Flame-haired guitar-toting goddess skanks it up a little. Literally.
[Video][Website]
[5.67]
Alfred Soto: “Baker Street” is epochal, Gerry Rafferty’s second big hit less so, but the years have been kinder to this proto-Dire Straits number. Raitt and Rafferty sound like a can’t-lose team, so why is this a dud? Her voice still exudes the peculiar combination of laconic warmth which wowed lots of us at this year’s Grammys (when she turned Alicia Keys into a Joan Crawford character), and she plays a guitar solo to match. The watery skank though is beneath everyone involved.
[4]
Anthony Easton: Perfect. Well constructed. Elegant. I love her voice, and her voice has not gone anywhere. There is a longing here — no anger, and not too much sexuality, just a perfect little push. I love the soaring guitars — could be cheesy, but they manage to pull it out into something well worth listening to.
[10]
Brad Shoup: Why, oh why, did she not cover “The Ark”? My Raitt stereotype is genial mid-tempo depictions of relationships. Or maybe that’s just the one song. Anyway, this is such an unsurprise that I’m 85% certain I grew up with this reggaefied version.
[4]
Edward Okulicz: She’s no stranger to reggae-lite, even if just being willing to use its rhythm, having dabbled outside the textures she’s best known for on occasion, but if this song means something to her, her performance doesn’t quite show it. Not that she doesn’t try hard, her voice still oozes an appealing, calloused sexuality and the arrangement is meticulous and neat; it’s tailor-made for a slightly eclectic AC radio station. But beyond the video’s quite lovely juxtaposition of couples of all kinds, you could swap the lyrics out so they were about anything and I’d barely notice. Bonnie Raitt can be major league brilliant but this is really, really minor Raitt.
[4]
Katherine St Asaph: I’m straining not to deploy a certain word to describe the reggae-ish stabs and flourishes that never quite embody either of those nouns. You certainly wouldn’t use the word for the song or Bonnie’s voice, or shouldn’t; somehow, both seem simultaneously more melodic and more creased over the years. But she doesn’t sing it all the time; the instrumentation keeps nudging her away. It’s all so timid; it’s all so tasteful.
[6]
Jonathan Bogart: Bonnie Raitt herself — both voice and guitar — brings more sex and fire than was ever in the original. Unfortunately, the Boomer-reggae rhythm takes it all away again.
[6]