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Hearing Bonnie Raitt's music, you'd swear her roots were somewhere in the Mississippi Delta - not, of all places, Southern California. And indeed, the red-haired, freckled daughter of Broadway star John Raitt ("Oklahoma!") fit in badly with the crowd of teenagers who listened to the Beach Boys and other representatives of the so-called "California music," went to the beach and learned how to surf; whereas Bonnie "didn't get tanned and ... lived in the canyon," as she recalls in her biography written by Mark Bego, "Just in the Nick of Time." But by that time, she had already found solace in music: "That was my saving grace. I just sat in my room and played my guitar," she remembers. One day she heard a Newport Folk Festival recording entitled "Blues at Newport '63," featuring John Lee Hooker, John Hammond, Brownie McGee, Mississippi John Hurt and other members of the blues's all-time elite. And Bonnie was hooked: "I tell you, once you get exposed to the blues, you can't get enough."

Thus, it was only natural that she would soon be found more frequently in the Cambridge, MA, blues and jazz clubs than in the hallowed halls of Radcliffe College, where she had enrolled to master in African studies. Before long she had an agent, and began to open for her idols Junior Wells, Arthur Crudup, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker and ultimately her mentor, Sippie Wallace, and met singer-songwriters and future soulmates Jackson Browne and James Taylor. In 1971 she was offered her first recording contract. And from her self-titled debut to 2002's "Silver Lining," her over three decades-long career is one of the most amazing examples of personal growth, combined with stellar musicianship and an active voice for society's victims and underprivileged and again and again, for women's rights; even if it would take the music industry until 1989's triple Grammies for the Capitol Records release "Nick of Time" to officially recognize Bonnie Raitt's achievements.

This collection, released shortly after her Grammy-winning album, chronicles all stages of her career until then, drawing on the nine albums she had released on Warner Records before changing labels. It features all-time classics such as "Give It Up or Let Me Go," "Love Me Like a Man," "Willya Wontcha," "Love Has No Pride" (one of her earliest signature songs), her intensely personal interpretation of Randy Newman's "Guilty" (which still cuts so close that she doesn't perform it live as regularly as other songs), the Tex-Mex ballad "Louise," her Al Green-inflected version of Jackson Browne's "Runaway," her hard-driving recording of Bryan Adams's "No Way to Treat a Lady" ("I sing a lot of songs for women who've 'had it,' and this is a powerful dose of that feeling," she comments on the album's liner notes), a rare 1976 live duet with Sippie Wallace on her mentor's "Women Be Wise," and an the Grammy-winning 1985 live duet with John Prine on "Angel From Montgomery," written by Prine but now a signature song for Bonnie Raitt as much as for him.

Much more than a "best of," this is a very personal collection of songs by the singer whose very first female role model was "Gunsmoke"'s red-headed, independent Miss Kitty (Amanda Blake); who learned to successfully compete with boys and men from early childhood on ("I just couldn't stand the way girls got the second best of everything," she recalls in "Nick of Time"), and who now donates the revenue from sales of her signature model Fender Strat to her own project for inner city girls. It amply showcases her feeling for the blues and her extraordinary talent as a guitar player: she is one of the few women who have mastered the bottleneck guitar, a feat she achieved even before her first recording contract, and her slide guitar skills are matched (if that) by only the best in the business.

Bonnie Raitt is rightfully considered part of the all-time elite of blues musicians, and recognized as a peer by the artists she once admired from afar. This album contains excellent examples of her cooperation with many of those artists, who appear on her records again and again - the list almost reads like a blues and rock music "who is who." There are, for example, Junior Wells (harp on "Finest Lovin' Man"), Freebo ([fretless] bass on almost every track and tuba on "Give It Up or Let Me Go"), A.C. Reed (sax on "Finest Lovin' Man"), John Payne (sax on "Give It Up or Let Me Go"), T.J. Tindall (e-guitar on "Under the Falling Sky"), Paul Butterfield (harp on "Under the Falling Sky"), Lowell George (slide guitar on "I Feel the Same" and "Guilty"), Bill Payne (keyboards on "I Feel the Same," "Guilty," "(Goin') Wild for You Baby" and "No Way to Treat a Lady"), Steve Gadd (drums on "What Is Success"), Will McFarlane (e-guitar on "My First Night Alone Without You," "Sugar Mama" and "Runaway"), John Hall (e-guitar on "My First Night Without You" and "Sugar Mama") Jai Winding (keyboards on "My First Night Alone Without You" and "Sugar Mama"), Joe and Jeff Porcaro (percussion on "Sugar Mama"), Norton Buffalo (harp on "Runaway"), Rosemary Butler (backing vocals on "Runaway" and "No Way to Treat a Lady") Waddy Wachtel (e-guitar on "(Goin') Wild for You Baby"), Bob Glaub (bass on "(Goin') Wild for You Baby"), Ricky Fataar (drums/percussion on "Willya Wontcha"), Michael Landau (guitar solo on "No Way to Treat a Lady"), Nathan East (bass on "No Way to Treat a Lady") and countless others.

