Bonnie Bishop

"Texas native Bonnie Bishop is one of those artists that you will no doubt remember the first time you heard her. I know I will. She’s got a little bit of Raitt, Judd, and Nicks all combined in her style, but she is very much her own artist. She exudes confidence all over this album... It’s too bad that pop radio doesn’t embrace such a blues-oriented sound, because if this were 1990, she could very well give Raitt a run for her money." - Chuck Dauphin

"Her music shows her Texas roots, spanning the spectrum of styles from blues to gospel to singer/song writer to honky-tonk...pleasantly raspy voice...a voice with built in personality...There is a ring of truth and authenticity." - Bob Gottlieb

"Bishop’s new album, 'Free,' is...a lean, seven-song collection highlighted by the title track, a gospel-tinged confessional about redemption and reawakening... It’s easily one of the finest records of the year." - Joey Guerra

10 intriguing tracks: Best Songs Come From Broken Hearts, Bonnie Bishop. Bonnie Raitt recently cut Bishop's Not 'Cause I Wanted To. On this track, Bishop's wracked-soul delivery puts her in that Bonnie's league." - Brian Mansfield

"These performances capture her raw, gospel styled vocals and blues based rocking in story songs like the Bob Seger inflected 'Bad Seed' and the gritty, heartfelt tomorrow-is-a-better-day ballad 'World Like This.' Get ready to sway your arms in the air with lighters held aloft for the gutsy piano based title ballad, a tune crying out to be covered by one of the American Idol wannabees. There are plenty of reasons why Bonnie Raitt covered Bishop’s co-write with Al Anderson on her new album, and all of them are obvious on this short but powerful set. It’s filled with rugged material that reverberates with the passion of the singer’s personal triumphs over adversity." - Hal Horowitz

"Another Bonnie — Raitt, that is — cut an eloquent regret ballad that Bishop co-wrote with Al Anderson. And Bishop returned to doing her own thing with newfound verve. On her new album 'Free', she sounds like the gospel-fired sister of Grace Potter. Of the two of them, it could be argued that Bishop’s drawing deeper from Janis Joplin’s blues-shouting, rock ’n’ roll well at this point. But the redemptive lift of Bishop’s latest songs strongly implies there’s no need to fear she’ll meet a similarly tragic end." - Jewly Hight

"...an album that might just put a well-deserved national spotlight on her delightfully smoky and raspy voice, (think Delbert McClinton with estrogen) thoughtful lyrics that live in the human heart, and musical arrangements that make everything sparkle...a remarkable collection of personal tunes from a singer with a fresh, enthusiastic approach...Bonnie Bishop has rare musical gifts: The ability to express deep emotional experience in her lyrics, and a voice that delivers them right to your experience." - Jim White

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Bonnie Bishop, Bonnie Raitt, Girls With Guitars, Jack Inrgram, Slipstream
You may not be super familiar with Bonnie Bishop but you will be after she performs KILT’s first annual Girls With Guitars hosted by Jack Ingram.

KILT invites you to join us for an acoustic performance in the round from up and coming Nashville and Texas-grown female singer/songwriters on Thursday, July 12th at the Arena Theater featuring Jana Kramer, Lauren Alaina, Katie Armiger, Jaida Dreyer, Marlee Scott, The Rankin Twins and Bri Bagwell.

After a successful career on the Americana and Texas music circuits including four albums, critical acclaim and a nomination for Vocal Performance of the Year at the Lone Star Music Awards, Bonnie came off the road and moved to Nashville to pursue a songwriting career. She married and divorced during this touring hiatus, only to write her way through the heartache and find fortitude and faith among her instruments. “Not ‘Cause I Wanted To,” a song resulting from this period, was cut by her musical hero Bonnie Raitt for her new album, Slipstream, released in April of this year. - The Bull 100.3

After being covered by big name artists like Bon Iver and Adele in 2011, blues icon and 9-time Grammy-winner Bonnie Raitt is ready for her comeback.

