MINNEAPOLIS — The pain in Bonnie Raitt's voice was palpable over the phone. Not the I-Can't-Make-You-Love-Me agony, but the life-as-we-know-it-is-getting-so-hard suffering.
The reversal of Roe v. Wade for women's rights, the war in Ukraine, voting rights restrictions, the murder of George Floyd, climate change and the surge in gun violence, among other things, have rankled the longtime activist for progressive causes.
Raitt speaks out in interviews, on social media and at countless benefit concerts, but she doesn't jump on a soapbox at her own shows.
"I'm very cognizant that people are there to hear a concert and not to be preached or convinced of one position or the other," said the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, who is currently on tour.
"I try to mention at the end of the show: 'Don't be discouraged and I won't be. We'll help each other stay active,'" continued Raitt, a child of the '60s who was raised as a pacifist Quaker.
In these fraught times, the singer-guitarist has found a special, unexpected way to chill out: watching videos of animals, like pandas sneezing or cockatoos dancing.
"The ones that get me the most are the unlikely pairings of friendships of animals," she said, citing a morning-news report about the Funny Farm Rescue & Sanctuary in New Jersey, where animals roam free and bond. "By the end of it, my oxytocin level was up to the level of what Grateful Dead fans must feel like at the end of the show."
She giggled, like a giddy Deadhead.
Stretching on new album
Raitt returned to the road this past spring to promote "Just Like That," her 18th studio album since her 1971 eponymous debut was recorded in a barn on Lake Minnetonka. The new project is her most daring work, tapping new sounds and new forms of songwriting after all these years.
"Waitin' for You to Blow" showcases her in a jazz jaunt as she discusses the challenges of recovery.
"That was the biggest stretch for me," said Raitt, who has been in recovery for 34 years. "I told the band I have this idea for a stutter funk rhythm track with this kind of jazzy Les McCann/Eddie Harris chords with this kind of sardonic Randy Newman/Mose Allison lyric.
"It's probably the most satisfying, scary jump I've made musically."
Recovery is one of the themes of the album — along with grace, redemption and mortality.
"Those are the four horsemen of the apocalypse," Raitt said.
"Livin' for the Ones," a Stonesian rocker, doesn't have a new sound, but it talks about living life to the fullest. It was inspired in part by her brother Steve Raitt, a longtime Twin Cities sound engineer/producer who died of a brain tumor in 2009.
"I'm going to live for the life he didn't get to live. That's how I got through his death," she said this month from her home in Northern California.
She talked about Steve not veering from his macrobiotic diet for seven years and outliving the Mayo Clinic's prognosis by six years. "When he went blind and couldn't walk the last few months of his life and was still fighting and thought he was going to recover — I'm breaking up talking about it."
She paused to regain her composure.
"And I said, 'I'm never going to complain again every day I can open my eyes and stand up and walk.'"
Never a prolific songwriter, Raitt also tried a different kind of writing this time — storytelling based on a real-life incident, a style she'd always admired in the works of Bob Dylan, John Prine and Jackson Browne. She composed two tunes based on news stories.
"Down the Hall" is a tale of redemption about a convicted murderer who works as a prison hospice aide. Raitt discovered the details in a New York Times piece by Suleika Jaouad.
The album's title song, "Just Like That," was drawn from a true story about an organ transplant connecting two families struck by tragedies.
Healing with 'Angel'
Released in April on Raitt's own Redwing label, "Just Like That" was No. 1 on the Americana charts for several weeks. Maybe that's proof that music is healing in times of trouble.
"We have to keep turning our face to the sun and finding a way to bring joy to each other and ourselves," said the feisty redhead with a distinctive streak of white hair. "I've got a big job."
She heals herself and her audience every time she sings her signature songs in concert.
Before she utters the first words of the gut-wrenching "I Can't Make You Love Me," she takes "a spiritual deep breath and I just surrender to the emotions of the song."
She's been on both sides of the situation depicted in Mike Reid's tortuous lament — no longer loving someone and hearing that message herself.
"In one case, they begged me to still do the family Christmas. Auch! It was really brutal. I sing it for anybody that's gone through that. And that's probably everyone in the hall."
When it comes to Prine's "Angel From Montgomery," Raitt gets choked up these days because they duetted twice shortly before he died of COVID-19 in 2020.
"Now it's all I can do to not break down when I'm singing," she said. "I think of him the entire time I'm singing and I'm honoring him this time.
"In years past, I've sung it especially for my mom [pianist Marge Goddard], and I've been dedicating it the last couple of tours to all the women who don't have the choice to not get married or can't leave a marriage, can't have an education, can't drive a car, can't wear a short skirt. I think about all those women around in the world trapped in situations they can't get out of.
"In my mom's case, she never got the credit for the incredible contribution she made to my dad's career. My mom's generation sacrificed to raise the kids. I made a decision not to saddle someone else to support me."
At 72, Raitt shows no signs of slowing down. Her father, Broadway star John Raitt, performed until he died at age 88. Tony Bennett, despite dementia, was singing at 95 and remembering the words, she pointed out.
Suddenly Raitt shifted into a frail voice of an elderly woman.
"I'll be making music till I drop," she creaked.
Then, returning to her regular voice, she was full of her usual unstoppable spunk: "I'm going to come out at the end with white hair — and a red streak."
She laughed.
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