(upbeat music)
- I kinda felt like I was prepared for a show.
I don't usually get this fancy on the show.
- It's pretty rocking.
- Thank you, I know, I like it.
I feel like you would wear especially this belt.
(audience cheers)
Yes, I like the belt.
How are you doing?
- I'm really excited to be here.
- I'm very nervous that you're here.
(Kelly giggles) - You are?
You're so seasoned, though.
- No, literally, like you and Meryl are my...
That's my (Kelly sings). - Oh, God.
- Yeah, so they're like my favorite so-
- Look at these outfits.
- I know we're very '80s.
(audience applauding)
- So great.
- Okay, so congrats on the Lifetime Achievement Award.
- Thank you, thank you. - That was this month.
- Yeah, the Grammy's. - That's amazing.
That's so cool's.
It's getting that kind of stuff-
Is it weird for you-
Do get up there and like,
I mean, I can't even imagine being you
getting up there, winning that kind of award
and thinking of all the amazing things
that you've been a part of, that you've done,
that you've helped people.
- Yeah, it's pretty amazing.
And because we're going out on tour,
and I'm not hanging up my spurs yet.
- I know, I love that. (crowd clapping)
- It's really nice to get it now.
- We're very excited
- Was made the Staples.
- I know. - Right now.
- My hero.
- We literally were texting about it last night
and I was like, what?
I was gonna ask you
who are some of you're like heroes musically?
- Well, Mavis absolutely the Staple Singer
from the time then they were backing up,
Dr. Martin Luther king.
- Yeah. (audience applauding)
- And speaking of eighties how about,
well, classic of all time Aretha Franklin.
- Oh my God, I love that. - (audience applauding)
- Ray Charles.
- Yeah
- But Whitney for eighties, man.
Whitney and you know-
I mean, there's just so many
and for roots artists like me and Delbert McClinton
and Little Feat and people like that,
it was a rough decade on them
'cause they weren't playing our kind of music on the radio
until the end of the decade.
And it was just by the time Nick of Time won
people went, "Wow."
That's just all kinds of music mixed into one.
- And that's why you're one of my favorites.
Like I- - Thank you.
- And that's Linda Ronstadt that's one of my favorite.
I just love any artist that's like-
Doesn't pigeonhole themselves
because that's my favorite thing about music
is I love country music and I love pop, I love so...
I grew up on Nirvana, I grew up on everything.
- I know, I love it too.
That's one of the reasons I love you
because you're really- - Oh, thank you.
(audience applauding)
- Thank God, I get it from you.
I love that-
- But I love (mumbles).
- Oh my God, me too, me too.
I'm just talking with Bonnie Raitt.
Don't worry about America.
We're back with Bonnie Raitt, this celebration of the 1980s
because it's my birthday week.
So you, I heard that you briefly worked with Prince
in the '80s.
Is that correct? - I did.
I did Prince called me up and said,
"Hey, you weren't treated right.
"Come on over to Paisley Park.
"Let's make a record together."
- I love that. (audience applauding)
- And I said, if we can meet in the middle,
I don't necessarily wanna do a whole Prince thing
and you don't wanna do a Bonnie Raitt thing.
So- - Yeah.
I had a ski accident and fell on my thumb
and had to be in a cast for two months.
So I had to postpone working with him.
- This is why I don't work out.
(all laughing)
- And then I was like, 35, 40 pounds heavier.
And I went, "If I do a video with this guy,
"if song works and it's really sexy,
"I gotta do something."
I said, "I gotta work on this."
So I used the cast as an excuse to lose weight.
And I just, I said, I better quit drinking too,
because it gets in your 30s
that you put on pounds a lot easier.
- I I've noticed.
(all laughing)
- So I ended up hanging out with some friends of mine
that were sober and I went, "You know what?
"This feels really good."
So I lost 20 pounds before I worked with Prince.
(audience applauding)
- I love it.
That's what did it.
- And that's kinda what did it
'cause I was so terrified of being in a video
with him and not like looking
and saying all that sexy stuff to me and going,
"I don't think this people are gonna believe that."
(audience laughing)
- I have to ask this because I didn't know
that you had like a bagpipe phase.
- Oh my God, our family is Scott.
Our family is Scottish roots.
- Okay, but a lot of people have Scottish roots
that don't play the bagpipe (laughs).
- But I really love the sound of bagpipes.
- It's beautiful.
- I got on a consignment.
- Yeah.
- Thrifts, whatever you call that?
- Yeah. - The sh...
When you get used stuff, the newspaper.
You remember those?
(all laughing) - I do.
- And it was for sale and I bought 'em.
- Yeah.
- And I asked I in my college paper,
I advertised in the want ads for anybody
that knew how to blow.
- Yeah. (all laughing)
- And then it said like this "Bagpipes" underneath
and that was my ad.
- Oh my God, I was like,
"What kind of results happened after?"
- And then I got, I said "know how to blow bagpipes,
Freshman wants to learn".
But my- - Freshman wants to learn.
- And my housemates at my dorm they wouldn't let me learn.
'cause it just sounds like someone's being strangled.
- It's was so loud.
- Yeah, oh it's terrible.
- Yeah.
- Really bad. - But it is beautiful.
- And I was like passing out from,
I didn't have the air to blow through that thing.
- To sustain, yeah. - Yeah.
- Yeah, it seems hard.
- I like it but too hard.
I know it was too hard for me,
I'm glad I stuck with the guitar.