On April 10, Raitt will release Slipstream on her new label, Redwing Records. The album was recorded with Raitt’s long-time touring band. Guests include producer Joe Henry, Bill Frisell, Paul Brady, Maia Sharp and NRBQ’s Al Anderson. The first single is a cover of Gerry Rafferty’s “Right Down The Line,” with a new reggae arrangement. The album finds Raitt covering two songs from Bob Dylan’s 1997 album Time Out Of Mind — “Million Miles” and “Standing In The Doorway.”

“I’m so inspired and so proud to continue these traditions, whether it’s reggae or soul or blues,” says Raitt of the new album. “I’m in the slipstream of those who came before me, and I’m leaving one for those behind me.”

Slipstream Track Listing:

1. Used To Rule The World (Randall Bramblett)
2. Right Down The Line (Gerry Rafferty)
3. Million Miles (Bob Dylan)
4. You Can’t Fail Me Now (Joseph Lee Henry/Loudon Wainwright III)
5. Down To You (George Marinelli/Bonnie Raitt/Randall Bramblett)
6. Take My Love With You (Gordon Kennedy/Wayne Kirkpatrick/Kelly Price)
7. Not Cause I Wanted To (Al Anderson/Bonnie Bishop)
8. Ain’t Gonna Let You Go (Al Anderson/Bonnie Bramlett)
9. Marriage Made in Hollywood (Paul Brady/Michael O’Keefe)
10. Split Decision (Al Anderson/Gary Nicholson)
11. Standing in the Doorway (Bob Dylan)
12. God Only Knows (Joseph Lee Henry)

- By Evan Schlansky, American Songwriter

There are two ways to carry old practices forward: Preserve or adapt. Both approaches have their ups and downs. Mere preservation can turn something hard, laying on the sheen of authenticity that masks death within. Adaptation can dilute a thing's essence so thoroughly as to render it unrecognizable.

The most skillful practitioners of a tradition — the blues, for example — swim between these two lanes with a fluidity which belies the thought and effort that makes their work so smooth. Bonnie Raitt has been doing this since 1971, when she emerged as a redheaded hope for a musical style that had already been co-opted by many an overblown classic rocker. With a voice as buttery as grits and a remarkable capacity for playing bottleneck guitar, Raitt quickly earned her place on the dais with forebears like Sippie Wallace and Howlin' Wolf. But she also had a great pop sense, finding kinship with contemporary songwriters like Jackson Browne.

Fast forward more than four decades, and Raitt still moves forward with grace and substance, showing how the blues remain relevant, both to her personally and in the larger world. Slipstream is the guitarist and singer's first release since 2005, inaugurating her label, Redwing. It represents a regrouping after Raitt's loss of both parents, her brother and her best friend, and was inspired by her own struggle to reclaim the private life she'd given to her music, as well as the larger American crisis of the current recession. Produced mostly by Raitt herself, with four outstanding tracks helmed by master of atmospherics Joe Henry, it's warmly contemporary, while still strongly rooted in the blues moods and techniques that Raitt has always treasured.

Slipstream provides plenty of the many-sided adult-contemporary pop that made Raitt a huge star in the late 1980s with hits like "Something to Talk About." Chosen with Raitt's usual impeccable taste from the cream of her songwriting circle (including Randall Bramblett, Paul Brady and Al Anderson), the bulk of Slipstream serves Raitt's lifelong project of expressing how blues idioms apply to the life of the modern woman. There's a reggae take on Gerry Rafferty's yacht-rock favorite "Right Down the Line;" Bramblett's "Used to Rule the World," a sidelong glance at the American Dream that Sharon Jones would love; an almost Western ballad about fame and drugs, "Marriage Made in Hollywood" (Brady's original sounds more Irish); and Anderson and Bonnie Bishop's perfectly despondent "Not Cause I Wanted To," a modern rambling-woman's blues that allows Raitt to demonstrate her unmatchable gift for making regret beautiful.

