Naomi Weisman is a Canadian-Australian mother of three who loves to ramble with her dog, cook for family and friends, and laugh whenever possible.
Last year, I listened with rapt attention to the wisdom and love imparted through Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ interviews with women she admires on the first season of her podcast, Wiser Than Me.
Her mixture of raw humor, insightful intelligence, and reverence for the people she is interviewing makes the hour fly by. And when she caps the whole thing off by telling her 90-year-old mom about it afterward, it's the icing on the cake!
So, you can imagine that I’ve been eager to see who she will talk to this season.
I have been a fan of Americana music all my life, and Bonnie Raitt is the poster child for that musical genre. So, when scrolling through the list of wise women interviewed in the second season, I immediately jumped on the Bonnie Raitt one.
It is clear from Dreyfus’ introduction of Raitt that this would be a mixture of wisdom and fandom because Dreyfus couldn't conceal her adoration of this amazingly talented woman, musician, and activist.
The interview had many intriguing moments, but one that truly resonated with me was when Raitt shared her experience of living between two personas, the capital B. Bonnie and the lowercase b. Bonnie, during her 36 years of sobriety. This unique perspective on self-identity and public perception left me pondering long after the episode ended.
She talked about how she would use alcohol and drugs to inhabit the persona that everyone perceived her to be and that little b. Bonnie wasn’t who everyone wanted to see.
She used the Wizard of Oz analogy when, in the end, Dorothy pulls back the curtain, and the Great and Powerful Oz is revealed to be just an ordinary man. I can’t tell you how much I loved knowing this about Bonnie and that she is willing to share it so openly.
Throughout this interview, I kept thinking how interesting it is that the people you idolize in life are just the same as the rest of us ordinary people. Although they might be talented in different ways, they still have the same fears and foibles that anyone else does, and this podcast reveals so much about what drives and sustains Raitt as an artist and a woman.
I can’t wait to listen to the other episodes from this season. It is an excellent line-up of wise and wonderful women.
Here are a few songs they mentioned for us to discover (or rediscover), some of which I know well and some of which I completely forgot about: Nobody’s Girl, All At Once, Women Be Wise, Just Like That (see my previous review), and Baby Mine.
What are your favorite Bonnie Raitt songs? What are your favorite podcasts?
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