Bonnie Raitt Trivia
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58 free Bonnie Raitt trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Bonnie Raitt trivia quiz follows the slide-guitar great from a Stella guitar under the Christmas tree to Radcliffe, Warner Bros., the lost 1980s and the Nick of Time comeback that swept the 1990 Grammys. The easy questions cover the big albums, Album of the Year, Bruce Hornsby's piano part, the Song of the Year win for "Just Like That" and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Medium questions dig into Don Was, the Del Shannon cover, Sun City, Prince's Paisley Park offer, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Brownie the Stratocaster. The hard and expert questions are for serious fans: Dick Waterman, Fred McDowell, Camp Regis, Ocean Way, the $150,000 Capitol deal, the seventeen-and-a-half-year record, Shirley Eikhard, Delbert McClinton and the Mount Zion headstones. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation, so the dates, chart positions and names can be trusted. Difficulty is shown on every question, which makes it easy to build a round for a music quiz night or play the whole set. When you finish, try our other blues and classic rock quizzes.
30 of 58 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which California city was Bonnie Raitt born?
Burbank
Burbank. As a girl she sang protest songs and idolised Joan Baez; in 1999 the two went up a threatened redwood together to visit the activist living in its branches.
Q 02Bonnie Raitt's father, John, was best known on Broadway for which original role?
Billy Bigelow in Carousel
Billy Bigelow in Carousel. Decades later he would walk on to close Bonnie's concerts with a song from Oklahoma!, and the two recorded Broadway duets for his 1995 album.
Q 03As a girl, Bonnie Raitt chose guitar because she felt she'd never match which relative on piano?
Her mother
Her mother. Marge Goddard was an accomplished pianist, so Bonnie taught herself on a Stella guitar she was given for Christmas, copying records by ear instead of taking lessons.
Q 04A live blues album recorded at which festival hooked the 14-year-old Bonnie Raitt on slide guitar?
Newport Folk Festival
Newport Folk Festival. The album Blues at Newport set her learning bottleneck guitar at 14, the skill that later won her the respect of the veteran bluesmen she opened for.
Q 05Which college did Bonnie Raitt attend, majoring in social relations and African studies?
Radcliffe
Radcliffe. She meant to graduate and do social work in Tanzania, but the blues clubs won: she left without a degree to play music full-time.
Q 06Many artists have covered which song from Streetlights, but Bonnie Raitt's 1974 version became the definitive one?
Angel from Montgomery
Angel from Montgomery. Its narrator is a middle-aged housewife who feels older than her years, yet it was written by a man in his early twenties; Raitt's cover made it famous.
Q 07Raitt's 'Kokomo Medley' on Road Tested pays tribute to which bluesman, her slide mentor?
Fred McDowell
Fred McDowell. Raitt met him at about 19 and opened his shows before she had a record deal; she has called him her favourite and closest friend among the old bluesmen.
Q 08Which label released Raitt's self-titled debut album in 1971?
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. She was 21 and meant to go back for her final year of college, so she asked for complete artistic control, and the label agreed.
Q 09Which 1972 album, Raitt's second, features 'Love Me Like a Man'?
Give It Up
Give It Up. For it Raitt flipped Chris Smither's 'Love You Like a Man' into 'Love Me Like a Man', and she was still playing the gender-switched blues on her 1995 live album.
Q 10Raitt's first commercial hit came in 1977 with a remake of which Del Shannon song?
Runaway
Runaway. Raitt recast it as heavy, gritty R&B, and its success set two major labels bidding for her, which let her renegotiate a far richer contract.
Q 11Bonnie Raitt co-founded Musicians United for Safe Energy in 1979 to campaign against what?
Nuclear power
Nuclear power. Its five No Nukes nights at Madison Square Garden became a triple album and a film, and the founders regrouped in 2007 to fight federal loans for new reactors.
Q 12In which 1980 film did Raitt appear as herself singing "Don't It Make You Wanna Dance"?
Urban Cowboy
Urban Cowboy. The honky-tonk soundtrack gave the blues-rocker a rare country hit, and she later said its songs were almost the only country she ever recorded.
Q 13Raitt's label dropped her in 1983, then in 1986 released her shelved album Tongue and Groove under what title?
Nine Lives
Q 21Which songwriter wrote and first recorded 'Thing Called Love', the song Raitt turned into her 1989 comeback single?