In all of these songs and more, the production sounds clean and intimate, while the guitars — Raitt's, Anderson's and tourmate George Marinelli's — take up as much room as the vocals. This is a plus. Raitt's chops are subtly honed and her responsiveness to her bandmates turns Slipstream into a rewarding group dialogue. The talk gets most serious, though, in the four songs Henry produced, three of which also feature electric Zen masters Bill Frisell and Greg Leisz.

It's simply a thrill to hear Raitt in her element, exchanging guitar licks and lines with Frisell and Leisz. Two Bob Dylan covers, both culled from 1997's Time Out of Mind, allow the musicians to wax cinematic on basic blues forms. Henry's own "You Can't Fail Me Now," co-written with Loudon Wainwright III for the soundtrack to Knocked Up, gains a gospel flavor here. This is preservation as quiet, personally driven innovation, with new shades of meaning shot through familiar phrases.

In these evocative moments and throughout Slipstream, Raitt and her fellow players never break a sweat about fitting in with current pop trends; they're doing what they love, and it's utterly relevant because it represents their well-considered lives. Raitt's gift for expressing emotions on a real, human scale is what makes her so beloved. On Slipstream, she takes on some of the hardest, and she doesn't fail us now. - By Ann Powers, NPR

Bonnie Raitt is the Fairy Godmother of songwriters, turning dreams into reality one song at a time. And last Saturday night at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium—where a city of hopeful and accomplished tunesmiths filled the pews of the Mother Church—her magical powers were on full display.

A week into the tour for her flawless new release, Slipstream, Bonnie brought it home to the people she has championed for over 40 years and 19 albums—all the songwriters she claims changed her life. But any writer will tell you the other side of that equation: When Bonnie chooses one of their songs it’s an unequaled validation of their work, and the trajectory of their life is forever changed.


After strolling onto the stage with her Fender strat slung across her chest, Bonnie sprinkled her funky, bluesy, soulful fairy dust all over the new batch of songs, never failing to give a shout-out to the writer before the first note was played. She tore into Randall Bramblett’s “Used to Rule the World,” then sent the album’s single, “Right Down the Line” up to the late, great Gerry Rafferty. Hit songwriter “Big Al” Anderson, a cult icon from his NRBQ days, weaves in and out of Slipstream with his guitar-playing and songs co-written with Gary Nicholson (“Split Decision”), Bonnie Bramlett (“Ain’t Gonna Let You Go”) and newcomer Bonnie Bishop, to whom Raitt gave a shout-out before delivering the gorgeous “Not ‘Cause I Wanted To.”



Bob Dylan got a nod with “Million Miles” and “Standing in the Doorway” (“…That Bobby Dylan. Yeah, I think he’s gonna make somethin’ of himself.”), as did her ex-husband, Michael O’Keefe, who co-wrote “Marriage Made in Hollywood” with the great Paul Brady. The album’s co-producer, Joe Henry, contributed the bluesy ballad “You Can’t Fail Me Now,” written with Loudon Wainwright III, as well as the breathtaking closing track “God Only Knows.” Nashville’s Gordon Kennedy and Wayne Kirkpatrick (of “Change the World” fame) along with Kelly Price contributed another album highlight, “Take My Love With You.”

Sharing the stage with her family of band mates (guitarist George Marinelli, bassist Hutch Hutchinson, drummer Ricky Fataar and keyboardist Mike Finnegan), Raitt kept it loose, huddling with the guys on several occasions to mess with the set list (“Just talk amongst yourselves” she laughed.) She congratulated Marinelli’s son, Sam, who graduated from Vanderbilt the previous night and then launched into “Down to You,” a song she co-wrote with Marinelli and Bramblett. Afterward she passed the spotlight to Mike Finnegan and his B3 for a lesson in how to serve up R&B with a side of holy hot sauce on his rousing version of Ray Charles’ “I’ve Got News for You.”



