BONNIE RAITT: ROAD TESTED (1995)
1) Thing Called Love; 2) Three
Time Loser; 3) Love Letter; 4) Never Make Your Move Too Soon; 5) Something To
Talk About; 6) Matters Of The Heart; 7) Shake A Little; 8) Have A Heart; 9)
Love Me Like A Man; 10) The Kokomo Medley; 11) Louise; 12) Dimming Of The Day;
13) Longing In Their Hearts; 14) Come To Me; 15) Love Sneakin' Up On You; 16)
Burning Down The House; 17) I Can't Make You Love Me; 18) Feeling Of Falling;
19) I Believe I'm In Love With You; 20) Rock Steady; 21) My Opening Farewell;
22) Angel From Montgomery.
From a logical perspective, live Bonnie Raitt
should always be better than studio Bonnie Raitt — less gloss, more energy,
better opportunities to let herself really
go on that slide, in short, everything to celebrate the spirit rather than
worship the form. Which, of course, begs for the question: why wait so long?
Surely a live recording from the old «drunken days» would have captured a
little more fire, not to mention a little higher percentage of good songs?..
The answer is that in the 1970s, Bonnie Raitt
was not as much «part of the machine» as she became with Nick Of Time, and since she did not sell that much, nobody, herself
least of all, probably thought that a live album could help raise any serious
extra cash. But now, with three commercially successful albums in a row under
her belt, a live follow-up would seem like the most obvious thing. Precautions were taken, however — Bonnie Raitt
on her own could hardly have sold as much as Bonnie Raitt and Friends. And if
old-timers like Jackson Browne and R&B veterans Ruth and Charles Brown are
not necessarily going to cut it, then relatively recent chart toppers like
Bruce Hornsby and Bryan Adams sure will.
Even the setlist has been constructed with
almost mathematical precision. Four songs from her latest, for promotional
reasons. Three songs each from Nick Of
Time and Luck Of The Draw — her
biggest commercial successes to date. Three more songs from Sweet Forgiveness, the only album from
her past that could be called commercially successful, to a degree (odd enough,
no ʽRunawayʼ, though). And a small bunch of songs, usually one per album, from
her earliest period when she was still interesting as an individual artist, so
that nobody could accuse Road Tested
of not presenting an accurate
chronological portrait of Bonnie Raitt, all the accents dutifully lodged in
their right places.
Big surprise of the day involves the band
offering a lively take on Talking Heads' ʽBurning Down The Houseʼ, even though
none of the Heads is guesting on the recording (which, by the way, was made on
July 11-19, 1995, at the Paramount Theater in Oakland). The groove is lifted
reasonably well, but Bonnie Raitt replacing David Byrne is a bit like Al Gore
replacing Woody Allen — totally different personalities, and if you take the
vocal atmosphere of irony and paranoia away from the song, the song becomes
pointless. And, with all due respect, you couldn't find an artist less capable of playing absurd character
roles than the totally straightforward Bonnie Raitt. In all honesty, I'd rather
see her doing ʽClose To The Edgeʼ than this.
Anyway, getting right to the bottom of it, the
big deal about Road Tested is that
you get more spontaneity and more slide guitar solos, with ʽKokomoʼ, for me,
being the obvious high point of the show — but honestly, just about every song
from these last three albums is enhanced when you don't have your engineer diligently
smoothing out all the sharp edges. This is never good enough to make me fall in
love with any of these songs (and no spontaneity can save ʽHave A Heartʼ), but
good enough to make me forget for an occasional moment or so just how much
Bonnie Raitt had become the walking/sliding symbol of adult contemporary.
Unfortunately, as soon as Bryan Adams walks out on stage to duet with the lady
on their collectively written ʽRock Steadyʼ, that old nasty feeling kicks back
with all its might. And just how many songs titled ʽRock Steadyʼ does the world
need, I wonder?..
One final moment, though: if you want to try a
bite of this anyway, try to lay your hands on the DVD edition rather than the
one-disc or two-disc CD edition. Somehow, Bonnie's self-assured strutting,
mighty red hair, sexy black outfit, and visual slide technique all seem much,
much more cool than whatever you get from just the audio channels. Much of that
visual image is in common with certain female country music superstars, of
course, but she is still on the bluesier side of things, and at least there
ain't no flag-waving or anything like that. It's also fascinating how her
less-than-stunning looks circa 1972 had paid off so splendidly, as she hardly
looks one day older in 1995 than she did more than twenty years earlier. Totally
stable mediocrity can be worth some respect, too — although in a better world,
Bonnie Raitt might have become the female equivalent of a Rory Gallagher, and
earn herself much more respect than
that. Less money, though.
"Even the setlist has been constructed with almost mathematical precision."
ReplyDeleteThat's a bit unfair. Made in Japan has four songs from the latest, for exactly the same promotional reason. Add the epic that made the band big, a hitsingle and a vehicle for a drumsolo and there you are.
"you get more spontaneity and more slide guitar solos"
*Whistle* Rory Gallagher *whistle* - yeah, the female equivalent would demand a much better world indeed. Million Miles Away, Calling Card ... heck, even a few years before Rory G was mind blowing when he shared the stage with Jack Bruce.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMb_ax9le1o
It never ceases to amaze me that a stage packed with musicians manages to kick less ass than just three talented guys.