Bonnie Raitt - Rockefeller's, Houston, TX, 3-5-1988

Yesterday, I posted a bootleg concert of John Sebastian that took place at a club named Rockefeller's in Houston, Texas, in 1983. I mentioned that there seems to be stash of other bootleg recordings from the same venue in that same era. Here's another one, featuring Bonnie Raitt.

Actually, although these Rockefeller's bootlegs have emerged only in the last year or so (as I write this in December 2021), I've had a version of this show for many years already. Like this, that version was a soundboard recording. But that one only included the late show, and this more recent version includes the early and late shows. Plus, the sound quality of this version is better, though only slightly.

Anyway, the bottom line is the sound quality is excellent, as good as you'd expect from an officially released live album. The performance is solid too. Like the John Sebastian concert, this one is totally acoustic. However, Sebastian was all by himself, and on this Raitt was accompanied by Johnny Lee Schell, who switched between bass and lead guitar, and sometimes sang backing vocals.

Although the bootleg I took this from included all of the early and late sets, the two sets were very similar to each other, with nearly the exact same song lists. So I based this on the late set, which was longer, and only used three songs at the start that were only played in the early set.

This comes from a time when Raitt's career was at a nadir. Her album sales steadily declined as the 1980s went on. Her most recent album had been rejected by her record company, and she was only able to release it after making major changes that she didn't like that much. But her poor fortunes had a silver lining. As far as I know, she hadn't done any acoustic tours since the early 1970s. But I think she was forced to go acoustic at this time because she couldn't afford to pay her bad, so we get this nice concert recording.

This marks the end of what one might consider the first half of her music career. In 1989, she would release the album "Nick of Time," which would go on to sell millions, be critically acclaimed, and turn her into a superstar. This concert doesn't include any songs from that future album. But it does include many that she never did acoustically before. It also includes some songs that she never released on any album, such as "Soldier of Plenty," "Hold What You've Got," "Up the Country Blues," "El Salvador," and "Born in the Country."

This album is an hour and 46 minutes long.

01 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
02 Any Day Woman (Bonnie Raitt)
03 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
04 Too Long at the Fair (Bonnie Raitt)
05 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
06 Soldier of Plenty (Bonnie Raitt)
07 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
08 Love Me like a Man (Bonnie Raitt)
09 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
10 I Ain't Blue (Bonnie Raitt)
11 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
12 That Song about the Midway (Bonnie Raitt)
13 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
14 Hold What You've Got (Bonnie Raitt)
15 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
16 You Got to Know How (Bonnie Raitt)
17 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
18 Up the Country Blues (Bonnie Raitt)
19 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
20 Louise (Bonnie Raitt)
21 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
22 El Salvador (Bonnie Raitt)
23 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
24 Women Be Wise (Bonnie Raitt)
25 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
26 Big Road (Bonnie Raitt)
27 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
28 Mississippi Road (Bonnie Raitt)
29 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
30 River of Tears (Bonnie Raitt)
31 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
32 Write Me a Few of Your Lines - Kokomo Blues - Walkin' Blues - Special Rider Blues (Bonnie Raitt)
33 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
34 Willya Wontcha (Bonnie Raitt)
35 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
36 Angel from Montgomery (Bonnie Raitt)
37 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
38 Born in the Country (Bonnie Raitt)
39 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
40 Your Sweet and Shiny Eyes (Bonnie Raitt)
41 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
42 Man Sized Job (Bonnie Raitt)
43 talk (Bonnie Raitt)

https://www.imagenetz.de/igJCA

I don't know where the cover art photo was taken, but it's said to be from 1988.