In addition to the new tunes, Bonnie delivered favorites like Bonnie Hayes’ “Have a Heart,” “Something to Talk About” (“I had a cassette of Shirley Eikhard’s in a box for a long time waiting to record this song.”), and “Angel From Montgomery” which she dedicated to John Prine and his long-time manager Al Bunetta, as well as to her late mother and grandmother in honor of Mother’s Day (“I can’t talk too much about them because I’ll get choked up”). Her delivery on that classic was absolutely stunning and earned her first of several standing ovations of the night.

The evening’s highlight came with her first encore: the Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin-penned “I Can’t Make You Love Me.” Citing it as—along with “Angel From Montgomery”—the biggest gift of her career, she dedicated it to Reid who was in the audience with his son. It was a perfect few minutes, with Bonnie sitting on a stool bathed in lavender light, pitch perfect and hitting all the right notes. The audience was rapt and silent until she drew out the high notes on “and I will give up this fight,” making it all but impossible not to cheer her and this timeless song across the finish line.



The night ended with a couple of blazing 12-bar blues shuffles after she called on old friend Rick Vito who hoisted himself onstage to grab a guitar and join her, followed by an impromptu Steve Winwood-penned “Can’t Find My Way Home” —the perfect choice for someone who had so clearly found her way home to the Nashville songwriting community and given it the gift of an unforgettable evening.

After the show Bonnie’s friends gathered upstairs for a quick visit and a few hugs. She happily greeted Songwriting Hall of Fame member Matraca Berg and her husband Jeff Hanna of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Irish vocalist Maura O’Connell, Pat McLaughlin, Gary Nicholson and Al Bunetta. Mike Reid, after talking about what a moment it was when Bonnie sang “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” stood with his arm around her and told her it was something he would never, ever get tired of.

Then Raitt saw newcomer Bonnie Bishop hanging back behind everyone else. With a big smile she walked over and hugged her as Bishop told her how much the evening meant, and that she cried throughout the performance of her song. The lo - By Lydia Hutchinson, Performingsongwriter.com

BONNIE RAITT started her new album, “Slipstream” — her first since 2005, and her first on her own label, Redwing — last year in a basement in South Pasadena, Calif.: at the home studio of the songwriter and producer Joe Henry.

The studio has low ceilings, exposed brick and stone walls, casual floral-patterned chairs and prized vintage instruments and microphones close at hand. Some of the sound-absorbing foam in its closet-size vocal booth, where Ms. Raitt sang, is the packing material with gramophone-shaped cutouts that cushioned Mr. Henry’s three Grammy awards.

It was a homey spot to get a new perspective on her music. Ms. Raitt, 62, was easing back into a career she had paused — a career, as it enters its fifth decade, with enough loyal fans to sell out midsize theaters across the United States and abroad. She met me in late March for an interview in a North Hollywood rehearsal studio, as her longtime band was setting up to practice.

Steeped in the blues — she dropped out of Radcliffe to hit the road alongside mentors like Mississippi Fred McDowell, Sippie Wallace, Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker — Ms. Raitt has never been bound to any genre. She has been an occasional songwriter — “because I have high standards,” she said — and a discriminating interpreter, wading through countless demos and oldies to find songs like “Love Has No Pride” and “I Can’t Make You Love Me.”

In the 1970s she built a following concert by concert, as pop radio largely ignored her. Warner Brothers, which released her first album in 1971, dropped her in 1986. Just three years later she started a streak as a multimillion-selling, Grammy-winning singer at Capitol Records with the albums “Nick of Time” (1989), “Luck of the Draw” (1991) and “Longing in Their Hearts” (1994). Her Capitol contract ran out in 2005, and while Ms. Raitt had plenty of offers, research persuaded her to start her third phase with her own label.

“I know that CDs sell less and less, and I’d rather have more of a piece of it,” she said. “I like to have my freedom. Nobody ever told me what to play or when to come out with a record or who to work with. But it’s best to have it really be on my terms.”

At this point “I don’t have to worry about having a hit or not,” she said. “If I can sing, even if I couldn’t play guitar, I could probably get a gig. Or I could play guitar if I couldn’t sing.”

