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16
Ampersand
December, /V79
Red-headed Rock e3
By Judith Sims
44 A combination of music and politics is
something I’ve been dreaming about for a
long time/’ Bonnie Raitt says earnestly. Her
dream is suddenly a reality, a major media
event: Raitt was a driving force behind the
recent MUSE (Musicians United for Safe
Energy) anti-nuclear concerts in New York
City which drew 286,000 people to 6 shows
and earned nearly half a million dollars for
the various no-nuke factions. Raitt is now
off on her first tour in more than a year to
help nudge her 7th Warner Bros, album, The
Glow, higher up the charts — and, at the same
time, spread more no-nuke sentiments;
she recently finished a brief appearance in
)nhn Travolta's next film. Urban Cowboy;
and it all this weren't enough to keep her
happv. she owns a nice house in the Hol
lywood Hills, her love life is strong and sta
ble. she just turned !f(l, and she looks
terrific — slim, trim, blue-jeans chic. la«ok
out world.
But the anti-nuke campaign is upper
most in her mind and conversation these
days, a subject she's been discussing
nonstop for the* past several weeks. “I’ve
been doing benefits for years, but this is
the first time I helped organize one." she
says, putting on a gee-whiz face. "I looked
around that airplane and there were 80
rock and rollers on theii way to New \btk.
and I looked at jac kson [Browne] and said,
‘We did it. this is really going to happen.’"
Those concerts were the Monterey h»pof j
the movement, foeusing national attention j
on the ever-growing fear of meltdowns in |
our backyards, nuclear waste underfoot,
radiation in the air and water, doom wait
ing everywhere. “Humanity is the issue,"
Raitt says simply. " This movement appeals
to Democrats and Republicans, young
people and old people. When we first
started organizing, we were told that we'd
never get all these different radic al groups
to cooperate, work together, but they did.
Maybe because the artists organized it. it
has more credibility. If these various
groups want the money, they’re gonna
have to get along," she says, shaking her
finger teacher-style.
"It turned my life around, even though
I've Ih*c*ii political all my life. We all had an
emptiness in our lives, we were having a
genet ally good time, but because of the
coming together on this issue, it's made
everybody's lives better. I'm much more
disc iplined. The response from other
musicians has been unl>elievahlc. Sud
denly we're grow ing up, all these* inde|H*n-
dent politicians, rock and roll |>eople. ac
tivists, scientists and artists, never in the
history of the civilized world has there
been an alliance like this." She says all this
in a rush of words; while she's c learly said "
all iK’fore, her conviction is appaient.
When the war in Viet Nam ended, thcic
were no more major causes, nothing that
could unify our country. Hundreds of
thousands of people were out there with
the training, the desire for a cause, for
something todoand believe in. Three Miie
Island handed it to them. "We've worked
with |M*ople lot alls; the res|M>nse ail across
the country is overwhelming," Rain says.
The success of the New Not k concerts was
so gratif ying, so enroui aging, there* w ill no
I doubt Ik* more of them in other pl.u cs. ()n
a less grandiose scale. Rain's own concerts
w ill have tables in tile lobbies doling out
anti-nuke information.
Raitt's activism has been a constant
throughout her career —the result, she
says, of being raised a Quaker. “I was
taught that you shouldn't lie working just
for yourself , you shouldn't just woik for
your own sat is fact ion.” The idea was, and
is, to help others, and her commitment to
this ideal is not limited to her muuv benefit
performance*. “I’m interested in a more
c impel alive way of organization among
music iaus — ( kmI, tb.it makes it sound like
I'm a Communist — instead of all these*
musicians having theii own independent
studios in their own houses, their own
buses, max be tliex should get together and
use eat h other’s, liaxc a rommunitx . I'd
also like to luxe a production companx. to
find musicians who aren't having an easy
time in the business now, and give* them a
c hance to make a record."
Some commercially astute industry ob
servers might have thought Warner Bros,
was taking a chance* on Rail! back in 1972.
Untried, unfainous, daughter of one of
Amcric as most successful musical comedy
stars, |ohn Raitt. she was a cute redhead
with freckles and a wholesome smile who,
incongruously, sang de bloozc and placed
guitar just like-a ringin' a liell. lowdown
slide guitai and finger picking with the
dexterity ol a lacemaker. She is prohahlx
the l>esi female guitarist in this country, or
this business, or both. Ilei choice of music
sometimes seemed to dic tate her person
ality of the moment, from intelligent white
rock & roll by Jackson Browne, Joni
Mitc hell and Raitt's hast Coast friends Joel
/oss. F.ric Kaz and Chris Smither. to the
tough and easy country blues, black music
f rom Sippie Wallace, Fred McDowell. Mis
sissippi John Hurt. Half of the time Raitt
was a haxxdx IxMizer, the* other halt she* was
a bright, committed responsible artist. But
whatevei she was, she never seemed too
impressed with herself. T.vcn now, she
points out the zit on her forehead in a
photograph, laughs at her “sausage-roll
arms" and c asuallx remarks," I have always
hated mv voice; I like it more now, it's
deeper, everybody's voice gets better in
time. I don’t consider mxself a great artist
in the* league of Jac kson Browne or Joni
Mitchell; it doesn't farther me. it’s an art to
Im* able to interpret other peoples songs."
Although she savs “I'd lather In* oil the
road than oil," Raitt has some definite
goals in mind tight now, and they don’t all
inc lude anil-nuclear activities. She's out
there piomoting her new record, the first
produced by fYter Asher (hitmaker for
James Taylor, also an anti-nuke activist,
and Linda Ronstadt). Raitt wants a bit.
Her recent appearance in Urban Cow
bin — she plays the girl in the band at the
Texas niglitc lub w here Travolta shakes his
stuff — was more c alc ulaled. "I did it just to
gel some money for the movie I want to
make a I unit me and Sippie. you know [this
delivered in a singsong Imrcd debutante
voice): ”... two strong independent
women, their friendship crossing racial
and generational lines..." Sippie Wallace is
the black Detroit woman whose bolster-
ously sexx songs Raitt recorded on her first
two albums: "Woman Be Wise," "Mighty
Tight Woman," "V»u (.ol to Know How.
Wallace's songs, perhaps more than ans
others, characterized Raitt's good-time,
letVhit-the-booze-and-then-the-sack ear
lier image But Wallace is now HI years old;
" lime is running out." Raitt says. She needs
alNNit $-100,000 to make* the film, a mints
cule budget by llollxwood standards, but
no one bas come up with the cash yet. So
Raitt wants a bit ifcnrcl, a movie, anything
that will let her get Wallace's movie made.
"But I wouldn't do a disco song just to have
Roll Rabble Router