Name: Bonnie Raitt on Later & Letterman, "Nick of Time," October 1989
Uploaded: 2017-08-29T06:59:11.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Bonnie Raitt on Later & Letterman, "Nick of Time," October 1989' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-08-29. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Bonnie Raitt on Later & Letterman, "Nick of Time," October 1989' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-08-29. Transcript available.

Bonnie Raitt on Later & Letterman, "Nick of Time," October 1989

We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
Are we looking at a mainstream hit here, a big-time mainstream hit?
Well, it's the most airplay I've gotten in a while.
In this decade, with a lot of new wave music and punk music and heavy metal
dominating the airwaves,
that kind of rhythm and blues roots-oriented rock and roll hasn't really found
a place.
I think on the album-oriented rock stations, it's called AOR.
That actually got up there, so I'm pretty pleased.
When your first album, self-titled Bonnie Raitt album, came out in the early 70s,
video was not a factor.
Now, regardless of what kind of record it is, if it's going to sell, if you're
going to reach the people you're looking to reach,
you have to not just make a video.
It's got to be an effective video.
Yeah.
I mean, I was nervous about it because I can be one kind of presentation and
come off and be comfortable in a live situation
because I've been doing it for 20 years.
But when that camera comes up close, especially if you're not a youngster, you
know,
you get kind of nervous there being on MTV right next to some hot dance mama,
you know.
So I rectified that by getting Dennis Quaid to star as my validity and, you
know, have someone to play off of in my voice.
A shrewd move.
Yeah.
I mean, frankly, I mean, who better would you want to play off of for a whole
day of shooting?
Me personally?
I have a different choice.
Well, he was great and he coached me a lot and made me laugh a lot and leered
at me just enough to make me not nervous.
Am I dating myself when I say, I'm not talking about teeny bopper top 40 stuff,
but I'm talking about the sort of rhythm and blues based rock and roll you're
fond of
and that comprises a good portion of your repertoire.
Isn't that, by and large, a whole lot better than most of what's on the radio
now?
Or am I just fossilizing at age 37?
I think that those of us that, you know, you tend to like the music that you
grew up around
and Motown and Stax Volt and Aretha Franklin and the Beatles and the Rolling
Stones
and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
Those kind of groups are the stuff that I grew up on as well as the blues and
folk music influences.
So I tend to like the people I like then if they're doing good work.
But I also think that there's a lot of great new stuff out.
Nana Cherry and the Fine Young Cannibals and Melissa Etheridge and the Judds.
I think there's some good stuff.
You just have to wade through it and find out what you like.
I think that sometimes the bottom line in the record business these days,
selling as many albums as you can disenfranchises some people like myself or Ry
Cooter
or people that do music that's kind of fringe, more roots-oriented music.
We're not in it for the tonnage, you know.
We're in it for a select group of people that want to hear what we do.
Who were your heroes when you were 9, 10, 11 years old, started picking your
first chords on a guitar?
Odetta and Joan Baez were it for me and then Peter Paul and Mary and Bob Dylan
on the folk end.
And I really liked John Lennon and the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
I remember my parents were very upset when I liked the Rolling Stones.
But I tried to then encourage me to like the Beatles again because they were
more wholesome.
I can remember that as, you know, 64, 65.
At first, the Beatles were sort of looked upon as harmless.
Yeah.
They were like these nice boys.
Because Ed Sullivan always said they're very nice boys.
He tried to reassure all the adults.
I spoke backstage with these boys.
Even though their hair is a little long, they're fine boys.
They're not shaking their hips like that Elvis guy.
But there is no question that when Mick Jagger and Keith Richard showed up with
the Rolling Stones,
there was no sugarcoating this.
Yeah, and my mother looked at the album cover and, you know, they were in my
room.
I think that that's when people all over America, the Beatles, went up in stock
with parents,
which made us, of course, like the Rolling Stones even more.
And then, of course, I started liking all these old black blues singers who
were singing about stuff
that I wasn't even supposed to know about.
And so they were pretty confused at that point.
But my heroes were Aretha Franklin and Tina Turner, you know, all back then.
Of course, your parents had a musical background of their own, but it certainly
wasn't rock and roll or rhythm and blues.
That's for sure.
Your dad, John Raitt, famous Broadway performer.
Yeah, he was an original leading man in carousel and pajama game.
I got to meet Doris Day, who was another hero of mine, because she didn't wear
any makeup over her freckles when she was shooting Pajama Game.
Yeah, they were pretty perplexed when I was singing this stuff.
I mean, it's one thing to be musical.
It's another thing to be singing songs that were written before those songwriters.
They were singing songs.
Is there any one moment you can think of when your parents had to come to grips
with the fact that little Bonnie was up there on stage doing something a little
bit different than carousel or pajama game?
Yeah, I invited them to my first gig at the second fret in Philadelphia in
about 1969.
I was 19, and one of the songs I opened with, and I didn't even think about it
until they were out there,
and right before it was Willie Dixon's song, I'm built for comfort, not for
speed, and I got everything all you good men need.
I went, what am I doing?
I was pretty embarrassed.
I think they were, too.
But they understood.
They know me now.
It ain't going to go away, because it's in me, and it's got to come out.
Do they take great satisfaction?
Yeah, my dad is still busy on the road doing Shenandoah and South Pacific.
