Eric Clapton

Great Guitarists #17: Bonnie Raitt

Great Guitarists

Now more than ever, the world is a busy place. In the age of social media and being reachable in one form or another virtually anywhere in the world, we find our time is filled up with ever-newer demands on our attention. Yet classic musical genres like the Blues remain a steady fixture, especially in the guitar-o-sphere, be it as the rediscovery of BB King and his compatriots by each new generation, or the influence of blues guitar in the apparent resurgence of the guitar solo in modern chart music.

I’ve certainly had a busy summer, although in my case it was a few months full of gigs, including in some new and interesting locations (which I will tell you about in an upcoming post). But now things have settled back into something resembling a normal routine – or as normal as any freelancer’s life can ever be – it’s time I returned to the Great Guitarists series, and returned to the Blues. This time, we’re sticking with the Blues to honour one of the greatest slide guitar players in the history of guitar: Bonnie Lynn Raitt…

Raitt performing live in the 1975 (l) & 2012 (r)

Born in California in late 1949 to a musical family, Raitt first picked up the guitar at the age of eight and continued learning songs throughout her teens. She gravitated to a slide guitar technique early on, although she still viewed music as a hobby while going to study Social Relations and African Studies at University (that’s college for American readers). Indeed, she planned to work in Africa after graduating, but a road trip to Philadelphia and some early gigs backing Mississippi Fred McDowell started Raitt on the path towards a career in music which has seen her win fifteen Grammy Awards and become one of the very few elder stateswomen of the Blues.

Her eponymous debut album was released in 1971 to critical acclaim at a time when women generally weren’t praised for the guitar playing. Following a tradition set out at the very start of Rock’n’Roll by Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Raitt’s playing earned the respect of her peers, and wider public recognition followed in 1977, with the commercial breakthrough of her sixth studio record, Sweet Forgiveness. Since then, despite periods where she’s taken time out to deal with addition health and personal issues, Raitt has maintained a steady release of records and continues to perform and record to this day.

Slide technique

Raitt learned about “bottleneck” playing from old blues records, and started with a glass bottle, inspired by slide legend Duane Allman. She has admitted her technique is a little unorthodox, since she wears her slide in her middle finger, rather than the little or ring fingers, which is far more typical.

However, being able to hold her slide between two stringer fingers gives her an element of control that’s sometimes lacking in the majority of slide players who prefer to wear their slides on their ring or little fingers. Also, Raitt is always precise with her movements during her solos. Although the middle finger is a rare choice, it is something Raitt has in common with Joe Walsh (James Gang, The Eagles) and Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top), which is rather good company for her (and me, another middle finger slide-ist) to be amongst!

Equipment

Raitt can be seen in pictures with a variety of guitars, but her most famous tone comes from a Fender Stratocaster she bought in 1969. The single coil pickups help the biting tone of her slide playing to cut through more clearly. She also plays a Gibson E-175 on occasion, and seems to favour Guild acoustic guitars. Amplification can vary, but Raitt appears to use Black Cat combos more often than not on tour, and for added bite, usually has a Rat distortion pedal in her armoury.

Her preferred tuning is Open A (low to high: E, A, E, A, C#, E), which is simply the more common Open G, raised by a whole tone – so if you (like me) often keep a guitar tuned to Open G for slide work (or bashing out Keith Richards style open-tuned riffs), a capo on the 2nd fret saves you having to retune (and intonate) your guitar.

Raitt with her main Fender Stratocaster.

Recommended listening

You have eighteen of Raitt’s studio albums to choose from over her five decade long career, and they each have something to offer in terms of excellent slide guitar tone and a melody-focused soloing approach. As well as previously mentioned successes such as Sweet Forgiveness (1977) her 1971 debut and its follow-up, 1972’s Give It Up, Raitt’s fans rate 1989’s Nick Of Time and Luck Of The Draw (1991) as great showcases of her guitar and vocal talents. Raitt has also appeared as a session musician, performing guitar or backing vocals on records by a range of artists, from Roy Orbison, Aretha Franklin and Bruce Hornsby to Little Feat, The Pointer Sisters, and many more…

It’s also worth highlighting her numerous guest appearances with other Blues greats, from Mississippi Fred McDowell and John Lee Hooker to her fantastic rendition of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Pride and Joy at the tribute concert in his honour (after his tragic death) recorded in Austin, Texas in 1995, alongside BB King, Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton, Dr John and Stevie’s brother Jimmy Vaughan.

Final thoughts

I’ve long admired Raitt, not only for her slide guitar playing, but for her social conscience and lifelong activism, using her voice to speak out about global and environmental issues throughout her career. I also recognise how hard it is to take sabbaticals form the music industry, where the fear of being forgotten, dropped by a record label, and therefore at risk of losing one’s income has driven countless musicians to an early grave. Yet Raitt is on record for speaking about taking time out in the 1980s to properly deal with her alcohol and substance addictions, as well as taking time to properly grieve following family bereavements. This is a good example of taking time for oneself, not just to survive, but to thrive – something too many of us can struggle to do, and indeed be made to feel guilty for.

In this increasingly busy and high-pressured world, perhaps we should all be a bit more like Bonnie Raitt by taking more time to heal when we need it, and keeping our unique voices ringing out about to speak up when it matters – both creatively and socially.

