First Raitt

5/22/2014

Every once in a while I like to post videos of John Raitt and his daughter Bonnie Raitt. Fortunately, they found enough time -- and had enough enjoyment -- to do this enough so that there's been a reasonable amount to grab. This comes from a 1992 appearance they made with the Boston Pops.

The pleasure of these joint appearances for me is to see how much utter joy Bonnie Raitt has during them, not just being able to perform with her dad, but mainly to bring to her father the attention of her own fans and let them know that in his prime he was perhaps has big a Broadway star as she was in her field. But there's pleasure too in seeing how much he enjoys to have some limelight again, while reveling in daughter's fame.

This song, "Hey, There," comes from one of his Broadway hits, The Pajama Game, written by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. And it nicely starts with a solo by the father portion of the equation that leads into an sweet walk-on introduction. And then eventually into Bonnie Raiitt's own solo of one of her own big hits.

4 Comments

Douglass Abramson

5/22/2014 03:42:20 pm

God, I miss that show.

Robert Elisberg

5/23/2014 08:03:12 am

Which show? "Pajama Game" or the Boston Pops? I've marked my guess for the latter.

5/23/2014 11:39:43 am

Yes, I was referring to Evening at Pops. It was part of the fabric of my family's Summer Saturdays. If we were home, the family TV was tuned to the proper PBS station and we received our weekly dose of culture. I love Orange County, where I grew up, but it has never been a hot bed of budget friendly arts programs. My mother started watching it when Fiedler was the conductor and kept watching it until the end. It caught my attention as a child because JOHN WILLIAMS was in charge! The composer for all of my favorite movies. I watched it from a few years into his tenure until the end. My sisters didn't pay the show much attention until Keith Lockhart came along. They both thought that he was quite handsome. Dad watched it because mom wanted to, but he did tend to enjoy the shows with a singer performing Broadway standards. It was probably the only show where all of us could find a reason to watch and enjoy ourselves. I understand the financial reasons why the show ended. (Though I find it hard to believe that a Warren Buffett or a Bill Gates couldn't be found to cover the production costs) What I don't understand is why PBS hasn't been importing the BBC Proms broadcasts. It cover the same types of music, in the same season and is already underwritten by UK taxes. It should be cheaper for the individual PBS stations to put on than Pops was.

5/23/2014 12:22:07 pm

I think Keith Lockhart has done a very good job at capturing the sensibility of Arthur Fielder. At some point, if the spirit moves me, I'll tell the tale of meeting Arthur Fielder when I was a kid working for the Ravinia Music Festival. He wasn't as amused by it as I was.

First Raitt

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