Through the years Ms. Raitt has been a scrupulous musician with a conscience, supporting human rights, feminist and environmental causes and playing countless benefit concerts. Her tour bus is powered by biodiesel; her album packages use recycled material and soy ink. She has a custom purple Larry Pogreba resonator guitar made of salvaged wood and recycled aircraft aluminum, with a big round metal R (for Raitt) that was a 1951 Rambler hubcap. Principle has not come cheap; the environmentally conscious package of “Luck of the Draw” cost her 33 cents per unit, on an album that sold seven million copies in the United States alone. “But I was proud to do it,” she said. “I got karma.”

After a 2009 tour with the bluesman Taj Mahal and a performance at the 25th anniversary concert of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — she was inducted in 2000 — Ms. Raitt gave herself a yearlong hiatus for the first time since the mid-1990s. She suspended a routine of steady touring, telling her band, “I need to take a break till I get an appetite for it again.”

It wasn’t entirely a vacation. Ms. Raitt was also dealing with the estates and belongings of her older brother, Steve Raitt, who died in 2009, and her father, the actor John Raitt, who died in 2005. She also, she said, “did a lot of work on myself during the break. I got taken to the bottom and built myself slowly, learned about some things, let some feelings come out. I hope it shows in my voice. It would be crazy to go through something like that and not have come out of it a little deeper person.”

She was appreciated anew during her absence. “I Can’t Make You Love Me” (written by Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin, and first recorded by Ms. Raitt on “Luck of the Draw”), was revived by both Bon Iver and Adele, who gushed to a concert audience, “I think it’s just perfect in every single way, and she’s got a stunning voice.”

As her band set up for rehearsal, Ms. Raitt, with her trademark mane of bright red hair and white forelock — “this Pepe Le Pew thing,” she called it — was in a plaid shirt and blue jeans, looking forward to polishing some 40 songs, new and old, for the tour she starts in May, including shows at the Beacon Theater in New York on June 20 and 21.She had wanted to resume touring with a new album. And for that she needed the fresh start of the sessions at Mr. Henry’s home studio as catalyst and experiment. She tried to keep them a secret — in part, she said, because “I felt like I was cheating on my band.”

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Arts Twitter - By John Paraelis, New York Times

Bonnie Raitt claimed she was “intimidated” by the Chicago Theatre, but that hardly seemed the case Saturday in the first of two sold-out concerts at the Loop landmark.

Raitt’s wisecracks, several at her own expense, and genial banter made it seem like she was unwinding in her living room with a few close friends. Indeed, she and her road band of 25 years have a camaraderie that bleeds into the music. “Sometimes we just guess,” she cracked as she tried to determine the proper key for a song. “Then it’s jazz.”

That’s pretty much how they treated a deep dive into Bob Dylan’s “Million Miles,” a blues turned sullen and sultry. Raitt finger-picked an acoustic guitar as though she were tracing a bead of sweat as it migrated from forehead to chest at the end of a blistering day. Drummer Ricky Fataar and bassist Hutch Hutchinson kept the pulse almost subliminal, more felt than heard. Guitarist George Marinelli and keyboardist Mike Finnigan darted and dodged with solos that made the most of a minimum number of notes. It was an exquisite ensemble performance that made a virtue of underplaying. As Raitt and her bandmates lowered the volume, the song’s temperature rose, pulling the audience closer.

This band was right at home covering Ray Charles’ 1950s jazz-soul classic, “I’ve Got News For You,” with Finnigan overplaying his vocal a bit, but bringing the sanctified fervor on Hammond organ. They mixed and matched musical idioms with conversational ease, from the reggae treatment of Gerry Rafferty’s “Right Down the Line” to the West African feel of the guitars in “Come to Me.” Raitt’s touch on slide guitar remains peerless, playing it slow and sensual in the Rafferty tune and weaving surreal harmonics through “Have a Heart.” On “Down to You,” Raitt briefly rested her head on Marinelli’s shoulder and smiled as the two dueled toe to toe.

