"The reason that song is the heartbreaker it is, is because of the way that he interprets those chords. That’s not how the demo sounded”: Bonnie Raitt praises Bruce Hornsby’s piano playing contribution to one of her signature songs

Bonnie Raitt and Bruce Hornsby.

It might be one of her signature songs, but Bonnie Raitt says that her 1991 hit, I Can’t Make You Love Me, wouldn’t have been the musical gut punch that it is without Bruce Hornsby’s piano playing.

Written by Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin, I Can’t Make You Love Me wasn’t a song that grabbed Raitt immediately. “I sent it to Bonnie and she didn’t jump up and down and say ‘oh my God!’, you know?” Reid told Top 2000 a gogo. “She didn’t do that - she called me and we talked and she said ‘would you mind letting me live with this?’ And then eventually she listened and got the song and so we just happened to have the perfect singer at that time.”