He does the white-haired roles now, and he's still robust and handsome and
sings better than ever, as far as I'm concerned,
and is really happy to see me getting kind of a new resurgence of interest,
because it's always frustrating.
I get very loyal towards him.
If people don't appreciate him, I get real upset.
And I'm sure that in the 80s, when I wasn't getting the best deserving
attention,
I'm sure there's times when he wanted to go into Warner Brothers with a
baseball bat and shake him up a little bit.
But, you know, you pick this for a living, it's not something parents encourage
their kids to do,
because it's so unfair, and it's kind of brutalizing.
You know, you can work really hard and be pretty talented and not go anywhere,
or you can just be a flash in the pan and be washed up in a year,
or you can be, you know, no talent and get to the top.
How easily can your belief in yourself be shaken by various forms of rejection?
If your records don't sell, even though, obviously, there was always a period
of time where people wanted to see Bonnie Rae.
If your records don't sell, or if one out of ten reviews is not just critical,
but is harsh and personally hurtful,
how easily can that throw you off stride?
Yeah, that coupled with the fact that doing this for a living for a woman makes
it hard to maintain relationships that are healthy with,
you'd have to have a certain kind of man that isn't intimidated by a woman who's
independent and successful.
And it's, well, for me, you know, in my mid-30s, it was a pretty brutal time to
be dropped by my label,
and I had a bad love affair, and my rock and roll lifestyle seemed to be
catching up with me,
and I was looking at more and more gigs on the road to keep my head above water
financially,
because I didn't have the support of the record company or any airplay, really.
And next thing I knew, I just kind of let my health go, and I let the partying
take over,
and I kind of lost a sense of myself, even though that moment on stage,
I would never do anything to jeopardize my fans liking what I did,
and I really respect their paying to see me and supporting me all those years.
But afterwards, my self-esteem just, I drowned my sorrows in the classic way,
and I'm sure, you know, I know my folks and my friends were concerned,
as are all of us when we see somebody kind of lose their way like that.
It's a brutal business to be in, but I'm also very aware of how lucky and pampered
we get to be
and overpaid a lot of the time.
That was part of what I was getting to with Nick of Time.
Was it kind of a lifeline?
Well, the song, Nick of Time, was, you know, the title of the album was called
that
because really none of the other titles lent themselves,
but also because it's a song about, it's a centerpiece of the album,
and it's one that I wrote after not being able to write anything for a while.
It represents a clarity of maturity that came with, you know,
I got straight a couple of years ago, two and a half years ago,
and I've been pretty much living a healthier, more positive lifestyle.
So I had to do something or else I just would have been beaten down completely.
So I think this whole record represents a coming out of a dark period for me.
So I think it was that decision to get some help that was in the nick of time.
The album was just the fruit of it.
Yeah.
When you say get straight, drugs, alcohol?
Drugs, alcohol, you know, the whole...
The whole gala.
I mean, I have fun now.
I just don't, I'm one of those types that just had to cool it, you know.
I mean, you can do things recreationally for a while,
and then after about 15 years,
I found that my whole generation of rock and rollers
pretty much had to take another look at what we were doing
because it really started to take over.
And I really don't miss it at all.
You hear this is an old story these days,
but I mention it because I think it's important for people to know
you can still be funky and funny and have a good time
and be as sassy and as sexy as you want to be
without having to be artificially fueled to feel like that.
Just when I thought I had another
and all my tears were shed
No promise left unbroken
There were no painful words and said
You came along and showed me
I could leave it all behind
You opened up my heart again
You opened up my heart again
And that much to my surprise
I found love, baby
I found love, baby
I found love, baby
I found love in the name of time
I found love, baby
I found love, baby
And I'm a walking in the rain
I'm a walking in the rain
I found love, baby
I found love, baby
I found love, baby
I found love, baby
Oh, I'm a big gal. You know why? You can wait. And I wonder if you will stay
right away.
When you do songs, as you have throughout your career, that are covers of
classics, when you cover Joni Mitchell's stuff, or James Taylor's stuff, or
when you do Del Shannon's Runaway, do you hear from the original artists?
Yeah, I actually, Del Shannon really likes my version of Runaway. Even though,
as it was, it was really inspired by Love and Happiness by Al Green.
I mean, that groove was, that was the groove that was just killing me at the
time, and still does. And I was just playing around with that guitar change one
day and started singing Runaway.
Next thing I know, we put it on the record, which was probably the most
successful record I've had up until this last one.
And Joni and James were friends of mine and really liked that. Joni, one time
when I was really young, played Midway, that song about the Midway, at the Troubadour,
and she stood up and applauded out of the audience.
You know, I didn't even know she was there, so I was pretty thrilled.
Talk about some real verification there.
Yeah, I was really nervous to attempt something.
Have you ever heard from anybody, or heard of, within the business, somebody
hearing from the original person who said, you have butchered this thing, you
have ruined my life?
Brutal.
No, I haven't heard any negative stuff, you know. Thank goodness.
I'm pretty careful with what I try to cover.
I mean, if somebody, you know, I may sing an Aretha Franklin song here and
there for fun in my sets as a tribute, you know, just because it's such great
music.
But, boy, I mean, I'd certainly never try to put it on a record, I don't think,
unless 