Mike Barnes

In 1972, Bonnie Raitt told Joe Selvin of the San Francisco Chronicle that she didn’t want to be a star. ‘The music business works to make you a star and I don’t want any part of that. I’ve seen the whole trip’. It was a theme she would return to in interviews, deeming stardom as ‘superfluous’ and having no interest in ‘the cult of personality’ that builds up around musicians. Instead, she enjoyed playing smaller venues so audiences could connect with her as they would do a friend.

Overall, I think the jazz police never forgave me for taking George Benson from the jazz area to where he became a pop artist', record producer Tommy LiPuma told jerryjazzmusician.com in 2022. 'I was always a pop music freak, but I was also a big jazz fan.'