Takin' My Time:

Bonnie Raitt. Warners WBS 2729. Reviewed by Verandah Porche.

Once an album was just the hit single plus eleven B-sides. In those days an artist lived and died by his Top 40 ratings. Then, as middle class dropouts took over the music, the LP came into its own as a piece of merchandise and means of expression. But the record companies OD'd on the LP; too many were released, especially in New Zealand where radio stations still haven't discovered the difference between rock and pop. So now once again a hit 45 or some other form of notoriety is necessary for the new LP artist to break clear of the pack. Caught in the middle are some fine artists who will never crack the Top Twenty nor be dated by Henry Kissinger. I'm thinking of people like Hot Tuna, Joan Armatrading, Little Feat, Judee Sill, and Bonnie Raitt. Only you, o my brothers and sisters can save them from the usual fate; to record once, twice, regroup and disappear.

On this LP you get a bonus, Bonnie Raitt and Little Feat together, with some help from Taj Mahal. The sound is a lot more polished than on her marvellous first LP (recorded in a very ethnic garage in a fishing village in Minnesota!) but the basic ingredients have not been diluted. Bonnie shows the same expert nose for good material; among them an early Motown track, a calypso, a Fred McDowell medley, a song from Furry Lewis and a fifties romp through the Sensations' "Let Me In", Bonnie has been travelling the folk circuit since 1968, and there's a certain folkie self consciousness in the way she does the blues, but that's minor criticism for quite important artist. If you've only got $5.75 try the first LP, but both are worth your time. Who knows, maybe next lime Warners will let her do more with her fine Mississippi National steel guitar. If there is a next time.