VIA PRESS RELEASE: On June 24, Capitol Records/UMe will release a special vinyl-only edition of Bonnie Raitt’s classic Nick of Time in honor of the album’s 25th anniversary. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s tenth album still stands as her signature work and as a turning point in her legendary career. It topped the Billboard 200 album chart, sold five million copies, and won three GRAMMY® Awards, including “Album of the Year.” Rolling Stone ranked Nick of Time as number 230 on its list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.”
The Nick of Time – 25th Anniversary album was remastered from the original analog tapes, overseen by both the albums producer, Don Was and engineer Ed Cherney and is being released on 180 gram heavyweight vinyl.
“Personally, I think it may be the best record of my career” says Raitt. “Every record has its charm and its significance, but I think we finally got it right — I could finally say, ‘Yeah, that’s what I had in mind.’ As a mixture of styles, reflected in one record, it was a really good version of what I do.”
Nick of Time came along at a fortuitous moment for Raitt, following a difficult few years in which she had been dropped by her long-time label, Warner Bros, and got sober and healthy. The album was produced by Don Was, which initiated a working relationship that went on for several projects (the 1991 follow-up, Luck of the Draw, sold over seven million copies), and spawned four singles, including the hit “Thing Called Love.” Nick of Time was bookended by two landmark Raitt original compositions: the opening title track, a powerful mediation on aging, and the closing cut, “The Road’s My Middle Name,” a rollicking update of the blues that captured her life as a traveling performer.
“It’s a particularly great batch of songs,” says Raitt, “and the synchronicity of finding these songs when I did—the emotional connection and the gratitude that I had to be given another shot—I think that shows. It was kismet to have it come out this well.”
More than just a best-selling artist, respected guitarist, expressive singer, and accomplished songwriter, Bonnie Raitt has become an institution in American music. The recipient of ten GRAMMY® awards—including “Best Americana Album” for her most recent release, 2012’s Slipstream—she appears on Rolling Stone’s lists of both the Greatest Singers and Greatest Guitarists of All Time. Over the years, Raitt has contributed to over 100 album projects, collaborating with the likes of B.B.King, Willie Nelson, Ray Charles, and Stevie Wonder. Yet it is the breakthrough of Nick of Time (which received an additional GRAMMY® nomination when it was remixed for Surround Sound in 2004) that serves as the cornerstone of her body of work.
“The success of Nick of Time brought me a level of freedom, and the opportunities to do everything I had wanted to do,” says Raitt. “Nearly every gift in my life now is, in so many ways, because of what happened with that album and the GRAMMYs®. Definitely one of the greatest highlights of my life.”
