill you wait? Don't you gotta call Mike
Read and tell him how much you love those songs always?

(01:33:17):
He now knows it because we just said it. That
that is mind That is mind blowing to me. I
mean it's yeah, because you know six ft four football
player does not normally sit down and write. But then
look at Hornsby. You know what I'm saying, Yeah, big
people have have heart. I'm saying, Okay, get you a

(01:33:43):
big club. Bill, get out of here. He was speaking,
but I thought I thought Bill was trying to say.
I'm saying like he's like, you guys, you guys, I
should just I'm just gonna sit back and let you
guys clown because this is too good terrible? Are you all?
Are you all in the same city? People are like

(01:34:07):
three people are I'm in New York right now, I'm
in Raleigh, North Carolina. Oh. I love Raleigh, North Carolina Park.
I'm gonna wrap this up certainly, but I definitely have
to ask, how did you feel when you got inducted?

(01:34:28):
It's like, how do you think she felt? A mire?
But ask how do I feel? For you? To be
inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? 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 and as a woman

(01:34:48):
lead guitar player as a champion of unpaid royalties and
debts to artists that didn't get their props, which is
why that damn museum is there, and the organization so
a role model for activism and guitar plan and leading
a band. I'll take it because I want to inspire
the next generations of women musicians and activists and righteous

(01:35:12):
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
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

(01:35:36):
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
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 know, I was about
to ask you what causes the closest to your heart

(01:35:56):
right now, we need to tell my god. Election protection, okay, okay,
democracy is a good when democracy is nice when that works.
Election protection, the climate climate you know, fiasco, and and
the fact that food and access to healthcare and education,

(01:36:16):
the inequities and income and opportunity are just number one.
You know, we just got to get there's there's 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 pay, equal opportunity,
climate change, but man, the democrat democratic hijacking of democracy

(01:36:41):
in this country by the right wing is just you know,
we got fascism on our door right here. You know,
don't kid yourself to that. We got to get everybody
out to the polls. Purple formula. That's where we live.
It is weird that just the basic, just back human
needs are now seen as justice causes. It's crazy. It

(01:37:07):
is crazy for you. For you now, is there anything
in your career that you have yet to bucket list
that you you wish to um to achieve? Oh I've
never been asked that. Um. I love your passive aggressive way,

(01:37:28):
a mere of of esthence to duet with Bonnie Reid.
We did get to play. They backed me up on
Used to Rule the World. It was a badass version two.
It was really great the UM. I would love to
work with Keith. I would love to red I would.

(01:37:51):
I would really love to re up the Walmad Festival
where there is an unbelievable collaborations of like Paul Bray,
d Habib Corte from Molly, Paul Brady from Ireland, Liz Right,
you know Esperanza me, I'm here. Yeah, reggae guys. I

(01:38:12):
would have put in there. But but you know what
I'm saying, like a touring womad across pollination of fertilization
of music, that it doesn't matter what genre it is,
it's just great where we can hear each other every night.
I mean Jackson Brown, Seawan, Colvin, Bruce Hornsby and myself
with David Linley went on tour as a supergroup in

(01:38:35):
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 would
like to do that again. I don't know that was
probably too enorphous an answer, But what what womad was?
It was fantastic. When you say Keith who what Keiths?

(01:38:57):
You know I forgot, I forgot where I was. Oh, no,
I you know, I was just thinking. At the top
of my hand, I said Keith. But you know, in
my world there's one Keith, but there's more Keith Sweat.
You're right, Keith Urban. I was thinking Keith Thomas as well,

(01:39:17):
the producer Keth. Oh my gosh, thank you for remark.
Give me a reality check. No, I mean that guy
who together we will stand there and be weathered together. Well,
you know, I don't know if you He loves playing
the piano and singing almost Hoagy Carmichael kind of standards,
and he's really good at and I love the versions
of that he does of those songs. Would be really

(01:39:38):
fun to do. To do something with him. Well, we
we now know that you have manifest magic, so you
can make that manifest that Wellmad festival. But we have
to keep COVID under control so we can go across
borders and be safe. Yeah, I say by me that
it will. I'm saying right now, I am manifesting. I'm

(01:40:00):
manifested by mad mainly so we can get fine at
the house in time for the routs picnic and talk
about it. We was all thinking it it's outside, man,
it's outside, it's cool. But yeah, yeah, I don't do endo.
If it's outside, it's it's cool. Now I will say
this COVID and no COVID two days, I don't Yeah,

(01:40:20):
I don't know. I'm cool, but not two days two
day festival. Oh No, I've been having the time my
life monding rate there you go. I could go to
so many places right now, but I just met you,
so I'm not going to go there. But I've got
I'm going in my mind about what you've been up
to been. It's been self working, just working on myself.

