This conversation took place on a sunny Saturday afternoon in one of the new artists' cabins built for this 2002 season at the Backyard in Bee Caves, Texas, just west of Austin. Backyard empressario Tim O'Connor had envisioned a woodsier, homier place for his musical pals to prepare for a show, and this setting seems nearly tailor-made for Bonnie. I had enjoyed some good conversations with her over the years at places like the Austin Opera House and Farm Aid II at Manor Downs, mostly at shows also presented by O'Connor, but I hadn't talked to Bonnie since before her breakthrough release, "Nick Of Time," in 1989. As a fan of thirty years, since I was a suburban Boston teen, catching her songs on a daytime-only, AM folk station out of Central Square in Cambridge, I looked forward to an opportunity to interview Bonnie Raitt.

Q: I haven't seen you since the rest of the world caught on, so congratulations.

A: Thank you, very much.

Q: Nice to see you again.

A: Nice to be back in one of my favorite places.

Q: I read a description of your favorite kind of shows to do, and basically it described doing a show at the Backyard.

A: This is one of my favorite places to play, period, because of this -- the view from the stage and the vibe, you can't get anything better than those oak trees. And the audience -- well, audiences in Austin, they get it, you know. By the time somebody comes to see me, they usually like what I do. But Austin is a puddle of what I do, you know. And I step in it.

Q: You leave us in a puddle.

A: I step in it.

Q: You like a crowd that gets into the rowdy songs and knows enough to shut up for the ballads.

A: That's putting it exactly right.

Q: Sometimes at shows it seems, even out here at the Backyard, that in the past few years some audiences have become really inattentive. More and more, they're treating musicians like a cocktail party, like background music.

A: I haven't noticed that. I mean, sometimes we'll do these industrials and then people are just there and they didn't pay to see us and they're just phased. You know, some guy jumped up on stage in Hawaii and put his arm around me and took a Polaroid of me and him. I said, "You might as well take a picture of your balls, because they're never going to be that big again!" Because, man, that was some nerve! But the other night, we were in a beautiful theater in San Antonio or Dallas and somebody -- it might have been Houston, too, I can't remember. But on George's side of the stage, a woman was talking on her cell phone from the front row during I Can't Make You Love Me. And finally -- he kept going like this (indicating) with his hand to shush her up. And he finally just flung a pick at her! Can you believe -- I mean, if you're going to talk, at least go to the back of the room.

Q: Or, at the very least, during a loud one like Gnawing On It or something.

A: But mostly, my audiences are pretty damn good, because they know I'm going to yell at them if they're not. I had a guy hold up a sign the other day that said "No pyrotechnics, no pyro, no background dancers, just good music." And that was a cool sign.

Q: Well, since you mentioned I Can't Make You Love Me, has the song that ends the new album "Silver Lining ..."

A: Wounded Heart?

Q: Is that too much like I Can't Make You Love Me to replace it in the show?

A: Well, I Can't Make You Love Me was a big hit. I've only had two hits, really, Something to Talk About and I Can't Make You Love Me. I've got to assume that some people out there would like to hear those, who are not fans from 1975. You know, they probably only got me with those songs. And I'm already doing so many new songs. The way it is right now, Angel from Montgomery and I Can't Make You Love Me, if I didn't do those, people have written letters and they're usually pretty upset. And I'm working for them, you know. I mean, I'm playing songs for people who haven't seen me in four years. And among the nine or ten new songs, there's only room to go down three times in an hour and 45 minutes. You can't play too many ballads in a row. I've got African stuff to add in now and then there's R & B, there's funk and a lot of different types of music. And you've got to play some Blues. So just to get around to everything -- and mostly, I'm just trying to play for the fans. It's going to be hard to fit in Wounded Heart anyplace except at the end of the night. We'll put it in there. It's even sadder than I Can't Make You Love Me.

Q: You think so?

A: Yep. It's absolutely the saddest song I've ever sung. I only sang both of those tunes once each in the studio. We'd try to do it again and I just said, "You know, this ain't going to happen."

Q: One take each, that's amazing. I know you spend a lot of time choosing the songs, but then you get the musicians in there and you don't spend a whole lot of time working over the songs.

A: You don't need to -- I mean, if somebody's good, they should just pick a key and then play it. And if you get the right combination of people, we already know how to play together and we respect what the other person's going to do. And the reason why I put them together is because I know they play well together. So there's a certain kind of a thing you've got to have to know what musicians are going to play. And then after a while, you know which guitar player fits in this pocket with this keyboard player. And this particular unit of people, when we lock in, it's just astounding. And I've had 30 years of great bands, but this one is really perfect for where I'm at right now.

Q: The touring band is almost the same band as on the record, right?

A: Exactly the same band, yeah.

Q: And John Cleary is strong enough of a band member to be the opening act.

A: Well, John has is own solo career. And I said, "Would you do this tour with me, since you're such a crucial part of the record?" And he said, "Well, I've got to make sure I don't abandon my guys. And I've got a new album coming out." So this was the perfect way to showcase and keep those guys working. And John's selling CDs right and left every night and he's getting standing ovations almost every night. The guy's just massive.

