Streetlights (Remastered)

Produced by R&B legend Jerry Ragavoy — best known for overseeing classic songs by Garnet Mimms, Howard Tate and Erma Franklin —Streetlights brings out the down-home soul in Bonnie Raitt. While not as energetic as her first three albums, Streetlights is focused and streamlined. There is a blue-flame simmer in this music that puts it on par with Ann Peebles, Otis Clay, Al Green and the rest of the Hi Records stable. Raitt is a natural for Howard Tate’s “Ain’t Nobody Home” and Allen Toussaint’s “What Is Success,” the latter a rumination on the nature of the music business: “What is success? Is it doing your own thing or to join the rest?” The natural poise and conviction in Raitt’s voice is a perfect fit for the slow-burning gospel of “I Got Plenty.” Even more impressive are her soulful interpretations of songs outside the R&B arena. She gives an effortless, earthy feeling to Joni Mitchell’s “That Song About the Midway” and turns John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery” into an elegantly lonesome prayer.