Great Guitarists #16: Freddie King

Great Guitarists

The last of the ‘Three Kings of the Blues’, showing just as much influence on the guitar world as Albert King and BB King, is the youngest of the three guitarists, Freddie King.

Known for his biting tone and crossover appeal, King was one of the electric blue guitar players who influenced the young musicians in the UK. These guitarists (such as Eric Clapton and Peter Green) went on to form the bands of the British Invasion of the 1960s – bringing King’s sound back to the US and eventually raising his profile.

Fred King was born in Texas in 1934 and began learning the guitar from his mother and uncle when he was only six years old. His family moved to the South Side of Chicago when he was fifteen, and he was soon sneaking into the nightclubs to hear the music of the original blues guitarists such as Muddy Waters, Elmore James, T-Bone Walker, as well as other bluesmen like Howlin’ Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson. King was soon performing with his own band and by the time he was eighteen, he acted as a sideman to some of the better-known performers on the Chicago blue scene, such as Little Walter, Jimmy Rogers, Willie Dixon and Memphis Slim.

Despite his apparent guitar talent on he Chicago live blues circuit, King’s initial initial attempts at recordings were either unsuccessful or unreleased altogether, He was also turned down more than once by the city’s now-legendary Chess Records label, allegedly because he singing voice resembled B.B. King too closely. Nevertheless, King proved a popular mainstay on the emerging West Side clubs of Chicago.

Finding success

King eventually signed to Federal Records in 1960 recording his first session for the label in August of the same year. The results of this session yielded King’s first single, Have You Ever Loved a Woman, which charted in the Billboard top 100. From the same session came one of King’s best-known instrumental tracks, Hide Away. Hide Away managed to reach no. 29 in the US pop music charts, an unprecedented feat for a blues record at a time when the genre was still relatively unknown to white audiences. Eric Clapton later brought the song to an even wider audience when he recorded his version as part of John Mayall and The Bluesbreakers in 1966.

King released a steady stream of albums throughout the sixties and early seventies. Sadly, a hard-partying lifestyle, coupled with a relentless touring schedule, led to King’s untimely death in 1976, aged just 42.

Influence

King is one of the notable influences on Clapton’s playing. His style is considered a mix of Texas and West Side Chicago blues, with added nuances to make his guitar solos feel more like vocal lines. Clapton once described playing alongside King as a player who could hide his ‘mean’ lead style under a veneer of subtlety, saying “He’d make you feel at home, and then tear you to pieces” in a ‘cutting contest’ (a friendly guitar duel, usually between two players who greatly respect each other).

As well as Clapton and Peter Green (founding member of Fleetwood Mac), King’s influence can be heard in the playing of Jeff Beck, Mick Taylor (of the Rolling Stones from 1969-74), Lonnie Mack, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jerry Garcia (Grateful Dead), to name just a few.

Many of King’s early instrumentals, such as Hideaway, became popular with surf bands in the early 1960s. This popularity was strong enough for his 1961 instrumental album, Let’s Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King, to be re-released two years later under the new title Freddy King Goes Surfin’.

King’s original 1961 record (left) and the repackaged version from 1963 (right).

Equipment

King used a gold top Gibson Les Paul equipped with P90 pickups in his early recordings, but moved to semi-hollow electrics such as the ES-335 and ES-345 (both by Gibson) later in his career. His bright tone largely came from his simultaneous use of a plastic thumb pick and metal finger pick on his index finger (more commonly used by pedal steel players) coupled with a strong attack in his playing and an amplifier (such as a Fender Quad Reverb) cranked up as loud as it could go.

King with a 50s Gibson LP ‘gold top’ (left), and later, a Gibson 345 (right).

Any semi-hollow (including more budget-friendly options such as this Harley Benton HB35 Plus) or P90 style guitar will help you get in the ballpark for King’s tone, but in theory, even a single-coil guitar with a treble boost (or mild use of overdrive to thicken one’s sound) should get you there. Just be sure to stick to the bridge pickup and really dig in with your right hand. The most important thing is to play like you meant it!

Recommended listening

We’ve already mentioned Let’s Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King (1961), which features many of the instrumentals for which King became well-known. This is the obvious starting point for first getting into Freddie King, much as it was for those guitarists of the original British Invasion of the 1960s. Later albums feature variations on these themes, sometimes with a funkier backing (from one of the first multi-racial backing groups) as record companies attempted to sell King to a newer audience.

King’s albums of the early seventies feel like they’ve had more care put into their production. King signed to Leon Russell’s Shelter Records and his three albums with this label featured a high calibre of well-known and respected musicians backing him up. These LPs also showcase King’s powerful singing voice, which was rarely used on his early records.

  • Getting Ready (1971, Shelter)
  • Texas Cannonball (1972, Shelter)
  • Woman Across The River (1973, Shelter)
  • Burglar (1974, RCO)
  • Larger Than Life (1975, RCO)

There a few useful resources for getting to grips with King’s more typical licks and phrases, such as this guide via Fundamental Changes and the online Guitar Magazine. The examples provided are simple enough to learn. The secret to really nailing these phrases is a strong right hand attack when picking.

I’ll leave you with his version of Sweet Home Chicago, a local anthem in the Chicago blues scene, as well as a standard everywhere else…