Takin My Time by Bonnie Raitt

Takin' My Time, Bonnie Raitt's third album, came out on Warner Bros. in 1973, and it's a record that refuses to sit still. All 10 songs are covers, and Raitt roams from blues and folk to jazz, New Orleans R&B and even calypso, with the tempo swinging from tender, sentimental ballads to loose, rhythm-heavy workouts. Lowell George was first in line to produce, but Raitt wasn't happy with how it was going and John Hall took over the job.

What holds it together is her voice, which can sound worldly and wide-eyed in the same breath. "Write Me a Few of Your Lines / Kokomo Blues" is the heart of it, loose and easygoing, the sound of someone who knows the blues well enough to relax inside them. The critics liked it then, and later reviewers have kept praising its range and her appetite for stretching out, and she took it on the road across the United States.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.