Finding great songs is the hard part of my gig – it’s not as hard as songwriting, that’s much more daunting – but I love playing other people’s music.

I just play the music that I love with musicians that I respect, and fortunately, I’m in a position where people are willing to play with me, and perhaps I can do something to help them.

There were so many great music and political scenes going on in the late ’60s in Cambridge. The ratio of guys to girls at Harvard was four to one, so all of those things were playing in my mind.

I’ve been lucky enough that I can gather all sorts of experiences and find inspiration by traveling around and by spending time with people I admire.

I finally learned to accept that I can’t make radio play blues any more than I could get Reagan out of the White House.

I was offered to take over for Reba in ‘Annie Get Your Gun,’ but it wasn’t where I wanted to be. I think my fans would be upset if I confined my shows to one city for a long period of time.

Since I was 20 years old, I’ve been a kind of corporation. I’d wake up in the morning and my job was to be ‘Bonnie Raitt’ in capital letters.

There’s something about the Strat’s shape that is at once masculine and feminine.

People come up to me all the time who saw Dad in ‘Oklahoma!’ or ‘Pajama Game,’ and they say they’ll never forget it.

I’m honored when young people say they’ve gone to school on slide guitar with my records. But people get their influence from my live shows and records and YouTube, not me personally. I walk around with a hat on. People don’t know it’s me.