When the MerleFest lineup is announced every year, certain names generate huge buzz, particularly when making first-time appearances at the festival. For 2025, Bonnie Raitt not only drew festival-goers, but other performers scheduled to play the festival invariably named Raitt as the not-to-miss set.
Raitt did not disappoint. Closing out an already stellar lineup on Friday of the festival, Raitt opened with “Split Decision” by NRBQ, which she called her favorite band. Though she joked about the atmosphere being “moist and buggy,” she was clear that she had been waiting for the chance to play the festival. She was clearly at the top of her game, performing her best-known songs from throughout her career, weaving in other numbers from a variety of genres. Along with her perennial favorites, she also performed “Your Good Thing” (Is About to End), first recorded by R & B great Mabel John and covered on Raitt’s 1979 album The Glow and Bob Dylan’s “Million Miles.” She sang “Hear Me Lord,” one of several gospel songs over the course of the festival, telling the crowd, “because we need all the help we can get.”
She delivered many of her biggest hits—“Are You Ready for a Thing Called Love?” penned by John Hiatt and “Let’s Give ‘em Something to Talk About,” and her recent Grammy-winning single “Just Like That.” The high point of the evening—and there were many—was her performance of “Angel from Montgomery.” Raitt invited I’m With Her—Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz, and Aoife O’Donovan—to join her for harmony, with Watkins playing fiddle. The trio appeared as moved as the crowd. Raitt took the time to remember the late John Prine, telling the crowd, “Keep playing him in your homes and tell your kids about him.”
While MerleFest encores are the exception rather than the rule, Raitt and her stellar band returned to the stage and kept rocking. After demonstrating her skills on slide guitar, she moved to the keys to play her beautiful hit “I Can’t Make You Love Me, ” Another high point was her rendition of “Dimming of the Day,” after which she apologized for “so many sad songs in a row. She followed up with Paul Siebel’s “Louise,” which she recorded in 1977.
Noting “the night is young and we are not” and admonishing the crowd to keep roots music alive, Raitt closed with B.B. King’s “Never Make Your Move Too Soon.”
