She was also a frequent session player and collaborator with other artists, including Warren Zevon, Little Feat, Jackson Browne, the Pointer Sisters, John Prine, and Leon Russell.

[6] Her mother, Marge Goddard (née Haydock), was a pianist, and her father, John Raitt, was a professional actor and singer in musical productions such as Oklahoma!

[15] After graduating from Oakwood Friends School in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1967, Raitt entered Radcliffe College of Harvard University, majoring in Social Relations and African studies.

"[16] In the summer of 1970, she played with her brother David on stand-up bass with Mississippi Fred McDowell at the Philadelphia Folk Festival as well as opening for John Hammond at the Gaslight Cafe in New York.

[18] Raitt began to receive greater press coverage, including a 1975 cover story for Rolling Stone, but with 1974's Streetlights, reviews for her work were becoming increasingly mixed.

She was influenced by the playing style of Lowell George, of the band Little Feat, particularly his use of an MXR Dyna Comp pre-amp compressor with a slide guitar.

Recast as a heavy rhythm and blues recording based on a rhythmic groove inspired by Al Green, Raitt's version of "Runaway" was disparaged by many critics.

"[22] Warner Brothers held higher expectations for Raitt's next album, The Glow, in 1979, but it was released to poor reviews as well as modest sales.

[18] Raitt had one commercial success in 1979 when she helped organize the five concerts of Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE) at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Those shows spawned the three-record gold album No Nukes, as well as a Warner Brothers feature film No Nukes, and featured co-founders Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, John Hall, and Raitt as well as Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Doobie Brothers, Carly Simon, James Taylor, Gil Scott-Heron, and others.

The day after mastering was completed on Tongue & Groove, the record company dropped Raitt from its roster, not being happy with her commercial performance up to that point.

In 1985, she sang and appeared in the video of "Sun City", the anti-apartheid song written and produced by guitarist Steven Van Zandt.

Two years after Warner Brothers Records dropped Raitt from their label, they notified her of their plans to release the Tongue and Groove album.

With her first Capitol Records release, and after nearly twenty years in the business, Raitt achieved commercial success with Nick of Time, her tenth overall album of her career.

"[25][26] At the same time, Raitt received a fourth Grammy Award for her duet "I'm in the Mood" with John Lee Hooker on his album The Healer.

Raitt followed up this success with three more Grammy Awards for her next album, 1991's Luck of the Draw, which sold seven million copies in the United States.

It contains the singles "I Can't Help You Now", "Time of Our Lives", and the title track (a cover version of David Gray's original song).

On March 19, 2002, Bonnie Raitt received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the recording industry, located at 1750 N. Vine Street.

It contains songs from her prior Capitol albums from 1989 to 2002 including Nick of Time, Luck of the Draw, Longing in Their Hearts, Road Tested, Fundamental, and Silver Lining.

concert series, featuring special guests Keb' Mo', Alison Krauss, Ben Harper, Jon Cleary, and Norah Jones.

Raitt is interviewed on screen and appears in performance footage in the 2005 documentary film Make It Funky!, which presents a history of New Orleans music and its influence on rhythm and blues, rock and roll, funk and jazz.

[36] On May 30, 2015, Leon Russell, Bonnie Raitt and Ivan Neville gave a performance at The Canyon Club in Agoura Hills, California to raise cash for Marty Grebb who was battling cancer.

Raitt cancelled the first leg of her 2018 spring-summer touring schedule due to a recently discovered medical issue requiring surgical intervention.

Preceding the album, Raitt released "Made Up Mind", a song originally written by Canadian roots duo The Bros. Landreth, as the lead single.

[46] Describing her as a "master interpreter of other writers’ songs", Chris Hansen Orf of The Arizona Republic note that Raitt is equally skilled at singing blues, folk, country, rock and pop music.

[47] Kevin McKeough of the Chicago Tribune observed that blues has "remained the bedrock of all of Raitt's musical excursions", with her voice alternating between "sigh to a call to a sustained cry".

In 1994 at the urging of Dick Waterman, Raitt funded the replacement of a headstone for one of her mentors, blues guitarist Fred McDowell through the Mt.

Raitt later financed memorial headstones in Mississippi for musicians Memphis Minnie, Sam Chatmon, and Tommy Johnson again with the Mt.

At the Stockholm Jazz Festival in July 2004, Raitt dedicated a performance of "Your Good Thing (Is About to End)", from her 1979 album The Glow, to sitting (and later re-elected) U.S. President George W. Bush.

[citation needed] In 2008, Raitt donated a song to the Aid Still Required's CD to assist with relief efforts in Southeast Asia from the 2004 tsunami.