CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Good things have been coming fast and furious for Bonnie Raitt during the past couple of years.
In 2022, she received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as an Icon Award at the Billboard Women in Music Award. Her Grammy-winning 1989 album, “Nick of Time,” was also added to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry.
Then there’s her latest album, “Just Like That...,” her 18th overall and first in six years. It spent 12 weeks at No. 1 on the American Radio Album Chart, then won three Grammys at the 2023 ceremony, including the prestigious Song of the Year for the album’s title track, which also snagged Raitt a trophy for Best American Roots Song.
“People keep coming up and saying, ‘I couldn’t believe the expression on your face when you won Song of the Year,” says the 74-year-old Raitt, who performs Saturday at the Akron Civic Theater. It was indeed a surprise that night as “Just Like That” bested tunes from Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar in the category.
“I wasn’t expecting by any means to win, and it reminded me of 1990 when I wasn’t expecting it and (‘Nick of Time’) won Album of the Year. When they mentioned my name it was the same jaw-drop, I’m sure. I was really surprised but thrilled the record has had the response it’s had.” Equally exciting was that it was presented that night by First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, appropriate for Raitt’s history as a political and environmental activist over the course of her nearly 50-year recording career.
The song itself, meanwhile, was inspired by a news story Raitt saw about a woman meeting the man who received the heart she donated after her son passed away. “Y’know within five months Joe Biden announced the overhaul of the organ donation system, which has been broken for decades. I learned about that when I first put the song out,” says Raitt. “It was just a bureaucratic nightmare, so if something came out of that, I’m really heartened.”
She’s been equally surprised, meanwhile, by the many things have happened during these past two years.
“None of that was expected,” says the Burbank-born Raitt, whose father John Raitt was a Broadway actor and her mother, Marge Goddard, a pianist. Raitt studied at Harvard University’s Radcliffe College and became part of the Boston folk club scene before being signed to a recording contract in 1970. In addition to the music -- and hits such as “Something to Talk About,” “I Can’t Make You Love Me” and John Hiatt’s “Thing Called Love” -- Raitt’s history of activism includes co-founding Musicians United for Safe Energy (M.U.S.E.) in 1979.
“It’s like, wow, just the timing of it all. I knew I was gonna release the record after the Grammys (in 2022), and all of a sudden they called me in December, and it was unbelievable. And then the other stuff...
“I mean, listen, none of us expected when we were 20 that we’d be rocking this hard when we were in our 70s. And then I look at Tony Bennett and B.B. King and Mick (Jagger) and Keith (Richards) and Paul McCartney...There’s no sign of slowing down, artistically and energetically. We all got the message that if we were lucky enough to be taking better care of ourselves...we could keep doing this.”
These days Raitt, who has 14 total Grammys to her credit and a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2000, is pursuing a couple of missions as she maintains her music. The activism remains strong, though Raitt is judicious about talking politics during her concerts. “We’re all so anxious and depressed and upset at the state of politics and the world, concerts are there to uplift everybody with the music,” she explains. She does, however, provide table space for non-profits and grass roots organizations in the concourses and lobbies of the venues she plays.
On the musical tip, Raitt feels a particular charge to not only play her songs but to expose other songwriters -- including on six of “Just Like That’s...” 10 tracks -- and to champion the likes of the blues artists and other composers, notably mentor and friend John Prine, whose “Angel From Montgomery” is “one of the five or six songs I have to play every night or they’ll run me out of town.”
“When I was unknown there were people like Jackson Browne and James Taylor and Cat Stevens and Muddy Waters and the blues bands I opened for who helped put me on the map,” Raitt says. “So since my first album, my dream and my mission has been to turn people on to songwriters they wouldn’t ordinarily here and might not have, kind of, a singing voice but allow them to have a hit record -- especially with the blues and R&B pioneers who never got paid because of unfair record contracts.
“What I love to do is mix up the different styles. I like to find some jewel of a song that matches my style and do my own interpretation of it and then maybe help it get heard more than it might otherwise.”
Raitt is not hazarding a guess about her next musical move, however. She plans to be play live during the remainder of the year, explaining that, “As long as I still have my marbles and my chops I’m gonna stay out there on the road, ‘cause it’s just too much fun...and it gets boring when you’re a home too long.” She did perform a duet for Little Feat’s new album, “Sam’s Place,” and has recorded something for an upcoming Fabulous Thunderbirds 50th anniversary project. She’s also filmed interviews for a number of pending documentaries, including one on occasional touring partner Mavis Staples.
As for a follow-up to “Just Like That...,” Raitt notes that “after 21 records I’ve kinda been there and done that. So I’m not in a hurry to put out a new album.” She does, however, hold out the possibility of releasing an occasional song at any point she writes or finds something she wants to record.
“My level of standards does not diminish as I get older,” Raitt says. “And it’s wonderful to represent all these different genres of music, especially roots music, and also to be a optical activist and a woman lead guitar player and a band leader -- those four things all together are part and parcel of why I think people are recognizing me, not just ‘cause I sing. I think it has to do with who I am as an artist and a person, and that makes me feel really good.
Bonnie Raitt and James Hunter perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 22, at the Akron Civic Theatre, 182 S. Main St. 330-535-3179 or akroncivic.com. Raitt and Hunter also perform Tuesday, June 25 at 7:30 p.m. the Stranahan Theater, 4645 Heatherdowns Blvd., Toledo. Tickets and other details via ticketmaster.com..
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