The red-headed singer also reaffirmed her ability to examine emotional intimacy and distance in song, the moments that test the resilience of a relationship. She has long been associated with roots music and blues, but another hallmark of her 41-year career is her keen ear for lyrics and her generosity in spotlighting under-the-radar songwriters. On Saturday, she highlighted the work of estimable if marginally publicized talents such as Joe Henry, Jon Cleary and Bonnie Hayes, among others.

There was one clunker: “Marriage Made in Hollywood” sunk beneath its finger-pointing sanctimony. Raitt's best social-political commentary was an off-hand remark on the bulked-up police presence outside the venue in response to anticipated protests of the weekend's NATO summit: "500,000 police and a few hundred protesters -- that's a good use of public funds."

Raitt was at her best on songs of everyday heartbreak, especially her stunning a cappella first verse to John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery" and her wrenching account of a guilt-ridden phone call in Al Anderson and Bonnie Bishop’s “Not Cause I Wanted To.” The latter was essentially an acoustic duet between Raitt and Marinelli. The rest of the band was there, but barely. Raitt loves to share, but on this song, she had everything covered.
- By Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune

Singer/songwriter Bonnie Bishop and local favorite Wild Mountain will take the stage at Durango’s Buckley Park as the Alpine Bank-Community Concert Hall “Concerts in the Park” free music series continues on Thursday, July 19, 2012, 5 to 7:30 p.m.

Nashville-based Bonnie Bishop originally earned a strong following on the Americana and Texas music circuits, but in recent years she has focused her efforts on songwriting. Self-described as an “underdog at heart and in her career,” Bishop has now returned to the road in support of her soon-to-be-released album Free. Her soulful compositions and raspy voice, reminiscent of Bonnie Raitt or Lucinda Williams, are said to “shake your core, lift you up and bring you back around to the bright side.”

Said singer/songwriter Robert Earl Keen, “Her music washed over me with a purity and soulfulness that is rarely found in this world of noise. Afterwards when I was walking home, I could still hear Bonnie’s songs in my head…and for the first time in a long time, I felt like I was in tune.”

Durango-based Wild Mountain is an acoustic string band known for its unique blend of original bluegrass and Americana music that focuses on life “West of the 100th Meridian.” The band is a rich blend of musical styles featuring the husband and wife team of Brad Bartlett and Estella Moore on guitar, fiddle and vocals. Their original songwriting is the heart of Wild Mountain and it mixes traditional and regional “mountain music” with engaging historic, social and environmental themes.

The band is rounded out with Rusty Charpentier (bass, vocals), a music major at Fort Lewis College where he is mastering violin and numerous other stringed instruments, and Mark Epstein (banjo, dobro and vocals). Epstein was a member of the former bluegrass band, The Badly Bent, winners of the 2005 Telluride Bluegrass band competition.

No tickets are required for “Alpine Bank and Your Community Concert Hall present Concerts in the Park,” and no established seating will be provided at Buckley Park. Patrons are asked to bring their own chairs or blankets. Picnics are encouraged as no concessions will be available.

Buckley Park is located in the 1200 block of Main Ave. (between 12th and 13th Streets) on the north end of Durango’s historic downtown. Alpine Bank of Durango and the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College launched the free summer concert series to make live music more accessible to a broader community audience. “Concerts in the Park” continues on up-coming Thursdays, July 26 and Aug. 2, 2012.

The Community Concert Hall is a not-for-profit, multi-use performance venue located on the campus of Fort Lewis College. Its ability to bring a diverse spectrum of shows to Southwest Colorado is made possible through a partnership with the college, a state-supported, independent institution of higher education, and financial and in-kind contributions from generous members of the community.

Employee-owned and operated, Alpine Bank has been a part of the Western Slope of Colorado for 39 years. With 37 convenient locations, they serve over 130,000 customers with retail, business, trust, asset management, mortgage, and electronic banking services. Many of the employees and managers have been with Alpine Bank for 10 years or longer. This dedication allows Alpine Bank to build long-term customer relationships. In fact, much of the original Board of Directors is still with the Bank, including Chairman Bob Young.
- PagosaDailyPost.com