Multiple Grammy award winning singer/songwriter, Bonnie Raitt is in the country for a tour, she talks to us about her new album, Dig in Deep.
Bonnie Raitt Photo: supplied
On the naming her latest album Dig in Deep:
It's just a line from the first song that opens the record. It has to do with my band and I digging deep into these grooves and having played together for 30 years some of us. And then the ballads go a little deep, I don’t sing fluffy tunes so much, so it was just a jumping off point to talk about how connected we are to each other as a band. I have been recording and touring with them for so long and they are just massively talented and very versatile.
On songwriting:
Sometimes I write more and then on this particular album I had a lot more stuff to say and there’s a political song in there called 'Coming Round is Going Through' and the song that closes the record is a very personal song and it probably couldn’t have come out of me until a decade after I lost my parents and my brother in short succession. There’s a lot of grooves I wanted to add to the show - that was an inspiration. Co-writing with my guitarist George Marinelli is a joy. It just kind of comes in waves. Sometimes I find 12 songs by other people I love so much, no way any of my own are going to make the cut.
On her friend (and favourite guitarist), Stevie Ray Vaughan:
We toured together in '86 and both of us in the next year had gotten sober, so needless to say that was a lot of fun, that last tour, but we’ve been friend and followers and friends with a lot of the legendary blues artists. So we were friends for the first bunch of years and then I was so sad when he passed away within a few years. He’s one of the greatest people - as well as singer and guitarist - I’ve ever known.
On the current political situation in America:
I think the younger generation is really motivating in a way, with Bernie Sanders doing as well as he did and on the other side of the spectrum I think the people who supported Trump... he is going to disappoint them, he promised a lot of things that were really pie in the sky. We are very upset about it - at least i am - and to each his own, but democracy is threatened when you start calling the press the enemy.