Intimidated by her mother's skill as a pianist, Bonnie Raitt exchanged keys for steel strings when she was barely eight years old. She later did return to the piano, though, and even if she may not be Martha Argerich (or, for that matter, Marjorie Haydock Raitt), her true gift shines through even there. But even if she had never learned to play anything but guitar ... listening to this album, I doubt we would seriously be missing anything.

Also recommended:
Road Tested
Give It Up
Fundamental

I'm obviously in the minority here if everyone else gave this CD a five star review, but I just don't think it's a great compilation of her work with Warner Bros. Granted, Raitt supposedly compiled it herself, so it's very unlikely it was picked without care. However, this was the first disc I checked out after her trio of Don Was-produced albums for Capitol, and later one when I explored her Warner albums in their entirety, I felt like this CD shortchanged them.

A single disc compilation of her Warner work is ideal, though, because after three solid albums, it became wildly uneven. Furthermore, many songs were done far better live (check out "Write Me a Few of Your Lines/Kokomo Blues"; the version on the current Capitol live album is great, but so is her mid-70's live interpretations), so mixing it up would make it even better. To this CD's credit, it does just that, including two excellent live cuts. However, there are still some glaring omissions, and a handful of cuts here that don't reflect her best work. The cuts from "The Glow" show how mismatched she was with Asher's production (so mismatched, I would've considered excluding the album altogether; a better choice may have been to use live versions), and "No Way To Treat A Lady" feels too mechanical, too manufactured, something that plagued most of the other cuts from the same album. "Runaway" may have been her only 'hit' until "Nick Of Time," but it's not a good reinterpretation of a classic. Meanwhile, "Too Long At The Fair," "Cry Like A Rainstorm," "Write Me a Few of Your Lines/Kokomo Blues," "Run Like A Thief," and "River of Tears" are missing; all of these are GREAT recordings, not to mention great performances vocally, and have some excellent guitar work.

This CD isn't bad for what it is and has some great tracks, but as a whole, it doesn't showcase her best work with the label.

No one is ever totally satisfied with "Best of" collections, but this one is definately on the mark as having a very well thought-out selection representing a fairly wide sampling of Bonnie. I'm happy to see many selections of what, IMHO, Bonnie Raitt does best: sing the blues.

What's interesting, are the inclusion of some duets, with songwriter/singers of some classics: Women Be Wise with the incomparable Sippy Wallace comes to mind. The duet with John Prine on Angel From Montgomery gives you the feel of a live concert when "surprise" guests would stroll on-stage for a jam.

For those of you who wondered all those years, "What's the fuss?" THIS IS IT! Together, in one CD, Under the Falling Sky, I Feel the Same and My First Night Alone Without You. Ear candy of the finest kind!

This is a great CD to introduce you to Bonnie, especially if you didn't hear her "popular" works of the 1990s. Runaway and Angel of Montgomery are especially strong on this CD. Listen to them two or three times and you will never forget... Then get Nick of Time (finally the queen of blues gets her acknowledgment!) and her later works. If you love slide guitar, track Bonnie down at a benefit concert and you'll never regret it. She is an All-American heroine in both music and actions.

Until I heard this album, I had had no idea of Bonnie Raitt's awesome blues background. I'd only heard "Let's give 'em something to talk about" and I thought she just didn't have it. Well, this album proves to me that she does--anyone who can play the slide guitar as well as she does just has it. "Angel From Montgomery" (sung in a duet with its writer John Prine) rips my heart out everytime I hear it. Definitely go get this one. Bonnie Raitt is the real thing.

While Bonnie's later albums, beginning with the Grammy-winning Nick of time, brought Bonnie greater commercial success, her earlier music should not be ignored. This compilation provides a selection of Bonnie's recordings from those early years.

Bonnie's roots are in the blues but she could also sing rock, pop, folk and country when she chose to. You won't find any country music here - you'll have to buy the Urban Cowboy soundtrack to hear Bonnie sing country - but all the other influences are to be found somewhere in this collection.

The tracks are taken from the albums Bonnie Raitt (Finest lovin' man, Women be wise), Give it up (Give it up or let it go, Under the falling sky, Love me like a man, Love has no pride), Taking my time (I feel the same, Guilty), Streetlights (What is success), Home plate (My first night alone without you, Sugar Mama), Sweet forgiveness (Louise, About to make me leave home, Runaway), The glow (The glow, Going wild for you baby), Green light (Willya wontcha) and Nine lives (No way to treat a lady). Angel from Montgomery, which originally appeared on Streetlights, is here as a duet with John Prine, his vocals having been overdubbed specially for this collection.

