Arts & Lectures
2005-2006 Performing Arts Season News Release
For Immediate Release

January 3, 2006

UCSB Arts & Lectures presents brilliant singer/guitarist Bonnie Raitt and her band at the Arlington Theatre

Summary Facts:

The incomparable Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Bonnie Raitt will perform with her band on Tuesday, February 14 at 8 pm at the Arlington Theatre, 1317 State Street, Santa Barbara. More than a best-selling artist, respected guitarist, expressive singer and accomplished songwriter, Bonnie Raitt has become an institution in American music. Raitt’s music, perched between impeccable pop and blistering slide-guitar blues, according to Billboard, “always manifests an uncanny ability to articulate the joys, pains and longings of love.” The San Francisco Chronicle asserts that “what makes Raitt so special is she crawls inside songs and lives them each time she sings.”

This stop in Santa Barbara is part of the nine-time Grammy-winner’s tour in support of Souls Alike, her eighteenth album and the first self-produced record in her career. Raitt says about the release: “After this many albums and hundreds of songs, you want to find new things to say, new ways to say them. For me, one of the most exciting aspects of what I do is hearing some hidden part of myself reflected back in the songs of someone else. It’s why that connection to artists we love is so deep. And then the alchemy of the band and I finding a way to make these songs our own—that’s what keeps me coming back. Like prisms reflecting back on each other, we’re souls alike.”

USA Today raves about the CD, “Full of poignant ballads and rootsy romps, Souls draws on Raitt’s defiance, grace and earthy authenticity, allowing her to stretch stylistically without crowding the signature attractions of her brandied vocals and stinging slide guitar....It’s got soul, grooves, heat and sass. All the Raitt stuff.”

In between albums and family matters, Raitt keeps up her customary busy schedule, often doing 100 dates a year. Capitol Records released The Best of Bonnie Raitt, featuring hits such as “Something to Talk About,” “Thing Called Love” and “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” in the fall of 2003. She also guests on numerous outside projects—the total is now over 100 recorded collaborations in her four-decade career—recently including duets on two Grammy-winning albums (Toots & the Maytals’ True Love and Ray Charles’ Album of the Year Genius Loves Company) and playing guitar on a track on the new Stevie Wonder album A Time to Love.

Raitt is almost as well known as a social activist as a musician. She has campaigned to stop the war in Central America; participated in the Sun City anti-apartheid project; performed at the historic 1980 No Nukes concerts at Madison Square Garden; co-founded MUSE (Musicians United for Safe Energy); and worked for environmental protection and for the rights of women and Native Americans. In 2004 she was a co-headliner alongside Jackson Browne and Keb Mo’ on the historic “Vote for Change” tour. She is continuing the Green Highway eco-partnership she began on her Silver Lining tour promoting BioDiesel fuel, the environment and alternative energy solutions at shows. She also co-founded the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, which works to improve royalties, financial conditions and recognition for R and B’s pioneering artists.

In 2003 she participated in Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed PBS series The Blues, performing two songs in the Wim Wenders’ film The Soul of a Man, and joining the all-star cast of Lightning in a Bottle, the live feature concert film on the Blues directed by Antoine Fuqua.

Born to a musical family, Bonnie is the daughter of celebrated Broadway singer John Raitt (Carousel, Oklahoma!, The Pajama Game) and accomplished pianist/singer Marge Goddard. Raised in a climate of respect for the arts, Quaker traditions, and a commitment to social activism, Bonnie started playing guitar at age eight. Exposure to the album Blues at Newport 1963 at age 14 kindled her interest in blues and slide guitar. Time at Harvard in the 1960s led to her getting immersed in the Cambridge area folk and blues scene so that it was no surprise she was soon opening for legends like Son House, Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker.

Warner Bros. released her debut album Bonnie Raitt in 1971. Her interpretations of classic blues by Robert Johnson and Sippie Wallace made a powerful impression, but the presence of intriguing tunes by contemporary songwriters, as well as examples of her own writing, indicated she would not be restricted to any one pigeonhole or style and established what would become the pattern of her career. For as she claims about Souls Alike 24 years later, “A lot of my life’s eureka moments came when I heard people like John Prine, Fred McDowell or Paul Brady. And now I’ve found a new crop of songwriters that I connect with just as deeply.”

Bonnie Raitt is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures and sponsored by the Santa Barbara Independent, KLITE Radio, Haagen Printing and the Metropolitan Theatres Corporation. Tickets are $65 and $45 for the general public and $25 for UCSB students who must show valid ID at ticket purchase and the evening of the show. $125 VIP tickets include a post-show reception with Ms. Raitt to benefit Arts & Lectures’ education outreach program. Ticket prices are subject to facility and convenience fees. Tickets are on sale now and can also be purchased at the door, if still available.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535,
or the Arlington Ticket Agency at (805) 963-4408.

Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.

©2006 UCSB Arts & Lectures, University of California, Santa Barbara