Not being a natural songwriter… for me the appreciation of a great song and the writers came early on, growing up in a musical family. My dad got to sing songs by some of the...

I have a really full life, both within music and outside it.

‘I Will Not Be Broken’ has really become very healing for me. Any time you go through a cataclysmic event… it’s going to inform the richness that you sing from… The experiences of life make...

I’m certain that it was an incredible gift for me to not only be friends with some of the greatest blues people who’ve ever lived, but to learn how they played, how they sang, how...

I think my fans will follow me into our combined old age. Real musicians and real fans stay together for a long, long time.

My love was Bob Dylan, but as I got older I realized a good ballad was a good ballad.

One of the biggest obstacles I’ve overcome in my life was thinking I didn’t deserve to be successful. Artistically I’m not as much of a heavyweight as someone like Paul Simon or Joni Mitchell, because...

I made my first album, and I guess it wasn’t a fluke, because now I’m on my 16th.

Religion is for those who are scared of hell, and spirituality is for those who have been there.

Nobody taught me to play bottleneck. I just saw it and taught myself. I got an old bottle and steamed the label off, put it on the wrong finger, I basically did everything wrong until...

I’m honored when young people say they’ve gone to school on slide guitar with my records. But people get their influence from my live shows and records and YouTube, not me personally. I walk around...

Playing guitar was one of my childhood hobbies, and I had played a little at school and at camp. My parents would drag me out to perform for my family, like all parents do, but...

Superficial pop will always exist – there’ve always been Fabians – but when people like Dire Straits and Bruce Hornsby start having hits, it suggests that there’s a revolution going on in music.

People say, ‘Gee, you don’t really do political music.’ Well, I sing a lot of songs about how men and women and lovers treat each other, and none of us want to be talked down...

I’m not that beautiful, and I don’t want to be a pop star.

Religion is for people who are scared to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there.

The anti-nuke movement has important and far-reaching implications for grassroots organizing. It can unite kids and musicians, everybody, whether they’re leftist or rightist, or radical, or Republican, because energy is energy. But in fact, it...

Sometimes I’m more true when I’m up onstage than I’m able to be in my regular life. It’s not as exciting to be at home, but I’ve got to learn how to make that work,...

I think I’m a living embodiment of, ‘Don’t try to push me around or squash me,’ whether its how I talk to a record label or in my relationships.

Sometimes I don’t go into the studio for quite a while because I haven’t found enough good songs. They have to have a certain caliber and connect with me because I’m going to be playing...

I do feel my loved ones that have passed on; I feel them looking over my shoulder… So yeah, that’s pretty profound, when you’re not expecting it, you didn’t particularly believe in it and then...

It is still a surprise when people tell me that I’ve had an influence on them, particularly when it’s someone I really respect.

Solar power is the last energy resource that isn’t owned yet – nobody taxes the sun yet.

The world I live in is benefiting from things like satellite radio. Jazz and blues fests are everywhere now, and Americana is going strong on college radio. What I’m hearing is an appreciation of real...

There were so many great music and political scenes going on in the late ’60s in Cambridge. The ratio of guys to girls at Harvard was four to one, so all of those things were...

I like to think I get better with age, but maybe absence makes the heart grow fonder.

I’ve watched my peers get better with age and hoped that would happen with me.

I would rather feel things in extreme than not at all.

People come up to me all the time who saw Dad in ‘Oklahoma!’ or ‘Pajama Game,’ and they say they’ll never forget it.

I’ve been lucky enough that I can gather all sorts of experiences and find inspiration by traveling around and by spending time with people I admire.

I think it’s our job to write about what we’re going through at the moment, and being 41, I’m not going to write about the same things I wrote about at 20. I don’t think...

The fifth member of my band is my non-profit work.

AC/DC’s ‘Highway to Hell’ is the greatest meshing of vocal, guitar, and content I’ve ever heard. That’s what I aspire to.

The great thing about the arts, and especially popular music, is that it really does cut across genres and races and classes.

Elvis might have compromised his musical style a bit towards the end, but that doesn’t mean that artists from the rock n’ roll/folk-roots culture – of which he was not really a part – shouldn’t...

Distribution has really changed. You can make a record with a laptop in the morning and have it up on YouTube in the afternoon and be a star overnight. The talent on YouTube is incredible,...

The consolidation of the music business has made it difficult to encourage styles like the blues, all of which deserve to be celebrated as part of our most treasured national resources.

Especially girls, but any kids exposed to music programs and arts programs do much better on their tests. They have a better chance of going to college. They can focus better. You know, we’re not...

With the new ways of getting music out, you don’t need a label if you’re a legacy artist.

There’s nothing like living a long time to create a depth and soulfulness in your music.

I didn’t have to be a pop singer with a certain look. When I started, there was really a revolution in natural artists with blues and folk artists crossing over; otherwise, I wouldn’t have been...

In 1967 I entered Harvard as a freshman, confident – in the way that only 17-year-olds are – that I could change the world. My major was African Studies, and my plan was to travel...

We did a two month tour with Taj Mahal that was really healing and cathartic and a good distraction after my brother passed away. Then I knew I wanted to take a year off, and...

I tend to be freer on the piano. I never took guitar lessons, so my reach exceeds my grasp – what I hear in my head I don’t always know how to play. But I...

I’m just glad that I’m the musical equivalent of a character actress, because blues singers can keep singing and having an audience at 35, and someone like Madonna’s gonna have to find something else to...

Since I was 20 years old, I’ve been a kind of corporation. I’d wake up in the morning and my job was to be ‘Bonnie Raitt’ in capital letters.

I’m really careful about not slamming my politics home in my shows, but I don’t try to hide, either. The arts can be a great way to bring people together. I don’t preach from the...

I think people must wonder how a white girl like me became a blues guitarist. The truth is, I never intended to do this for a living.

When you find a song that you love, you just have to do it – why would I try to match it? When I wrote more of the songs in the ’90s – ‘Nick of...

I was always drawn to the blues. Alberta Hunter at the Cookery was a life-changing experience. I only wanted to get enriched as a performer as I got older, to have an audience which got...