Customer Reviews

Souls Alike

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

It is amazing, when you think about it, that Souls Alike marks the 35th year of Raitt's recording career. Whether you worship everything she does or not, she has been a great example of artistic loyalty to one's own musical path.

That said, there are two facts about this album worth highlighting right away: these songs are her strongest set, possibly, since her breakthrough "In The Nick Of Time" and, secondly, you shouldn't expect a dramatic departure from what Bonnie has offered you so far.

What makes this album a solid four stars is that it gathers some of Raitt's most inspired slide guitar work in years as well as melodies sung so masterfully that they could belong to the famous album mentioned above.
Stand-outs are "I Will Not Be Broken," "God Was In the Water," "I Don't Want Anything to Change" "Deep Water" and, probably the best song in the album, "The Bed I Made." In addition to Raitt's delivery, these songs are also great examples of dead-on arrangements and production, and the work of a band that understands Bonnie's message and had the chops to provide the right mood whether the tunes had to rock or an intimate sound was needed.

Altogether, these songs showed Bonnie Raitt affirming the path she's chosen, honest and hard-earned stories of a woman who's at peace with herself and not about to sway from who she is.
Those who loved everything she does may find my rating harsh, for them this may be five stars, hands down. Still, whether you are one of them or not, this album should be enough reason to believe that she "will not be broken" nor will she stop telling it like it is.

One of Bonnie Raitt's talents has always been to seek out excellent songwriters. Randall Bramblett's "Thin Places" is an excellent disc as is "No More Mr. Lucky" from which "God Was in the Water" opens this "Souls Alike" set. Its mystical lyric with a melody that oozes as much as rocks is a diamond, "Sittin' in a tiny boat driftin' on the mindless sea; & if I disappear, at least I'm floating free." Maybe my favorite track is "Love on One Condition" penned by band member Jon Cleary with its bouncy beat & Bonnie's sassy tease on the vocal almost letting you hear her knowing wink, "I'll grant you love on one condition." Likewise bouncy, Lee Clayton (probably one of my FAVORITE unknown vocalists) and Pat McLaughlin (also a rave fave singer) penned "Two Lights in the Nighttime" with its catchy chorus and Bonnie's vocal, "Ain't nothin' that a fightin' heart won't do." Bonnie nails the track, assuring a long stay in my personal top ten! Gordon Kennedy (whose name often appears on songs that make me stop to find the songwriter) penned the opener "I Will Not Be Broken" with a determined delightful vocal by Bonnie, "What is freedom if I can't be me?" Maia Sharp whose work with Art Garfunkel and her 3 solo CDs are among my favorites co-wrote three of the tracks on this disc as she did on the title track for the Dixie Chicks' "Home." "Crooked Crown" is one of the most musically experimental tracks with an unsettling dissonance that crunches over the equally distinctive lyric, "My prodigy & my idiot play for the prize of my delicate line; somehow the score at the end of the day is still 51-49." Sharp's "I Don't Want Anything to Change" has a sad loose lonely end-of-the-day feel. The Maia-penned closer "The Bed I Made" is a smoky neo-torch song that Bonnie enhances with her aching vocal, "The wine dark room, the flashing eyes that hung me from my string of lies." "Souls Alike" has no weak tracks. It shows Raitt experimenting within her format, playing with an excellent band, finding excellent material & polishing it to a fine luster. Enjoy!

I am astounded that there are Bonnie Raitt fans that don't like this album!` Well, to each his own.. I fell in love with Bonnie Raitt in the early 90's with "Nick of Time,"- then found the older albums to be even better. Forgot about Ms Raitt for awhile-then heard "Unnecessarily Mercenary" on a local college radio station last week . This new CD is just fantastic-great mix of songs. Lyrics on "Trinkets" are cool...Check this out.

I'm one of those annoying Bonnie Raitt fans that listened to her long before she won all those Grammys, and who delighted in saying :"I already knew she was great!" Of course, since "Nick of Time", Bonnie has tried harder to please the masses, and has often fallen in the doldrums of MOR-radio pop. Most of her albums since then have been mildly entertaining affairs redeemed by three or four standout tracks. But things seemed to change with "Fundamental" two albums ago, where she collaborated with people like Los Lobos, and seemed to be forging a more adventurous creative path. Then came "Silver Lining" which sounded overall like a "safer" and less exciting album. Now, with "Souls Alike", she seems ready to stretch her boundaries again, especially the sonic surprises in tracks like" Crooked Crown" and "Deep Water". But to balance that, there's the requisite mid-tempo independent-woman tune, "I Will Not Be Broken", all wrapped up as the lead track and ready for radio. There's also a lot of juicy, funky blues-rock, and this is where Bonnie really sounds rejuvenated, especially the New Orleans-flavored "Love on One Condition". The Big Easy also gets a lyrical shout-out (and a strangely timely one, in these post-Katrina days) in "Trinkets". Of course, there are songs like "Unnecessary Mercenary" that really show off her slide guitar prowess, as well as torchier ballads like the closer, "The Bed I Made". The songs are penned by relative "unknowns", including her bandmates Jon Cleary and Maia Sharp, and they're very good, if not memorable. All in all, it's a better-than-average Bonnie album, which still puts it a level or two above most of the pap on the radio these days.

