RAITT, SHARP CHARM AT SHOW IN CANADA
- By Alan Richard
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
KITCHENER, Canada — I was fortunate to see a truly wonderful Bonnie Raitt and Maia Sharp show in Ontario recently while visiting friends in that area. Raitt’s shows haven’t slowed down at all, and Sharp is a seriously talented singer-songwriter and lovely person. I’m working on a long-term story about her.
The audience of about 2,000 at the Centre in the Square concert hall in Kitchener, about 60 miles west of Toronto, warmly welcomed Maia during the Aug. 16 show, and the applause only grew louder after each song.
Sharp began her set with her “Junkyard Dog,” as recorded by Taj Mahal and Keb ‘Mo, and sang the simmering “Backburner,” both from her 2021 album Mercy Rising. She also sang the autobiographical and especially relevant song “Tomboy,” the title cut of her latest album.
Sharp recalled writing “The Wall or the Way Over,” one of her best uptempo songs, with Emma-Lee and Trisha Yearwood, about a record company executive who’d once discouraged Yearwood against writing her own songs. Yearwood performs the song on her 2025 album The Mirror. “When she’s lookin’ back on all the things you told her, are you gonna be the wall or the way over?”
Sharp tore through “Kind,” which the audience loved, like she, Dean Fields, and Mindy Smith had written it yesterday: “My kind of people are kind people, my kind of people are kind,” she sang.
You can part your hair like a palm tree
Have your meat and three or your chickpeas
Get yourself stung saving honeybees
Call who you call when you fall on your knees
My kind of people are kind people
My kind of people are kind
If you got a good heart
That's a good start
If you want to be a friend of mine…
As always, Sharp touted Songwriting with Soldiers, an organization that pairs professional songwriters with military veterans and others dealing with PTSD to write songs together as therapy. She’s found it life changing.
Sharp has had three of her songs recorded by Raitt, all on the 2005 album Souls Alike. (I especially like Raitt’s version of “I Don’t Want Anything to Change,” which she performs with Norah Jones on the live album Bonnie and Friends.)
Raitt did many of her favorites but also dug deep into her catalogue, playing a considerable amount of her signature slide guitar throughout.
First, she apologized to the Canadian audience for all the political madness seeping across the border.
Always considerate to her favorite songwriters and fellow musicians, Raitt praised the Canadian group The Bros.Landreth as she launched into their hippie-blues “Made Up Mind,” from Raitt’s latest album Just Like That.
Raitt brought back her friend Sharp to sing with her on John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery.” As she does on so many performances, Raitt completely inhabited the song.
I’d not heard Raitt’s excellent live covers of Annie Lenox’s “Little Bird” nor her funky medley of Chaka Khan’s “Used to Rule the World/You Got the Love” which included a few lines from her own hit, “Love Sneakin’ Up on You.”
Of course, Raitt did “Something to Talk About,” her timeless classic “Nick of Time,” Bonnie Hayes’ “Have a Heart,” and John Hiatt’s brilliant “Thing Called Love.” (On the latter, I love the line, “I ain’t no icon carved out of soap, sent down here to clean up your reputation.”) I would’ve loved to hear her version of David Gray’s “Silver Lining,” which I think is one of her best vocal performances.
Raitt brought out the tears on her John Prine-inspired story-song, “Just Like That,” which won Song of the Year at the Grammy Awards in 2023.
And she brought out the blues on the organ-laden “Blame It On Me,” belting out the inspired ballad from her latest album, along with her bluesy version of Bob Dylan’s “Standing in the Doorway.”
She added some of her best earlier songs, including her rockin’ version of soul man Don Covay’s “Three-Time Loser,” from her 1977 album Sweet Forgiveness.
Raitt always sings Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” which I found thrilling for Raitt’s continuingly impressive vocal range; she hit all the important peaks in that song.
Raitt was joined by stalwart band members Duke Levine on guitar, Winnipeg native Glenn Patscha on keys and organ, and her veteran rhythm section of drummer Ricky Fataar and James “Hutch” Hutchinson on bass. This show didn’t include George Marinelli, her former longtime guitarist who still makes some guest appearances.
MORE:
Check out Raitt’s 2024 appearance on Austin City Limits for some of the same songs and musicians from the Kitchener show.
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