Oct. 25, 1979 review: Bonnie Raitt and Steve Forbert in Shea's Buffalo

 


Bonnie Raitt, back in the days when it wasn't so damn hard to get tickets for her shows.

Oct. 25, 1979

Bonnie, Fans Rate Each Other Highly 

         Bonnie Raitt always has a good time in Buffalo. Wednesday night was no exception.

         "You make me feel like rockin' and rollin'," she said with a grin to the near sell-out crowd in Shea's Buffalo. The fans rocked right along with her all the way through a four-song double encore.

         "Gee whiz," she remarked near the end. "Why don't you come with us to Syracuse tomorrow?"

         Looking chic in black pants and a black sparkly blouse, red-haired Raitt was in fine form as she belted out her recent remakes of Motown and R&B classics from the '60s and her blues and rock favorites from the '70s.

         Her early studies of the blues served her well in her stylings. As usual, she embellished several numbers with slide guitar. Why, one wonders, isn't she as popular as Linda Ronstadt? Is there no justice?

         Well, maybe there is. After a decade as a recording artist, this could be the year Raitt breaks through. She's been a prominent figure in two of the more significant musical events of the year – the memorial for Little Feat's Lowell George and the MUSE anti-nuclear rock concerts last month in New York City.

         She recalled Lowell George's memory by singing one of his songs, "For Yourself." Little Feat, she said, "was my favorite group."

         She made several passing references to West Valley and Love Canal. In her encores, she sang John Hall's anti-nuclear "Power." The crowd cheered the line: "Take your atomic poison power away."

         She also made a couple announcements regarding an Indian rights protest and Abortion Rights Week. Even so, it was not a highly politicized show.

         (paragraph apparently missing here)

         So did her six-man band. Outstanding was multi-instrumentalist Marty Gregg on sax. Frizzy-haired Freebo, her genial sidekick on bass for all these years, drew wild applause for his classic tuba solo in "Give It Up."

         Opener Steve Forbert used the same instrumental lineup as Raitt, carrying two multi-faceted keyboardmen in his six-man band. Forbert's standout was Bill Jones, a blazing boogie-woogie pianist who doubled on accordion.

* * * * *

IN THE PHOTO: Bonnie Raitt in Hartford, Conn., three nights after Shea's Buffalo. Photo by Joe Sia.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: Bonnie Raitt released her seventh album, "The Glow," in September and the setlist below includes five of the 10 songs from it. The album itself, however, was not very successful.

No setlist for Bonnie at Shea's on setlist.fm, but here's what she did the next night at the Landmark Theater in Syracuse.

I Thank You (Sam & Dave cover)

The Glow

Three Time Loser (Don Covay cover)

You're Gonna Get What's Coming (Robert Palmer cover)

Sleep's Dark and Silent Gate (Jackson Browne cover)

Your Good Thing (Is About to End) (Mable John cover)

Standin' by the Same Old Love

Sugar Daddy (Delbert McClinton & Glen Clark cover)

Angel From Montgomery (John Prine cover)

Give It Up or Let Me Go

Power (John Hall cover)

(encore)

Runaway (Del Shannon cover)

Power (reprise)

            Bonnie did the fans even better on Nov. 3 at the Palladium in New York City, when John Hall came out to sing with her. That one opened with Aretha Franklin's "Baby I Love You" and included a second Jackson Browne song, "Under the Falling Sky," along with an encore of "You've Got to Feel It" and "You've Been in Love Too Long."

            Steve Forbert released his second album, "Jackrabbit Slim," in 1979 and it gave him his biggest hit, "Romeo's Tune," which climbed to No. 11 on the Billboard singles chart, high enough to officially make him a one-hit wonder. Our good friend Gurf Morlix plays some tasty guitar on Forbert's latest album, "Daylight Savings Time," which has just come out.

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