I just read through the reviews here, and some of them have me
a bit confused. Whining about someone as talented as Bonnie
giving you "more of the same" does not seem like a bad thing to
me. This is one of the most soulful, real, musically gifted
women out there, and just because she hasn't changed the course
of world history with the CD is no reason to knock it. I just
saw her in concert last night, and she performed almost the
entire CD. I think "Souls Alike" is her most varied and funky
album since "Nick Of Time", and it sometimes reminds me of her
70's stuff on Warner Brothers, which to me is still her best.
Her voice is better than ever, and she's one of the few singers
who makes every single word she sings sound believable. Listen
to the soundclips here and judge for yourself. Bonnie is better
than ever!

I must admit that I have not been listening or following Bonnie Raitt all that much since the late 80s/early 90s heydays of "Nick of Time" and "Luck of the Draw". (Can it really have been more than 15 years since then? Wow...) I recently had an opportunity to check out Bonnie's latest album, released in Fall, 2005.

When "Souls Alike" (11 tracks, 46 min.) starts playing, it immediately feels as comfortable as seeing a long missed friend after many years. Opener "I Will Not Be Broken" is a catchy, great song, with Bonnie sounding like 15 years ago as if a day hadn't passed. Other highlights include "Love On One Condition", a heavier song, with sharp slide-guitar work, and the upbeat "Two Lights in the Nighttime". The slower songs like "So Close", "I Don't Want Anything to Change" and the closing track "The Bed I Made" are beautiful ballads, with the classic Bonnie Raitt sonud.

I must admit that I was very surprised to hear Bonnie Raitt still come out with such a strong and solid album. It may not be as strong as the flawless "Nick of Time", but it's not far behind either. Highly recommended!

I always buy Bonnie's new records. The last two or three didn't stay long in my CD player though, even though there was nothing fundamentally wrong with them. They just didn't grab me, didn't get me humming the songs to myself. They were a bit, well, boring.
I expected this to be more of the same, but thankfully, it isn't. The longer than usual pause between albums must've given Bonnie time to produce something more interesting. Perhaps producing the album herself for the first time has helped.
The good news is that every track is worth listening to. So it's a very strong set. It has a good variety of styles too, from ballads to stonking bluesy rockers.
Bonnie sounds great on this album, so anyone worried she might be past it can rest easy! She isn't.
No, instead she's worked hard making these songs sound interesting, aside from their already catchy melodies. There are some very interesting things going on that gives the album a rich, vibrant, complex feel, without losing any of that famed bluesy rhythm.
The songs are so uniformly good, I'm struggling to find one I like more than the others, but I'm always a sucker for a Bonnie ballad, so `I Don't Want Anything to Change' stands out a little. I like the gentleness of it immediately after the rocking `Unnecessarily Mercenary'. `Deep Water' is one of the more experimental songs on the album, and the great thing is that it really works. That's the surprise for me with Souls Alike: it really does move things on a bit, and yet has all the things we fans need a Bonnie Raitt album to have.

This is one of the most eclectic Bonnie albums ever, with jazz, funk, Little Feat rockers, and bluesy ballads solidly represented. With several of the cuts having to do with water and one even mentioning New Orleans, I found the music and lyrics to be that much more poignant and meaningful. Bonnie's voice and slide guitar are in top form here too. A thoroughly enjoyable, and somewhat unexpected, listening experience.

While a number of reviewers have written that Ms. Raitt doesn't plow new ground with this album, I found it full of subtle and distinctive nuance I hadn't heard before. Sublimely languid, it contains none of the bone-jarring rock of songs like "Gnawin' On It," and delicately explores New Orleans, funk, jazz and techno-dance music. The best explorations of new territory are often tangential to an artist's core music, and Ms. Raitt does a superb job. She even dances with dissonance a time or two without cutting off her roots. Excellent production values add plenty of ear candy, all tastefully delivered, great speaker separation and a band that is right in the groove with her.

Been a fan since I was 16, now in my mid 40s and this new CD feels you are in the same room with Bonnie and her band. Great R&B, emotional ballads, and some great experimental modern sounds.. Hope that this gains lots of airplay because there is no other singer and musician that can match up to Bonnie