The List

Clear blue sky, temps for April, only slightly cooler at night with a breeze.

Bought used Bonnie Raitt CD: "Silver Lining." Been a long time since I'd bought one of hers -- mid 90s, I think.

It was 1975. All you had to do was ask. There was this guy at college who had a good album collection, and -- if he invited you to -- would let you listen to any of them while he wasn't in. I guess he had an ulterior motive, but he had a private room as a kind of proctor (they used a different word then) and, as long as he knew you were there, you could just walk in and start playing a record (This was a different era, readers -- a very different era.). The ones I liked most of his were his Bonnie Raitt records -- he had all of her early work (which was her current work, back then) and I just loved listening to that beautiful lady's passionate voice sing the blues and -- then, uniquely, for the era -- play them just as well on slide guitar. Her song selection was excellent, and her delivery actually told you the songs, like a griot unveiling an ancient legend to your untutored ears. So sweet, so powerful.

Fast forward about ten years. I'm out of the newspaper business, working in a record store. I worked with a pal who was a maniacal "singles" collector -- singles being those little vinyl records with just one song on each side -- and a recording industry maven in general. One day, he came walking toward me, almost staggering, exclaiming in real horror: "They just cut out Bonnie Raitt! Bonnie Raitt!! Just cut her out!" I thought some violence had taken place, but when I got my friend calmed down, he explained: Bonnie Raitt's record label at the time had not only declined to renew her contract, they also removed her name from their back-order catalog. The Bonnie Raitt records sitting in the bin of our store would be the only records that store, or any other, would ever be able to get from a distributor. For a label to "cut out" an artist meant the end of their recording careers. Major labels rarely re-signed an artist that another label had "cut out."

This was an era when major labels owned the recording process, because the production of vinyl records was expensive and complex, so much so the production process was considered something of a "black art." A few minor labels existed, but they only signed radical artists like Black Flag or Husker Du and had very limited distribution. At our store (and other major chains), these "indie" records were kept in their own section, well away from the majors.

I heard nothing from Bonnie Raitt for a year or so, until I moved to another town and got a job running a comic book specialty store. I didn't have a lot of money (familiar story), but I did manage to get to one concert that spring. Bonnie Raitt was playing this place that had been a tobacco barn, converted into a smallish concert hall with sawdust on the floor and draft beer served in plastic cups. Bonnie and the band played their hearts out -- a real big-city concert going on right in front of your nose! Unheard of in tobacco town, or any other place like that (this was still the era, though waning, of stadium concerts for major-league musical talent). Bonnie filled out her jeans a little more than she did before (or since), and she clearly had the look on her face of one undergoing a struggle. But her music did not show it -- she was superb to watch and to hear. Another artist opened for her -- a strange, unknown songwriter from Texas with a bizarre "angular" haircut that stuck straight up on one side, apparently without hair gel! He was so stage-shy that he sat partially behind a speaker, so that, even though I was pretty close to the front, all I could see of him was the top of his odd haircut. The stage lighting was muted in blues and purples, and when he finished, he asked if there were any audience requests! One came, which I could not hear -- the singer stood and thanked the man as if he'd just saved his mother's life, and then sang the requested song he wrote: "Closing Time." His name was Lyle Lovett.

Fast forward another year or two: I'm living at my parents' -- trying to learn broadcast journalism at a tiny radio station, part time. When I could, I'd switch on the music channel (not MTV, still then a cable "add-on") and see what was new. Bonnie Raitt had a new label, and a new CD, and a neat-looking vid. I forget the name now, but it was her "comeback" record that sold millions of copies, with several hit songs. She's recorded I guess a good dozen CD's since, and has a stellar music career. Once, she was a 70s folk blues artist from the Woodstock era with only one Top Ten hit, a cover of "Runaway." Who'd been cut out by her old label.** Now ... .

It just goes to show you: the majors can do what they want, but they can't stop the power of the blues. Or that of a survivor. Ever.

OK, just one footnote: Bonnie is said to have learned her craft from a bluesman known as "Mississippi Fred" McDowell (he pronounced it Old Southern style: MAC-dowel.). One of the records I bought while I was a newspaperman was his I Do Not Play No Rock and Roll. He had a kind of rap at first on one of the tracks, in which he says the blues began as a "reel." It was something I could not figure out: a reel? You mean a dance? Yes, a West African little girls' ring-a-rosey dance: the only music that slaves were allowed to play. But something in that music held transformative power. And it still does today. 

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*A check on a popular books-and-more webseller shows that I Do Not Play No Rock'N'Roll (title spelling is correct this time) remains available as remastered CD, original sessions CD and original sessions mp3 download. It is considered one of the greatest blues recordings in history.

**I posted this the next day: "Bonnie Raitt's single "Runaway" (a cover of a Del Shannon song) only hit number 57 in the US, and she has recorded eight albums so far with her current label. What my online research also reveals adds more to the story, but makes it all the more remarkable. I forgot she'd released an album with her old label in 1986, some two years after I'd heard she'd been "cut out" of that label's catalog. Seems this album was the end of a contract, and its perceived quality was the subject of a dispute. She re-cut part of it, and the label released it around the time I heard her in concert in tobacco town. It didn't do too well, but (I'm surmising here) its release might have been enough to re-instate her back catalog with the label, only this time on CD."
LJ orig.: 01/06/07