Raitt eventually accepted a record deal with Warner Bros., and she released her first self-titled album in 1971. Word began to spread about the exceptionally talented young guitarist, whose slide work in particular stood out from others. The New York City venue was once a haven for up-and-coming folk artists like Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, but was then turning its ear toward blues. "It was an opportunity that young white girls just don't get," she recalled in 2002, "and as it turns out, an opportunity that changed everything."Ī 1970 at the Gaslight Cafe found Raitt opening for John Hammond Jr., son of the legendary Columbia Records executive. She began performing there locally, as well as in Cambridge and New York City. Not long after, she decided to leave school and move with him to Philadelphia. In Cambridge, she met Dick Waterman, a leader of the then-growing blues revival movement. Raitt first began to hone her skills on guitar while still a teenager at summer camp, then as a young adult on the campus of Harvard, where she majored in social relations and African studies.
Raitt's mother was a pianist and her father was a musical-theater actor who appeared in productions of Oklahoma! and The Pajama Game.
She took to music from a young age, with parents who encouraged her interests.
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