Nine Lives (Bonnie Raitt album)

Last updated

Nine Lives
Bonnie Raitt - Nine Lives.jpg
Studio album by
Released1986
Genre Rock
Length41:33
Label Warner Bros.
Producer Rob Fraboni, Russ Kunkel, Bill Payne, Steve Tyrell, George Massenburg.
Bonnie Raitt chronology
Green Light
(1982)
Nine Lives
(1986)
Nick of Time
(1989)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [1]
Robert Christgau C+ [2]
Entertainment Weekly D [3]
Rolling Stone (mixed) [4]

Nine Lives is the ninth album by Bonnie Raitt, released in 1986. It was Raitt's most difficult release, due to the poor sales, negative reviews, and general circumstances surrounding its release.

Contents

History

Raitt was one of several artists dropped from Warner Bros. in 1983, along with Arlo Guthrie, Van Morrison, and T Bone Burnett. The company explained that the artists dropped were not making hit singles. [5] Raitt recalled the situation in a 1990 interview in Rolling Stone :

There was a corporate sweep at Warner's, coming from upstairs, and they needed to trim the fat. I just had completed an album called Tongue in Groove, which was produced by Rob Fraboni, who had also done Green Light . And I don't think they maliciously said, 'Let's let her finish her album and get the tour all lined up and print the covers and hire the people to do the video and then drop her.' You know, ha, ha, ha. But that's what they did. It was literally the day after I had finished mastering it. I had already finished the album once, and they said the Jerry Williams tune would be more commercial if it didn't have quite as reggae a beat. Or something like that. So I went in and redid it. I thought if I cooperated a little more, maybe they'd promote the album more. But instead they dropped me and pulled the rug out from under my tour. I thought the way they did it was real crummy. They sent a letter. I think I suffered from not having a relationship with the A&R department there, because I had an independent production deal. [6]

The master tapes could have been purchased by Raitt for release as an album elsewhere, but Warner's asking price was considered too high. "They told me I can take the tapes and shop them around," said Raitt, "but they wanted about $500,000 for them, and nobody wanted to pay that much". The material for Tongue in Groove was shelved until two years later when "Warner's suddenly said they were going to put the record out," Raitt recalled. "I said it wasn't really fair. I think at this point they felt kind of bad. I mean, I was out there touring on my savings to keep my name up, and my ability to draw was less and less. So they agreed to let me go in and recut half of it." The result was Nine Lives, which was finally released in 1986. [6]

The song "Stand Up to the Night" was used in the film Extremities with Farrah Fawcett. [7]

Track listing

Side one
No.TitleLyricsLength
1."No Way to Treat a Lady" Bryan Adams, Jim Vallance 3:51
2."Runnin' Back to Me" Karla Bonoff, Ira Ingber4:14
3."Who But a Fool (Thief Into Paradise)"Nan O'Byrne, Tom Snow 4:26
4."Crime of Passion"Danny Ironstone, Mary Unobsky4:20
5."All Day, All Night" James "Hutch" Hutchinson, Ronald Jones, Ivan Neville 4:03
Total length:20:54
Side two
No.TitleLyricsLength
1."Stand Up to the Night" Will Jennings, Richard Kerr, J.A.C. Redford 4:43
2."Excited" Jerry Lynn Williams 3:12
3."Freezin' (For a Little Human Love)"Michael Smotherman4:58
4."True Love Is Hard to Find" Frederick Hibbert 4:34
5."Angel" Eric Kaz 4:00
Total length:21:27

Personnel

Production

Charts

Billboard (United States)

YearChartPosition
1986The Billboard 200138

References

  1. Ruhlmann, William. Nine Lives at AllMusic. Retrieved September 26, 2025.
  2. "Bonnie Raitt". Rober Christgau. 1986.
  3. Gordon, Robert (August 23, 1991). "Bonnie Raitt on the Record". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on April 21, 2009.
  4. Hunter, James (November 20, 1986). "Nine Lives". Rolling Stone. Retrieved September 26, 2025.
  5. Weiner, Natalie (March 21, 2019). "30 Years of 'Nick of Time': How Bonnie Raitt's 'Underdog Record' Swept the Grammys & Saved Her Career". Billboard. Retrieved September 26, 2025.
  6. 1 2 Henke, James (May 3, 1990). "Bonnie Raitt: The Rolling Stone Interview". Rolling Stone. Retrieved September 26, 2025.
  7. Lewis, Randy (December 5, 1986). "Bonnie Raitt: Tenacity, Perspicacity". Los Angeles Times.