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Bonnie Raitt’s self-titled 1971 debut album had been more of a critical than commercial success, so when she recorded Give It Up she was a relatively unknown artist and was grateful that her label, Warner Brothers, gave her complete artistic control of the recording process, allocating a budget and collecting the tapes when she’d finished.

The year before, Bonnie Raitt had been recorded on a 4-track machine in an empty summer camp on Lake Minnetonka near Minneapolis, but for Give It Up she moved to Bearsville Studios [see above] in Woodstock [HFN Jul ’22]. Sessions took place in June 1972 and the album was produced by 22-year-old Michael Cuscuna, then known as a DJ for his jazz radio programmes.

Cuscuna had heard of Raitt via her manager Dick Waterman, who was a leading light on the blues revival scene, but essentially knew nothing about her. But he was ‘knocked out’ by her performances. ‘It’s a great collection of songs’, Raitt said in 1976, ‘it had the same funky feeling of the first album – only much better recorded, on 16 tracks’.

A total of 23 musicians play on the album, including some of Raitt’s friends from Cambridge, bassist and tuba player Freebo (real name David Frieburg) and guitarist T. J. Tindall. Pianist Mark Jordan had played on Van Morrison’s Tupelo Honey, and reeds man John Payne had worked on Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks.

The album is dedicated to the people of North Vietnam and also to ‘Mississippi’ Fred McDowell. Raitt had met him at blues gigs when she was 18 and he was in his 60s, and had intended to record a duet with McDowell of his song ‘Kokomo’ for Give It Up, but he was in too poor health and died shortly after the album was recorded.