ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 8, 1995 TAG: 9512080026
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: LARRY McSHANE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rock star pretensions? Bonnie Raitt - despite 11 million records sold and eight Grammys in the last six years - has none.
When word comes that the kitchen at her Manhattan hotel is closed, she doesn't rant or rave. ``Forget about it,'' Raitt says sweetly. ``I've got water.''
A look-alike hotel worker then stops by. ``I get a lot of people saying, `Do you know you look like Bonnie Raitt?''' the woman tells her. Raitt smiles and quickly replies, ``You're much prettier.'' (She lies, by the way.)
No tantrums? No brush-off for fans? Is this any way for a multiplatinum, chart-topping guitarist to behave? Absolutely, says Raitt, who mates a '60s sensibility with her '90s success.
Three times a week while touring, she holds post-show benefits for local groups - posing for pictures or shaking hands with local activists. She's fighting to get better royalties for veteran R&B singers. She invites Planned Parenthood and food banks to set up booths at her shows. She stands up for her beliefs, both musical and political.
``If somebody wants to argue with me about Planned Parenthood and food banks, excuse me,'' Raitt says bluntly. ``Adopt a crack baby and shut up, you know?''
Twenty-four years after her first album, the 47-year-old Raitt has completed the record she's always wanted to make - ``Road Tested,'' a live double-CD with 22 songs (six of them new) and cameos by pals like Jackson Browne, Bruce Hornsby and Bryan Adams.
``Waiting any longer for a live album would have been ridiculous,'' says Raitt. ``It seemed like the right time to do it, and I had the clout to put out a double record.''
That wasn't always the case. There were record label problems, and a drinking problem and a lack of commercial success.
Things changed after the daughter of Broadway star John Raitt got sober in 1987. She began collaborating with producer Don Was. Her career took off with the release of ``Nick of Time'' in 1989. Two more multiplatinum albums followed, along with an armful of Grammys.
``Getting sober opens your heart up, and it's a life change,'' says Raitt.
``If I had written `Nick of Time' in 1982, I don't think there would have been a radio station that would have played it,'' Raitt reflected. ``The '80s were a good decade to be high through, with my politics and the way radio was.''
For Raitt, one of rock's first anti-nuclear activists, politics are still important. She can discuss the Clinton administration or the current music scene with equal aplomb - and while she's impressed by Liz Phair and Alanis Morrisette, Raitt is not as pleased with the president.
``I'm very disappointed on the follow-through on environmental commitments that he made during the campaign, the human rights commitments - especially China,'' Raitt says.
Her personal activism includes work for the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, which raises consciousness and money for great R&B musicians of the past. Raitt helped found the group six years ago; one of her causes is getting better royalties for older artists.
Typically, Raitt talks the talk AND walks the walk. Ruth Brown and Charles Brown, two R&B veterans, sing with Raitt on the live album's ``Never Make Your Move Too Soon.''
Working with such friends - Hornsby plays on ``Thing Called Love,'' and Adams wrote ``Rock Steady'' as a duet for the album - was another part of the fun around the live album.
``Bruce and I - it really is like family now,'' she says. ``I'm a complete, stone Hornsby fan. I just think he's the most incredible musician I've ever heard.''
As for her own family, Raitt's been married for four years to actor Michael O'Keefe. Although they have no kids, Raitt says each of her albums is a kind of vicarious childbirth.
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Bonnie Raitt doesn't let her success spoil herby CNBsensibility. color