Quaker-raised Bonnie Raitt wins thirteenth Grammy

'Bonnie Raitt said in an interview last year that she first picked up a guitar after learning folk songs at Quaker summer camp.'

The Quaker-raised musician Bonnie Raitt won this year’s Grammy Award for the Song Of The Year, along with another two for Best Americana Performance and Best American Roots Song. These brought her total Grammy haul to 13.

The Californian-born blues singer, guitarist, songwriter and activist won the Song Of The Year award for ‘Just Like That’.

Brought up by Quaker parents, Bonnie Raitt said in an interview last year that she first picked up a guitar after learning folk songs at Quaker summer camp. ‘My parents became Quakers after the second world war. You didn’t need to get inside a church and pray to an altar or listen to a minister to get the message. It was the pacifist message and being of service and simplifying your life and not being so consumerist or materialistic. They brought us up to be very actively involved in the peace and social justice and environmental movement.’

At Harvard University, one of her early career aspirations was to work for the American Friends Service Committee, where her uncle also worked. ‘They do great work,’ she said last year.

She told the Oprah website: ‘I think people must wonder how a white girl like me became a blues guitarist. The truth is, I never intended to do this for a living. I grew up in Los Angeles in a Quaker family, and for me being Quaker was a political calling rather than a religious one.’

Her thirteen Grammys span a fifty-year career, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2022. Featured in Rolling Stone’s list of ‘100 Greatest Singers of All Time’, it was Bonnie Raitt’s 1989 album Nick of Time that helped her gain mainstream recognition and go on to win many awards.

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