Bonnie Raitt

A double rarity in the music business, in that she was both a white woman who played the blues, as well as an artist who parlayed her love of traditional American music into a platinum-selling, multi-Grammy Award-winning career, Bonnie Raitt was a much-beloved musician whose soulful voice and nimble fretwork brought sass, class and honesty to such hit songs as "Nick of Time," "The Thing Called Love," "Something To Talk About" and countless others. The daughter of Broadway musical star John Raitt, she debuted in the late 1960s as part of the blues revival scene, and shared the stage with some of the giants of the medium, including Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker. Raitt parlayed that priceless education into her own work, which drew critical acclaim throughout the 1970s and 1980s but relatively small album sales. However, she achieved her long-overdue breakthrough in 1989 with Nick of Time, which earned three Grammys and launched her into superstar status. A dedicated political activist as well as a powerful musician, Raitt used her newfound stardom to support countless organizations in the 1990s and 21st century while never losing sight of her status as one of the most potent and recognizable figures in America popular music.