No one is ever totally satisfied with "Best of" collections, but this one is definately on the mark as having a very well thought-out selection representing a fairly wide sampling of Bonnie. I'm happy to see many selections of what, IMHO, Bonnie Raitt does best: sing the blues.

What's interesting, are the inclusion of some duets, with songwriter/singers of some classics: Women Be Wise with the incomparable Sippy Wallace comes to mind. The duet with John Prine on Angel From Montgomery gives you the feel of a live concert when "surprise" guests would stroll on-stage for a jam.

For those of you who wondered all those years, "What's the fuss?" THIS IS IT! Together, in one CD, Under the Falling Sky, I Feel the Same and My First Night Alone Without You. Ear candy of the finest kind! -amazon

5 stars
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Before Bonnie Raitt surprised even herself by winning four Grammys this year, she'd had an always-a-bridesmaid career. Musicians loved her, and her albums sold respectably. But she never had the giant hit her fans thought she deserved.

The Grammys gave her that hit: After Raitt's quadruple victory, her 1989 Capitol album, ''Nick of Time,'' climbed belatedly to the top of the charts. Her success also may have spurred interest in her earlier work -- or at least that's the commercial rationale behind The Bonnie Raitt Collection, for which Raitt herself chose 20 songs from the nine albums she recorded between 1971 and 1986.

For some fans -- blues purists, especially -- the commercial polish of songs like ''The Glow'' marked the artistic bottom of Raitt's career. But there's only one song in the collection with no character at all: It's Raitt's concluding choice, ''No Way to Treat a Lady'' from her 1986 album ''Nine Lives,'' in which her voice gets lost in music hard to distinguish from other brawny rock songs that never quite stuck in anyone's memory.

That's a curious way for Raitt to end a compilation of personal favorites. Though maybe she's being brutally honest; by 1986, her career had begun a temporary downhill spiral. Honesty suits her, in any case. It's one of the many shining virtues of her singing, which one weak song can hardly diminish.

source: ew.com

Artist: Bonnie Raitt
Album: The Bonnie Raitt Collection
Date Of Release: 1990
Genre: Blues
Bitrate: VBR --alt-preset standard