April 21, 1978 Gusto review: Bonnie Raitt and John Hall at Shea's Buffalo

 

One of my big regrets of 2023 is missing this woman when she played the amphitheater at Chautauqua Institution back in June. 

April 21, 1978 

The fans couldn’t get enough of Bonnie Raitt 

          Bonnie Raitt is the best white blueswoman making popular music today. If there ever was any doubt, she erased it Thursday night while a wet spring snow fell outside Shea’s Buffalo.

          What sets her apart is that she’s not just a singer in front of a band. Raitt’s a musician, a student of the blues.

          Over her sparkly purple blouse and jeans, she wears an electric hollow-bodied guitar, with the F-holes taped over to minimize feedback, and a capo on the third fret. And she knows how to use it. She plays a mean bottleneck solo.

          She knows how to choose a band too. At her left was the ever-present Freebo, with his halo of hair. Freebo fingered fancy notes on bass while his amplified tuba perched on a stand nearby, waiting to provide the playful bottom notes to an old Southern blues like “Born in the Country.”

          It’s not a big band – besides Freebo, there’s only a drummer, a second guitarist and a pianist – but every component is built for speed. Sensational solos abounded.

          “Smokin’, Elliott,” Raitt exulted after a particularly flashy keyboard romp on Allen Toussaint’s “Just a Kiss Away.” Then she turned to the crowd.

          “If you don’t think that was boogiein’, Jack,” she quipped, “then you’re at the wrong show.”

          The boogiein’ got even better on “Good Enough,” as Raitt summoned out the author, John Hall, who opened the evening, along with his woman percussionist and his dynamite saxophone player.

          The fans, who filled even the Shea’s ornate box seats, couldn’t get enough of Raitt. They applauded her heavily throughout and brought her back for a staggering three encores.

          Slightly awestruck by the reception, Raitt noted that it had been seven years since she first played here at the Buffalo Folk Festival (this year’s edition of the festival starts tonight), then did a stunning duet with Freebo on “Love Has No Pride.”

          “We’re gonna send you out with a smile,” she promised when the cheering subsided. The rest of the band slipped in for a bouncing blues finale.

          As she brought John Hall out for “Good Enough,” she announced that the two of them were among the 35 entertainers who this week declared their opposition to nuclear power plants, which she called “the most expensive, most dangerous, least job-producing system of energy.”

          She reminded the audience how close they live to the nuclear waste disposal problem in West Valley and suggested they take notice of Sun Day, the first nationwide alternative energy celebration May 3.

          Hall earlier had introduced a breezy calypso ditty called “Plutonium Is Forever” by noting that land has been cleared for a nuclear power plant nine miles from his home in Upstate New York, even though the hearings on it haven’t been completed.

          Hall, who looked a bit like a college fraternity man in his red and white jersey, proved to be a near perfect complement to Raitt.

          Where he formerly played oh-so-mellow country-rock with the group Orleans (their big hit was “Still the One”), he now is leaning in a different direction – toward blue-eyed soul and rhythm and blues. His first number was Shirley and Lee’s 1956 hit, “Let the Good Times Roll.”

          Essentially, Hall traded up from his old family-type group to a big seven-piece band that was right at home on hardcore funk tunes like the wild and wonderful “Trust Yourself,” where he brought out Raitt to sing harmony. “The best,” he said, referring to Raitt as he took his final bows, “is yet to come.”

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IN THE PHOTO: Back cover of Bonnie Raitt’s “Sweet Forgiveness” album. That’s Freebo on the right.

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FOOTNOTE: Bonnie Raitt was riding on the success of her sixth album, “Sweet Forgiveness,” which included her hit version of Del Shannon’s “Runaway.” As for her activism, she became a founding member of MUSE, Musicians United for Safe Energy, which was organized after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979 and included Jackson Browne, Graham Nash and John Hall. They staged a landmark series of five No Nukes concerts later in 1979 in Madison Square Garden, resulting in a film and a triple live album.

          Setlist.fm does not list any of Bonnie Raitt’s songs from that night. Here’s what she did May 9 at the Palladium in New York City:

          What Do You Want the Girl to Do? (Allen Toussaint cover)

          Ain’t Nobody Home

          Good Enough (with John Hall)

          Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy (Mose Allison cover)

          My First Night Alone Without You

          My Opening Farewell (Jackson Browne cover)

          Write Me a Few of Your Lines/Kokomo Blues/Walkin’ Blues

          Give It Up or Let Me Go (with John Payne)

          Just a Kiss Away

          I Gave My Love a Candle

          Angel from Montgomery (John Prine cover)

          Home (Karla Bonoff cover)

          Runaway (Del Shannon cover, with John Hall and John Payne)

          About to Make Me Leave Home

          Sugar Daddy (Delbert McClinton and Glen Clark cover)

          Since You’ve Been Gone (Baby Sweet Baby)/Bluebird/Coming Home

          I Know (You Don’t Love Me No More) (Barbara George cover)

          Mockingbird (with James Taylor)

          Devoted to You (with James Taylor)

          Power (John Hall cover, with John Hall)

         

          BTW, the Elliott in Raitt’s band is keyboardist Bill Elliott, whose first love is 1930s jazz. He went on to lead a 19-piece L.A.-based swing band, compose music for films, teach at Berklee College of Music and do orchestrations for Broadway shows in the 2010s. He’s been nominated for three Tony Awards. The John Payne mentioned in the setlist is her longtime  saxophonist, who was not on board in Buffalo.

          There’s no mention whatsoever of this concert on setlist.fm for John Hall. Hall got involved in the anti-nuclear movement after he left Orleans in 1977 and campaigned mightily against a nuclear plant on the Hudson River in Greene County. The state dropped its plans to build it in 1979, deciding it was too expensive. His activism led him to write an anti-nuke anthem, “Power,” which he and Raitt performed at the Palladium and James Taylor performed at that No Nukes concert. He went on to win two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives in the late 2000s.