John Hiatt
John Hiatt. A critics' favourite short of hits, he cut it for his 1987 album Bring the Family; Raitt's cover led off her comeback and took his song to a far wider audience.
Q 22Which actor flirts with Raitt in the bar in her "Thing Called Love" video?
Dennis Quaid
Dennis Quaid. A friend of Raitt's, he did it as a favour, and the clip went into heavy rotation on the young VH1, exposure she had never managed to get from radio.
Q 23Which label signed Raitt in 1988, when few others wanted her, and released Nick of Time?
Capitol
Nine Lives. The label had dropped her the day after she finished mastering it, and the record sat on the shelf for three years while she kept touring on a shoestring.
Q 14Which anti-apartheid protest song did Raitt sing on in 1985?
Sun City
Sun City. On Steven Van Zandt's all-star single, Raitt and dozens of other artists pledged never to play the South African resort, where big-name acts had kept performing despite apartheid.
Q 15Bonnie Raitt sang backing vocals with k.d. lang and Jennifer Warnes on whose all-star TV concert, filmed in 1987?
Roy Orbison
Roy Orbison. Springsteen, Costello and Waits were all in his backing band that night at the Cocoanut Grove, a comeback show filmed about fourteen months before his death.
Q 16After Raitt lost her record deal, which pop star invited her to record for his own label?
Prince
Prince. The prospect of shooting a video beside him pushed her to lose weight and give up drinking; the project was never finished, but the sobriety stuck.
Q 17Which producer guided Raitt's comeback album Nick of Time?
Don Was
Don Was. Then known for his band Was (Not Was), he cut her comeback with her in about a week, and they kept making records together until 1995.
Q 18Which Disney lullaby did Raitt record for a 1988 all-star tribute album, the session that led to Nick of Time?
Baby Mine
Baby Mine. In Dumbo it plays as the locked-up Mrs. Jumbo rocks her calf in her trunk; Raitt enjoyed recording it so much that she asked the session's producer to make her next album.
Q 19Which jazz great plays piano behind Raitt on the Nick of Time ballad 'I Ain't Gonna Let You Break My Heart Again'?
Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock. Raitt's career was adrift, yet famous friends turned out for the album: he played on one ballad, and David Crosby and Graham Nash sang harmonies on another.
Q 20What major prize did Nick of Time win at the 1990 Grammys?
Album of the Year
Album of the Year. Dropped by her previous label, Raitt won four Grammys that night, and within weeks the year-old album had climbed to No. 1.
Capitol. Her manager counted 14 rejections first, and the deal carried only a new artist's budget, which her A&R man says spared her any pressure to chase hits.
Q 24Raitt won a 1990 Grammy for the duet "I'm in the Mood" with which blues legend?
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker. Their duet came on The Healer, the star-studded album that turned the veteran bluesman, four decades into his career, into a late commercial success.
Q 25What was the title of Raitt's 1991 follow-up to Nick of Time, her biggest seller ever?
Luck of the Draw
Luck of the Draw. Fearing her comeback was a fluke, Raitt went away to write before the Grammys were even awarded, and four of her own songs made the album.
Q 26To which late guitarist did Raitt dedicate her 1991 album?
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Stevie Ray Vaughan. He had died in a helicopter crash the summer before, soon after getting his life and career back on track.
Q 27Anne Murray wanted to record which future Raitt hit, was overruled by her producers, and named an album after it?
Something to Talk About
Something to Talk About. Murray's producers doubted Shirley Eikhard's song could be a hit, so she kept only the title; Raitt took it to No. 5 in 1991, her first Top 10 single.
Q 28With which orchestra did Bonnie Raitt and her father, John, sing Broadway duets on a public-television concert?
Boston Pops
Boston Pops. John Williams was the conductor, and Raitt, a veteran of two decades of blues-rock shows, admitted she was terrified to sing show tunes in front of an orchestra.
Q 29Which pianist plays on "I Can't Make You Love Me"?
Bruce Hornsby
Bruce Hornsby. Raitt asked him to play on it herself, then sang the vocal in a single take, convinced the emotion would not survive a second try.
Q 30Which British star took a cover of 'I Can't Make You Love Me' to No. 3 in the UK in 1997?
George Michael
George Michael. Paired with his own song 'Older' on a 1997 single, his cover climbed far higher in Britain than Raitt's original, which had stalled at No. 50.