It is clear from the above that the compiler particularly likes Bonnie's second album, Give it up, as four of its tracks are included here. It's a great album but I think the inclusion of so many tracks might deter a few people from buying it. I would have dropped one and included a second track from Green light (preferably Baby come back) or -even better - one of the tracks from Urban cowboy - instead. Still, everything here is of a very high quality.

I must make special mention of Runaway, Bonnie's cover of Del Shannon's sixties classic. Which Del recorded it as an up-tempo rock'n'roll song, Bonnie recorded it as a bluesy ballad, making it almost unrecognisable compared to the original. Such dramatic changes to a song don't always work, but this one is pure magic.

The accompanying booklet is particularly noteworthy, containing descriptions of all Bonnie's albums from which tracks are taken, together with comments about the songs selected. Bonnie contributed to the liner notes.

This is an outstanding compilation covering the first half of Bonnie's career. More recently, another compilation (Best of) has been released covering the second half of her career. Furthermore, most of Bonnie's original albums are easy to find. If you end up buying all of Bonnie's albums, you will find that she is a very expensive lady (but well worth the price). In the meantime, this collection provides an ideal introduction to Bonnie's music.

As ever with compilations, it is easy to argue about track selection, but this provides a good overview of the period covered and will hopefully tempt a few people to explore further.

The problem with "best of" collections is that fans will get into endless squabbles over what SHOULD have been included. Bonnie Raitt fans are no exception apparently. A cursory look at the fan reviews below attests as much. I understand how they feel, but folks, you know it's all good, and you gotta draw the line somewhere. After Raitt's extraordinary late 80s success on Capitol, a Warners retrospective was inevitable. They had lost a good thing in Bonnie and wised up just a little late. But graciously, Bonnie assisted in the selection of the songs and provided commentary. No hard feelings, boys.

A solid, consistent performer who has evolved but never felt compelled to constantly "reinvent" herself, Bonnie Raitt is not an easy artist to sum up, let alone encapsulate in a twenty song retrospective. But a twenty song sampler at least gives the new listener a broad enough overview. Die hard fans will buy it for the "live" versions of staples "Women Be Wise" (sung as a duet with originator Sippie Wallace) and "Angel From Montgomery" (here a duet with composer John Prine).

It's hard to imagine that a newcomer to Bonnie Raitt's oeuvre would want to stop here and not check out the individual releases (all available as of this writing). The earliest records with their rootsy feel have a special charm, as evidenced by the tracks included here: "Finest Lovin' Man" and "Give It Up." But even in those days, Bonnie was demonstrating her flair for contemporary material, as evidenced by her rocking take on Jackson Browne's "Under the Falling Sky." And although the Warners albums also included tracks penned by such staples of the So-Cal rock scene as Joni Mitchell and Stephen Stills, she also had a flair for finding material from less obvious sources. Paul Siebel's "Louise" isn't half bad--in fact, it's darn good. And she captures the essence of Chris Smither's "I Feel the Same" like no one else could (save the songwriter himself). Like her contemporaries, Tracy Nelson and Linda Ronstadt, she was discovering a virtual treasure trove in the works of Eric Kaz. Lots of folks find Bonnie's version of "Love Has No Pride" to be "definitive." I'm learning to throw that word out of my vocabulary, since my tastes can change from day to day. But of all the women--and men--who have assayed that song, Bonnie Raitt was able to bring something unique to it. Hers is a dignified reading, with more than a hint of vulnerability. Nelson's take on it, from the recently re-released eponymous Atlantic album, is also an interesting one, so strong and proud that it virtually belies the song's title. I can't decide which version I prefer, so instead I decided, hey, I don't have to.

Interesting that Bonnie Raitt emerged in '71, a year after Janis Joplin's tragic demise. Like Nelson, Raitt offered an alternate version of the white blues mama. Both brought a little more restraint and discipline to their art. Some found Raitt a little earnest in her politics and in her almost studious approach to the blues. But au contraire, mes amis, Bonnie had class and discipline--and she loved a good liberal cause as much as anyone else--but she was also as sassy and sly as you could want. And she sang like a husky voiced angel from Los Angeles. And played a mean slide guitar to boot.

Who could have asked for more? Eat your hearts out (17 years after the fact), Warners execs!

Bonnie has been my all time favorite female artist since I was old enough to play an album. Whenever I hear one of my old favorites like Angel from Montgomery or Louise on the radio by chance, (cause only the best radio stations play Bonnie, ofcourse!) I get this grin across my face and say to myself- yes-life is good!

I love all Bonnie's work but this is the classic of all classics. She touches your heart and reaches your soul. She becomes a part of you and even your heart beats to the rhythm of her pain and her truest self. What an amazing woman. What an amazing album.

I love this CD - it has the rough purity of her earlier blues, including Finest Lovin' Man and my all-time favourite: Women Be Wise. This version of WBW was recorded with Sippie Wallace in 1976. And how can you beat Angel From Montgomery, which she did live with John Prine.