In the 1970s, Bonnie Raitt was a immensely talented bottleneck guitarist, not to mention an effective singer with a raspy, husky contralto voice, and arguably the greatest blues-woman of modern time and one of the greatest white blues musicians of all time.

Raitt was raised in Los Angeles and started playing in Boston, but was trained at the school of Chicago's bluesmen. She debuted with a wise selection of blues covers, Bonnie Raitt (Warner, 1971), highlighted by her soulful grit.

Give It Up (Warner, 1972) focused her persona on contemporary folk and pop material, and introduced her own songwriting, especially Nothing Seems To Matter, Love Me Like A Man and the title-track. At the center of all the action were the twangs and squeals of her bottle slide guitar. Her voice bloomed too, making for a perfect combination of singing, guitar and soul. It remains one of her best.

After the insecure Takin' My Time (Warner, 1973), featuring Taj Mahal and Lowell George, and the over-produced Streetlights (Warner, 1974), Raitt turned transformed into a country singer with Home Plate (Warner, 1975), possibly her worst album ever, and Sweet Forgiveness (Warner, 1977), slightly less trivial.

Continuing to move away from her rough and rowdy origins, The Glow (Warner, 1979) offered uninspired pop for the masses. Raitt's career seemed doomed.

After a hiatus of three years, Raitt recovered her best form for Green Light (Warner, 1982), that delivers both the punches (Willya Wontcha) and the emotions (River Of Tears) of hear early work. But it did not have a follow up, as Nine Lives (Warner, 1986) is a terrible patchwork of leftovers and pop songs.

Suddenly, Nick Of Time (Capitol, 1989) was greeted as a masterpiece. It wasn't, of course. Thanks to producer Don Was' immaculate and electronic sound, and to John Hiatt's A Thing Called Love, she conquered the critics and the charts. Her own Nick Of Time showed she could finally compete with the songwriters she had been covering for two decades. It was the third peak of her career.

Luck Of The Draw (Capitol, 1991), with Come To Me, and especially Longing In Their Hearts (Capitol, 1994), with a gigantic cast worthy of a symphonic orchestra (and half the tracks written by her), continued that success.

John Hiatt's Lovers Will was the highlight on Fundamental (Capitol, 1998), that features members of Los Lobos and NRBQ, and Silver Lining (Capitol, 2002) continued her journey through the roots of black music.

Her next albums repeated her successful formula, dividing the songs between blues-rockers and country-pop ditties. If Souls Alike (2005) seemed to end and era, Slipstream (2012) showed that nothing had changed, with Ain't Gonna Let You Go on the blues front and Down To You and Marriage Made In Hollywood on the country front. Dig in Deep (2016), whose highlights are perhaps the covers of Los Lobos' Shakin' Shakin' Shakes and Inxs' Need You Tonight, and Just Like That (2022), with the roaring, Bruce Springsteen-ian Livin’ For The Ones, the soul-rocker Here Comes Love (composed by Lech Weirzynski of jazz group California Honeydrops) and her own somber and stately Just Like That (with the lyrics "They say Jesus brings you peace and grace, but he ain't found me yet"), continued her classy schizophrenic career.

Artistically, her biggest limitation is to have depended too much on her producers and on the material of other songwriters.