Right off of a visit to New Zealand and Australia, 10-time Grammy Award winner Bonnie Raitt has announced a late summer run of shows in the U.S. including several stops in Indian country.
On Tuesday September 5th, Bonnie Raitt will be performing in Bismarck, ND at the Bismarck Event Center. Both Bonnie Raitt and the Indigo Girls’ Emily Saliers and Amy Ray will co-headline a benefit concert for the non-profit indigenous environmental justice organization Honor the Earth on Friday September 1st at the Bluestem Amphitheater in Moorhead, Minn. More dates are listed below to include Billings and Bozeman, MT and Rapid City, SD.
Emily Saliers and Amy Ray of the folk-rock duo Indigo Girls co-founded the Honor the Earth organization with Native author and activist Winona LaDuke in 1993. Raitt and Indigo Girls have a history of joining forces to further Honor the Earth’s mission to create awareness and support for Native environmental issues and to develop needed financial and political resources for the survival of sustainable Native communities.
“For years, Honor the Earth has been on the front lines in trying to change American energy policy from fossil fuels to renewables and is now faced with a new pipeline, line 3, in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin that threatens Minnesota’s pristine lake country and the tourism economy it supports, the headwaters of the Mississippi River, Lake Superior, and the natural and cultural resources critical to the survival of tribal communities,” says Bonnie Raitt who is touring in support of her critically acclaimed 20th album, Dig In Deep from Redwing Records.
Both Bonnie Raitt and the Indigo Girls have a history of joining forces to further Honor the Earth’s mission to create awareness and support for Native environmental issues and to develop needed financial and political resources for the survival of sustainable Native communities.
“We want to raise awareness and resources with this concert to engage communities throughout the region in stopping Line 3 and striving for more sustainable energy policy,” said Raitt.
“The proposed new Line 3 would carry tar sands oil, one of the dirtiest and most greenhouse gas-intensive fuels on the planet. A recent National Academy of Sciences report concluded that spilled tar sands oil is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to cleanup, and that US communities are generally unprepared for a spill response,” added Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls.
“This new Minnesota pipeline would cross the heart of the territories ceded by the Ojibwe to the US government in the treaties of 1855 and 1842,” said Indigo Girl, Emily Saliers in a release.[text_ad]”Tribal people have constitutionally-protected rights to hunt, fish, gather, hold ceremony, and travel on treaty land. We want those rights to be respected by not building yet another pipeline that can damage the environment and interfere with Native culture,” said Saliers.
Honor the Earth develops these resources by using music, the arts, the media and Indigenous wisdom to ask people to recognize our joint dependency on the Earth and be a voice for those not heard.
“We are fortunate to have these gifted artists supporting the issues that Honor the Earth deals with on many levels,” said Winona LaDuke, Executive Director and co-founder of the organization.
“Their devoted support will help us protect our precious wild rice beds, lakes, and rivers as well our regional fisheries that alone generate $7.2 billion annually and support 49,000 jobs. Minnesota’s tourism economy translates another $ll.9 billion and 240,000 jobs,” LaDuke explained.
“At best, Line 3 will create only 25 permanent jobs here, but removing the old pipes would bring a lot more. Enbridge should be required to clean up its old mess before creating a new one, and to put Minnesotans to work doing it,” said LaDuke.
At the Honor the Earth benefit concert in Moorhead, MN. Bonnie Raitt will be joined by her longtime touring band: James “Hutch” Hutchinson (bass), Ricky Fataar (drums), and George Marinelli (guitar), along with Mike Finnigan (keyboards). Special Guest Anders Osborne will support most dates.
In February 2016, Raitt released her most recent album ‘Dig In Deep’ on her independent label, Redwing Records. It has since sold over 160,000 units worldwide, debuting in the top #10 Billboard Album Sales, Blues Album, Americana/Folk Album, Digital Album Sales, Internet Album and Independent Album charts and was still on the top #200 Sales Chart 26 weeks after release.
The album charted at #35 on the UK Top 40 Album chart, #1 UK Americana Album Chart and #7 UK Independent Album Chart with the UK and Germany both reporting ‘Dig In Deep’ as Bonnie’s best-selling album since 1994’s ‘Longing In Their Hearts.’
Continuing a long-standing tradition in conjunction with The Guacamole Fund, Bonnie will donate one dollar from every ticket purchased to grassroots local, regional, and national organizations whose work focuses on safe and sustainable energy, social justice and human rights, environmental protection, and blues/music education.
Current tour dates are listed below. FRI 9/01/17 – Moorhead, MI – Bluestem Ampith., with Indigo Girls for Honor the EarthSAT 9/02/17 – Bayfield, WI – Lake Superior Big Top Chautauqua TUE 9/05/17 – Bismarck, ND – Bismarck Event Center WED 9/06/17 – Billings, MT – Alberta Bair Theater FRI 9/08/17 – Bozeman, MT – Theatre at the Brick SAT 9/09/17 – Rapid City, SD – Rushmore Plaza Civic Center MON 9/11/17 – Cheyenne, WY – Cheyenne Civic Center WED 9/13/17 – Boulder, CO – Macky Auditorium Concert Hall FRI 9/15/17 – Telluride, CO – Telluride Blues & Brews Festival SAT 9/16/17 – Santa Fe, NM – Opera House Bonnie Raitt on the web: http://www.bonnieraitt.com/http://www.facebook.com/officialbonnieraittFollow Vincent Schilling (Akwesasne Mohawk) – ICMN’s Arts and Entertainment, Pow Wows and Sports Editor Follow @VinceSchilling