- I think we all are.
Yeah. - Thank you (laughs).
(audience applauding)
- I think I was a solid decision.
So wait, is this 21?
This album, is it number 21?
- Yes, number 21.
That's amazing.
(audience applauding)
So what out of all the albums
what do you feel like makes this one different?
- Well, I wanted to write,
I was really inspired by, especially
because we lost John Prine this last year to COVID
and I love his story songs like, "Angel from Montgomery"
and Donald and Lydia and Jackson Browne's early records.
I love that simplicity
of a finger picking song telling a story.
So this record has a couple of mine on there
that are a third person kind of story taking
on the character of somebody else besides me.
- Yeah.
- 'Cause I really find-
- Which is fun 'cause you can go-
- Mind all my personal life already and I-
(Kelly laughs)
- In the first 20.
- Yeah, exactly. - Yeah.
- So that's different from me.
I went back to my roots
kinda just played folk guitar and sang these story songs.
And then I wrote a rocker that's,
to my guitar player's track
that was just too good to give up.
I had to play dual guitar with him
and I wrote a song for what all the people we lost
even for the ones who didn't make it.
- Yeah, so wait, what's the story behind the title track,
"Just Like That".
- "Just Like That", I was watching the evening news
and sometimes they have a human interest story at the end
and they said, "Oh, we're gonna follow this woman
"to the house of the man
"who received her son's donated heart."
- Oh wow.
- And they followed her into the house
and he said, just sit down.
He said, "Would you like to put your head on my chest
"and listen to your son's heart?"
And I lost it.
I just lost it.
And I was so moved by the story
that I ended up writing a character
and writing a song about what it would be
like for both those people.
- Yeah. - To experience that.
(audience applauding)
- Oh my God, what a line?
- Yeah, oh my God.
(audience applauding)
- That's so incredibly sad, but beautiful at the same time.
- And that's how I feel about it.
- Yeah. - I mean,
we need stories that really open your heart
in these difficult times.
- Yeah.
I can't let you leave this room without talk...
I know I've mentioned it to you before but your,
I can't express to you what happened inside of me
when I heard...
I love "Love Me Like a Man" on the regular version.
But the live version specifically, like on your thing,
it'll be like "What your favorites are,
"what you've listened to most?"
And you're like, "That is literally my favorite."
It's that one. - Thank you.
And "I Never Loved a Man" by Aretha Franklin.
Those are my two I listen to the most,
- I love that's my favorite song of hers too.
- That's my favorite song.
- My other, if I could only have one song,
that would be the one.
- That's my favorite
- Oh, my God, that's I love...
Oh, I know that's why we relate-
- Those are my two.
- We're like sisters. - I'm telling you, I'm fine.
- But I love that live version.
Thank you so much.
- It is literally just so amazing and so soulful and so raw.
It's just so good.
- Thank you.
- And honestly too,
I'm gonna say this is no shade to anyone,
but it's also you're from a time too.
Like people had to be able to be amazing live.
You know what I'm saying?
Like. - Yeah.
(audience applauding)
You, it wasn't a time
when you could digitally fix everything.
It wasn't and that carries over and it's just such a lesson.
Like I was just talking to my stylist, like "You performed
"I don't figure what would show it was we were watching."
And you got on stage and it was like, "Well."
And that's how you were supposed to do it everyone.
- Oh, sweet.
- Like it was like, it literally is.
It's like, you just, you sound amazing live
and that's not true for everyone,
not throwing shade at anyone.
I'm just saying that's what it is and-
- Well, I didn't sell a lot of records the first 20 years
and then even with "Nick of Time" was like a little blip
of a couple of albums that did well.
But I knew if I just did every show really good
that people would keep coming to see me.
- You know what?
That's so true.
Everybody's always worried about winning awards.
And my thing is like,
I don't really care about winning the award.
I just want the performance slot
because I just wanna prove exactly what I can do.
That's it.
- I'm totally with you because I mean
give me a live show and I'll prove what I'm.
- Yeah, that's what...
Yeah, there's something that happens in us.
I love that.
- So thank you for appreciating that live version
because it's-
- It's amazing.
- Thank you.
- And that just doesn't exist.
I don't feel anymore with artists, so...
but wait, are you looking forward to getting back out there?
'Cause I know a lot of artists are,
cause everybody's been on hold for like two years.
- Two and a half years since we had a live.
Last week was the first warmup shows.
First audience I heard in two and a half years.
- Does it feel good.
- Oh my God, I was like-
- Yeah, you feed off of it.
- I mean, it was the first time
I'd sung "Angel from Montgomery"
since John passed and-
- Oh wow.
"I Can't Make You Love Me" was like transcendent
and I've got a couple of new guys in the band
and I hadn't seen my guys
until we got in the studio last June to make my album.
That was a long after 50 years on the road
to have that much time
without playing in front of people.
- 'Cause I also think people don't realize
like your band is like your second family.
You see them sometimes more than your actual family.
- Yeah.
- So that's a really big hole of isolation
like especially for a creative person.
- Well, it's a good thing we have texting
and sending- - FaceTime-
- Dog pictures and everything.
- Yeah.
Anyway, Bonnie is for forming later in the show,
so stick around.
Her new album is called, "Just Like That"
and it's out tomorrow.
You can also go online to find tickets for her tour
which is happening right now.
You gotta go check her out,
'cause not many artists sell like this live people.