Blue Notes: Bonnie Raitt

We are overdue in Hong Kong for something along the lines of the Timbre Rock & Roots festival to be held next month in Singapore. Although several of the artists are going on to gigs elsewhere in Asia and Australia, sadly none is making a detour here.

Among those appearing at the shows, which take place over two nights at Fort Canning Green on March 21 and 22, are Paul Simon, Robert Plant, Rufus Wainwright, the Tedeschi Trucks Band, and two winners from this month's Grammy awards: Jimmy Cliff, who picked up best reggae album for Rebirth, and Bonnie Raitt, whose Slipstream was voted best Americana album. That's quite a bill.

Raitt's award was her 10th, but speaking a few days before the ceremony on February 10, she didn't expect to win. "Frankly nine Grammys is enough for anybody to have," she says.

Win she did, however: Slipstream, her first album on her own Redwing Records label, is among her best.

Her previous studio album, Souls Alike, came out in 2005, but she toured until 2010 when she was finally able to take significant time off from the road for the first time in 42 years. Unfortunately it wasn't just a holiday. She had lost her parents and her brother, after long illnesses but within a short period of time. She needed time to herself to process the grief, she says.

"I really was happy to have that one year completely away, but I started to miss [working] after a while, and it was really a thrill to start up again with [producer-songwriter] Joe Henry, with those first four songs that are included on Slipstream. That was a breakthrough for me to play with some other musicians after so many years with my guys."