Ravinia 2022, Issue 3

KEN FRIEDMAN (RAITT) KEN FRIEDMAN (RAITT) BONNIE RAITT Playing guitar from the age of 12, Bonnie Raitt gained affinity for the blues, and after a couple years of college she began playing the Boston club circuit in the late ’60s. She quickly gained notoriety as one of the few women to play bottleneck-style slide guitar, and after falling in with major blues manager Dick Waterman, she was performing alongside many of her idols, including Howlin’ Wolf, Sippie Wallace, andMississippi FredMcDowell. Just as quick- ly signed to Warner Bros., Raitt released her eponymous debut album in 1971 and earned strong reviews, not only for her guitar work but also for her vocals and soulful selection of songs. She steadily climbed the charts with each of Takin’ My Time (1973), Streetlights (1974), and Home Plate (1975), culminating in the top-25 hit Sweet Forgiveness (1977), which featured her first mainstream hit in a cover of Del Shannon’s “Runaway.” Around the same time as Raitt released The Glow (1979), she co-organized the landmark Musicians United for Safe Energy concerts at Madison Square Garden with Jackson Browne, Gra- ham Nash, and John Hall. Though her fol- low-up to 1982’s Green Light was caught in limbo when Warner Bros. dropped her from the label—eventually released as Nine Lives in 1986—Raitt blazed back into the limelight in 1989 with Nick of Time , produced by Don Was on Capitol Records. The album not only topped the charts and went multi-platinum, but also swept up four Grammys, including Album of the Year honors. Its 1991 follow-up, Luck of the Draw , was also a smash, yield- ing two of Raitt’s greatest hits, “Something to Talk About” and “I Can’t Make You Love Me.” Longing in Their Hearts (1994) was also a chart-topping hit with “Love Sneakin’ Up on You.” Raitt returned to the top 10 with 2012’s Grammy winner Slipstream , and shortly after receiving a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award earlier this year, she released her 18th studio album, Just Like That… .Bonnie Raitt first played Ravinia in 2002 and tonight makes her fifth appearance at the festival. MAVIS STAPLES A Chicago native, Mavis Staples began her music career in the 1950s, singing with her family, the Staple Singers. The group became closely tied to the civil rights movement in the ’60s, serving as one of its most import- ant spiritual and musical voices. Soaring in popularity with its mix of gospel, “message,” and contemporary pop songs, the Staple Singers were signed to Stax Records in the late ’60s, and Mavis began to work on solo material with the label around the same time. In 1977 she collaborated with Curtis Mayfield on the soundtrack for A Piece of the Action , releasing an album of songs from the movie under the same title. Staples began collab- orating with Prince in the late ’80s, result- ing in two albums on his Paisley Park label, Time Waits for No One (1989) and The Voice (1993), the latter including the song “Melody Cool,” which they had recorded for the 1990 film Graffiti Bridge . Together with keyboard- ist Lucky Peterson she released Spirituals & Gospel in 1996, a tribute to the famed gospel singer and activist Mahalia Jackson. Staples released another album of spirituals, Have a Little Faith , in 2004, that year also contrib- uting to John Scofield’s Ray Charles tribute album That’s What I Say . In 2007 she teamed up with Ry Cooder on We’ll Never Turn Back for her Anti- label debut. The label also re- leased her Jeff Tweedy–produced albums You Are Not Alone (2010; Staples’s first Grammy winner) and One True Vine (2013), and the M. Ward–helmed Livin’ on a High Note (2016)— all major R&B chart hits—2017’s If All I Was Was Black , also produced by Tweedy, and her latest record, 2019’s We Get By , written and produced by Ben Harper. Earlier this year she shared in Album of the Year Grammy honors as a contributor to Jon Batiste’s We Are . Mavis Staples first appeared at Ravinia in 1992 with the Staple Singers and tonight returns for her seventh season. MARTIN THEATRE 7:30 PM THURSDAY, JULY 28, 2022 CHANTICLEER CORTEZ MITCHELL, GERROD PAGENKOPF, KORY REID, BRADLEY SHARPE, LOGAN SHIELDS, ADAM WARD, countertenors BRIAN HINMAN, MATTHEW MAZZOLA, ANDREW VAN ALLSBURG, tenors ZACHARY BURGESS, MATTHEW KNICKMAN, ANDY BERRY, baritones/basses TIM KEELER, music director Labyrinths DES PREZ In exitu Israel * TINCTORIS Virgo dei throno Digna * WESTON Oh Daedalus, fly away home * WOODY, arr. God’s gonna trouble * SAMETZ ¡O llama de amor viva! * ZHOU Strange how we can walk (in L.A.) from Trade Winds * –Intermission– WALKER Blow, blow thou winter wind * LÉON Bambula from De-Orishas * SHAW Her beacon hand beckons from To the Hands * LAWSON/WALLER/YATES Calling my children home * JENNINGS, arr. BIEBL Ave Maria * First performance at Ravinia Chanticleer will be sharing notes on tonight’s program from the stage. RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 39