(01:40:43):
You know, you gave me time just to slow down.
I dropped like forty pounds and spend more time with
my family. Like, yeah, I'm I'm cooling. There's been some
good stuff about it. For sure. I made I probably
would have made a different kind of a record, but
you know, it's nice to have. But I missed touring,
Oh my god, I miss playing live yea, And I

(01:41:07):
just gotta say, I tape your show every night and
watch it the next day, and I love you guys.
I wish I could have a whole separate series of
when you guys play on the you know with Jimmy show.
I wish we could hear everything you're playing all the
way through John Baptiste to those guys you do all
that work and those tunes. Yeah, we had him on

(01:41:30):
the show too. It was a really good show. Yes,
boy that that that video for freedom and the videos
on his record he was. I mean, I wish they'd
just let him dance around for a while and make
me happy. I hope this is his I hope this
isn't a year for the gra I hope so too.
I'm going there on I okay, no, he's gonna Oh

(01:41:53):
and can I just thank you for Summer of Soul? Oh,
thank you, thank you? And I know you're gonna do
is gonna be your nick of time at the office?
Yea on top now? Anyway, thank you very much. I

(01:42:16):
just have to ask you, did you have to tune?
And was Sly and all those guys that much in
tune on every damn note. You don't have the answer.
Here's the fun. I'm so glad you only because you
asked that question. All right, I'm gonna admit one cheat

(01:42:36):
that I did once. I did only two cheats on
the on the movie because sing a simple song was
an e. I cheated the the intro drone that they
did to that key because they did it that the

(01:42:57):
drone was in another key and they went to us
then they went to sing a simple song. But no, no, no,
I mean very cool, very cool. But for the most part,
I will say that everything that you heard was this
from the soundboard in like literally, damn did maybe point

(01:43:20):
one percent of of mixing, Like we we barely touched
touch the board. Man that does that? Guy does the
guy who mixed that and recorded that, did he get
a little taste? Yeah, yeah, jim My big baby, Like yeah,

(01:43:42):
the legendary jim Jimmy Douglas, you did. He did amazing
grace for Metha. Franklin Like Jimmy Douglas has been early stuff. Yeah,
like he's been for fifty years, like the man, so yes,
he he was my engineer the original the originally believe

(01:44:02):
it or not, that was a rough mix, like give
us a rough paycheck then, dude, well, I gotta say
that was a really great yes he does have family.
That was a great mix. And thank you. Some of
the baddest singing live I've ever heard in my life.

(01:44:24):
Thank you, Oh my god. We really are so grateful.
And when you say there's more footage, I can't. Yes,
there's more, and we'll I can make an announcement in
like May for after after the Oscars album make I'm
manifesting that right. I will take Yes, I will take

(01:44:44):
all you come and see us with. We're gonna be
with Lucinda and New York, but then we're gonna be
with Mavis on the road and you'll probably still be sorry.
You'll be you'll be having to be in New York
doing your nightly gig. No, I will come to see
He'll be my area. I will see this because I'm
all about flowers. To to are to our great said,

(01:45:09):
oh thank you. I was thinking maybe you know, but
I thank you for considering that. I'm that, I'm all
the things that you said in the intro. I'm really
very very very touch. I do not not anybody gets
on this show, you know, like we we have to
love you. Bill Sherman was our first guest. So there

(01:45:30):
you go, there you go, and get the new album too.
I was just gonna mention the new album I was playing,
just just like that, Just make sure you're gonna get
the new Bonnie Right album. Oh, I hope you dig it.
I do it delivers. I will say this, it delivers.
It definitely does. I'm just like Bonnie's giving us what

(01:45:51):
we need. There's a great sole ballad on there called
Blame It on Me that There's a there's a funk
tune that I wrote that mixes Eddie Harris Les McCann
with the Commodores. So you gotta check it out call
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, who who

(01:46:13):
were you? Did you blame it on me? Is that? No?
I didn't a guy who wrote it saying it on
the two guys wrote it and saying it on a
Facebook performance and they sent me the link and I went,
what yeah, And you know what's really fun about this week?
And I know we got to go, but this is
the week as a record comes out in the middle

(01:46:34):
of April and the single hits this week. I could
call because the streaming services are going to start listening
to listing the tracks. So I got to call the
songwriters that didn't know I cut their song, and i've
since last June. I knew I was gonna that I
cut it right, so I had to sit on it
and I got to make that call, going, Hi, it's Bonnie.

(01:46:57):
I know you don't we don't know each other, but
I really love that song that I heard back in nineteen,
you know, two thousand nine, and I ended up cutting that.
This guy's just flipping out, man, that's life changing. Yeah, now, Bunny,
I just want to say, I just, um, you know,
I just remember I just got up on your early

(01:47:20):
catalog maybe probably like ten years ago. Um, and you
know it was a good buddy guitar player friend of mine,
Chris Burner. He put me up on like your early
records and just for me just a part of my childhood.
Just again, luck of draw Nika time, like those records
were everywhere. You couldn't escape him. And so you're just
definitely someone when I talked to younger artists, I definitely

(01:47:40):
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 Nickatime came out. I thought you were a
new artist. I had no idea, you know what I'm
saying then, So yeah, and you know, as it wasn't
I lucky to be forty when I got it because
I would have sucked myself up if I don't know

(01:48:01):
if you can say that, but but but I'm saying that,
you know, the people that can, like Taylor Swift and
and Nora, I mean a bunch of people have gotten
really famous early. They're handling themselves much better than my
generation would have done. And that if I had hit
it big, wedn't have social media, I'd be dead. Yeah. Yeah,

(01:48:24):
well but you know, we thank you very much for
your artistry and this is definitely an having you in
the show. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of
Supreme Fantacolo. Yeah, unpaid Bill and should be Steve A
great Bonnie d. My name is quest Love. We will
see you all the next goodman. All right you guys,
God bless they say, thank you? What's love? Supreme is

(01:48:52):
a production I heard radio for more podcasts for my
heart RADI O visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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