Q: And ( bassist) Hutch (Hutchinson) and (drummer) Rickie (Fataar,) I know they've been with you for a long time.

A: Hutch has been with me for over 20 years. And you know he spent a lot of time here in Austin. Every time we come here, all of us talk about getting a place here. So I completely understand why every band wants to move here.

Q: I heard a long time ago that you and Joe Ely almost swapped houses for a while.

A: No, I've never even seen his house. He's never seen mine.

Q: Just the idea of living in a different place for a little while, but being able to go home.

A: That would be a good idea. Maybe I'll call him up. Thanks for the suggestion.

Q: You're welcome. Speaking of which, don't let me forget. I brought you this. (The Flatlanders's CD "Now Again.") That's Joe, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock.

A: Oh, man, thank you! What a great photo!

Q: Their second album. The first one came out about the same time as "Give it Up." ( Bonnie's second album in1972.)

A: Thank you so much for this! Joe and I did some tours when I was playing acoustic, too. I think we played Park West in Chicago together. And I just -- man, I love him. I think he's the greatest.

Q: He's just down the street.

A: I'll call him up. Where is he right now? Ian MacLagan is going to come sit in with us tonight..

Q: I know Mac toured with you before and I once heard him say he would sit in the Rolling Stones any time, because for that night you're onstage with them you are treated like part of the band. But then he played again with Rod Stewart, who treated him and all the other guys like hired hands. And it's his own bandmate from the 60's!

A: That's too bad.

Q: But you seem to honestly have a band thing going here.

A: Well, I 'm a musician. I'm not just a singer. I know where 'the one' is, you know what I mean. I don't want to bad-rap anybody else, but if you can't work well and play with others, what's the point of being in a band?

Q: You said at the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame, "I just don't hold a guitar, I can ride it." That was in your induction speech.

A: We were talking about women guitar players. There are people that play to accompany themselves and -- it's not a competition here, it's just -- when you use it as an expressive instrument, it's like a voice. I don't know how to play like Hendrix or Clapton and sing -- I can do some solos, but they're basically Blues solos I've been doing since I was 16. Slide guitar is so open-ended that you can just throw it on top of any kind of music, because it's really like a voice.

Q: And then when you and Roy Rogers get together -- I got to see that a couple of weeks ago, where you're both doing slide on Gnawing On It.

A: Yeah, that's the first time a male and female have gone head-to-head on slide guitar, I think. That was really fun. He's a great, great player. I mean, his band understands that old-style Blues, the way the T-birds know how to do it, you know, and Jimmie's band. And Stevie Ray. Roy Rogers is just a really unique player. And he does a certain thing that is what I built the song around. And I told him, "There's a thing that you do, and I want to play it, too." I had an idea for a song and told him. And we agreed that we wanted to write a song about keeping a relationship hot down the line, much to the gag factor of your kids. "Oh-h-h, they're doing it!"

Q: Don't want to think about mom and dad going off and having a good time.

A: Yeah, get over it, kids.

Q: You mentioned the African songs, Hear Me, Lord and Back Around, one of which, you co-wrote. I know you took time off after "Fundamental," because it's been what -- four years between records?

A: Yeah, two years to tour, a year off for good behavior and then a year getting ready to make the next one.

Q: And you went to Mali?

A: Uh-huh.

Q: Was that your first trip to Africa?

A: Yes, it was.

Q: But you've been studying about Africa since college?

A: Well, I was into the political situation in Africa. I wasn't studying the music part. In that part of the world the lovely European nations that thought they could take over and teach Christianity and the way to behave. In the '60s of a lot of those African nations started over, basically. They didn't have to undo 200 years of messed up capitalism in the inner cities. What you've got is countries that are still able to stop that process and go back and protect the part of their culture that makes it so special, makes them different. So I just was always fascinated with East and West Africa and was planning to go over there and work with the American Friends Service Committee. And then I just played music as a hobby on the side. So the African thing didn't really pick up until I heard a bunch of African guitar music. King Sunny Ade someone turned me on to in the '70s. And then I played with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan at the Winnipeg Folk Festival in a Blues workshop and he just blew me away. And of course, our drummer Rickie's from South Africa. So between Hutch and Rickie -- and Ian McLagan actually turned me on to Ladysmith Black Mambaso back in the early '80s, when he was in my band. And I just fell in love with all that music, especially, Sowetto Township Jive from the '70s.

Like everyone else, I'm really excited that Peter Gabriel and Johnny Klegg and Sting and especially Paul Simon and Ry Cooder have made available all these records to just about every nook and cranny of the world. And now you've got the Internet. And I just had always been touring too much to be able to get over there. And then through a radio interview, I met the guys that do the AfroPop Worldwide show (on NPR.) And they were going to Mali. And the guy who does a lot of their reporting had just spent seven months learning to play guitar over there. And he said, "Why don't you come a week early from the group and I'll introduce you to all my buddies?"