Souls Alike
Bonnie Raitt's albums often strain to encompass all that she is. Her eighteenth disc manages to showcase both the greasy bottleneck-blues guitarist and the pop-friendly mellow crooner, thanks to a lot of solid material sporting depth and detail. The slinky "Trinkets" looks back comically and lovingly on childhood possessions, while "God Was in the Water" captures the supernatural mystery of nature's elements. At fifty-five, Raitt still sounds sexy and undomesticated singing her keyboardist Jon Cleary's "Love on One Condition," and peaks vocally on the album's finale, "The Bed I Made," a jazzy piano torch song likely to snag the singer another Grammy. Throughout, Raitt holds her ground without digging a rut.