A Famous Gift for Giving

It’s not enough to mention talent when talking about Bonnie Raitt, who will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tonight in New York. There’s also integrity.

Many stars occasionally lend themselves to high-profile charities, but Raitt has done hundreds of concerts for environmental and other social issues. She also has been active in the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, which has lobbied for compensation for early blues and R&B; figures who got little or no royalties for their influential work.

Though her father, John Raitt, was a Broadway musical star, Burbank native Raitt fell in love with the blues as a teenager. She made several admired but modest-selling albums in the ‘70s and ‘80s for Warner Bros. Her commercial breakthrough came in 1989 with “Nick of Time,” her first Capitol album. The collection sold more than 4 million copies, thanks in part to the exposure she got when “Nick” won a Grammy for album of the year.

On the eve of the Hall of Fame induction, Raitt, 50, spoke about awards, her musical approach and some of her own heroes. Also scheduled to be inducted tonight: Eric Clapton, Earth, Wind & Fire, the Lovin’ Spoonful, the Moonglows, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole and record executive Clive Davis. In addition, five musicians will be inducted in a new sideman category.

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Question: How do you feel about tonight’s induction? Do you think it will have the same impact on your life and career as the Grammys?

Answer: The Hall of Fame is a great thrill, an honor that I never expected. I could go tomorrow and I will already have accomplished everything I dreamed about. But the Grammy Awards for “Nick of Time” changed my life. It was an incredible validation by my peers, and winning the four awards slapped me on the front page of the paper kinda like a Cinderella. Until then, I hadn’t really been in the mainstream in terms of radio airplay or press.

Winning those Grammys and having a hit record also meant I could be more effective for some of the causes I espouse and raise money for organizations that do a lot of good. When I talked after that about the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, for instance, someone would actually print it. When I wanted to elect someone to Congress who was an environmentalist, I was able to draw enough attention to the race to actually help him get in. Those are very satisfying things.

There were also trickle-down effects of giving my band members raises and being able to take great artists like Charles Brown on the road with me, something I wouldn’t have been able to afford before.

Q: What about changes in your personal life?

A: I’m not an especially materialistic person. I don’t keep much more than I need. You wouldn’t notice that big a difference in my lifestyle, except that I have much more freedom in terms of taking time off. I just got back from three weeks in Africa and it was wonderful. At one time, that would have been difficult because I was always on the road, earning a living.

Q: How good a perspective do you have on your work? Lots of artists seem to look at each new work as the best thing they’ve ever done, while others are never satisfied.

A: I don’t think of my records in either of those ways. Preparation is everything for me. I work incredibly hard at finding the right material, and I make sure I have the right people in the studio, but I try not to belabor it. I’m much more into the spontaneous approach. Afterward, I don’t spend a lot of time analyzing what I do or calculate how it is going to come across. It’s just the best I could do at a given time. It’s just like relationships. At the time, that was the right person to be with.

Q: The ‘90s was widely heralded as the decade of women, but what was it like in the ‘70s when radio seemed to ration out the airplay for women?

A: Well, there was this thinking at labels that we already have our Linda Ronstadt, for instance, so why do we need another female singer? In an hour of radio programming, they were only allowed to play so many women. But it was just as disheartening in the ‘80s to see the tightening of radio formats so there was no place for so many great artists like John Hiatt and Delbert McClinton and John Prine. If progressive FM radio hadn’t tightened its formats after all these giant corporations bought the stations, I think the arc of a lot of these artists’ careers would have been much more natural.

After my Grammy win, I thought one of the things I was going to do was pull a lot of those people into the mainstream with me, and it didn’t happen. In fact, my own records by the mid-’90s were no longer all that mainstream. I think there is a subtle ageism at play. It’s an issue the industry needs to address.

I’m really glad I’m a blues singer, even though I don’t just do blues. But by being a character actress, I’m going to have a long career. If I was kind of a pop dolly, I think I’d be in trouble.

Q: Who are the artists in the Hall of Fame that meant the most to you?

A: There are so many, starting with Bob Dylan and Bob Marley, and there’s Aretha [Franklin] and Ray Charles and Muddy Waters and Joni Mitchell. And I’ll always have a special place in my heart for Ruth Brown, just because of her attitude and her defiance and her perseverance. She’s my spiritual aunt.

Q: One of the things you’ve always done is champion veteran R&B; and blues singers. What made that a crusade for you?

A: I loved the blues, and one of the great thrills of my life was that early in my career I got to live with and hang out with some of the greatest country and Chicago blues artists alive. People like Skip James, Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Buddy Guy. . . .

And when my career eclipsed them, I felt conflicted. It was strange in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s to see the young white purveyors of the blues making hundreds of thousands of dollars and selling out giant festivals . . . and then see the people they learned from far down on the bill. As time went by, I learned about how so many of these artists never got royalties and didn’t even have something as basic as health insurance.

Q: As a member of the R&B; Foundation board, are you disappointed that record companies haven’t done more to upgrade royalty rates?

A: It’s not just record companies that have been the problem. Once my fellow artists learned about the royalty [injustices], I thought that the big rock and soul stars of my generation, black and white, would just automatically sit down and write a check for $15,000 or $20,000 a year.

How could you keep all that money yourself when you know that the guy who made half the records in your collection never got paid? I’ve tried personal letters. I’m just about ready to send pictures of some artists and the houses they live in and say, “Don’t you think you could help out with the rent for two months?” It’s not enough to just do a tribute album or a tribute concert after someone is gone.