One of the interesting things about many of the songwriting giants of late sixties and early seventies roots music is how young they all were even as they penned classic songs that seemed as if they must have always existed, just waiting for someone to hew them from the compositional granite.
John Prine was just 24 when he released the graceful Angel from Montgomery, while the 26 year old Richard Thompson had already shot to fame with Fairport Convention, quit to go solo and released an album with his wife Linda by the time he released Dimming of the Day in 1975. Nevertheless the mature perspective in the lyrics or perhaps their creator’s preternatural talents mean that the songs have aged gracefully and offer their lessons equally beneficently in older hands.
Tonight both of those tracks are given an outing by legendary singer and guitarist Bonnie Raitt.
The 75 year old has done more than five decades in the music business, first as a no-shit-taken rocker then as Grammy Awards fave and now as an elder stateswoman of Americana and a still passionate advocate for both social justice and roots songwriting.
Over an hour and a half set she’ll also show that she can still play a mean slide guitar, leading her crack band through a set that draws on every era of her storied career.
First though is a short set from the absurdly talented New Orleans via Kent pianist Jon Cleary. With tributes to piano icons like Jelly Roll Morton and Professor Longhair, he’s clearly deeply steeped in this music but though he has a likeable stage presence perhaps his vocal talents don’t always match up to his skill on the keys. Still he’d clearly make an incredible sidesman.
From the moment Bonnie Raitt walks onstage she is equal parts charming and commanding, whether it be taking potshots at Donald Trump or plotting to use the time travelling standing stones from Outlander to go back to 1972 and “have some words with some people I dated”.
With her red curls and bootcut jeans she looks like she has for roughly half a century and while her voice has aged a little, it’s only become more expressive and characterful. Bob Dylan and Neil Young could take notes.
Alongside the aforementioned Prine and Thompson covers, she tackles blues singer Sippie Wallace on a stunning Women Be Wise and two tracks from Scots, Annie Lennox’s Little Bird and Gerry Rafferty’s Right Down The Line.
Cleary emerges to play piano for a trio of tracks, lending a swing to Raitt’s bluesy riffs but among an impressive backing band, the standout is South African former Beach Boys drummer Ricky Fataar whose subtle grooves and fills push the band forward without ever threatening to steal centre stage.
Raitt may be too modest to mention it tonight but her most recent record was a critical triumph too, with title track Just Like That defeating Taylor Swift to win a Grammy and slotting into the set comfortably alongside teary classics like Nick of Time and I Can’t Make You Love Me.
Ending her set with the rollicking Love Letter and a romp through BB King’s Never Make Your Move To Soon, Raitt and her band are off on the road to Glasgow, continuing to spread the gospel of her talented songwriting contemporaries and showcase plenty of her own.