“Slide guitar used to be more unusual,” Bonnie Raitt once noted. “Now it’s on every beer and truck commercial. Every TV sitcom has slide guitar.”
She should know. She’s not only the most famous female slide player — Raitt’s signature guitar work once anchored one of the biggest franchises in television history. And it happened without her even realizing she’d been drafted.
In 1988, Peter Cetera was at work on his third solo album, One More Story. In need of some high-octane energy, he turned the studio into a revolving door of music stars, recruiting Madonna, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, and Oak Ridge Boys bass singer Richard Sterban.
For the track “Save Me,” Cetera wanted a very specific sting, so he called the best in the business.
“He asked if I would come in and play slide on this song, and I did,” Raitt told Guitar Player in 1989.
At the time, Raitt was still one year away from the career-defining explosion of her breakthrough album, Nick of Time. While she wasn’t yet a household superstar, she was already a “musician’s musician” who knew exactly how to serve a track.
“I basically consider myself an accompanist on the guitar,” she explained. “When there’s a groove going I can really slide on just about anything.
“I don’t really have a lot of chops, not being a schooled musician. I tend to play guitar the same way on a lot of different songs. I play the same Muddy Waters lick over and over.”
By 1989, her Cetera session was behind her, and Raitt’s world had shifted. Nick of Time was a juggernaut, spawning hits like the title track and her cover of John Hiatt’s “Thing Called Love.”
But while she was busy supporting her breakthrough album, her electric slide work for Cetera was making a very different kind of splash. She discovered it had become a TV theme song musician by accident.
“One day I’m sitting in my house channel surfing,” she said. “All of a sudden this theme song comes on, and it’s my solo!”
The confusion was immediate. As she watched the screen, the gritty, Muddy Waters-inspired licks she’d recorded in a dark studio were now a soundtrack to a sun-drenched montage of lifeguards prancing on the beach in spandex.
“There are babes jumping up and down, flopping every which way. I’m going, ‘Give me a break!” she said, laughing. “I was going, ‘That guy’s copping my song.’
“And then I realized it was me!”
Cetera had licensed “Save Me” to the producers of a new NBC action-drama called Baywatch. Featuring David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson, the show was a high-stakes look at L.A. County lifeguards — and the song was a literal lyrical match. With lines about being “caught in raging water” and needing someone to “throw me the rope,” it was the perfect backdrop for the show’s soon-to-be-famous rescue scenes.
As it turned out, Raitt’s tenure as a primetime guitar hero was brief. NBC axed Baywatch after just one season. When the show was resurrected for syndication — eventually becoming a global phenomenon with over a billion viewers — Cetera’s music proved too expensive. The producers pivoted to a more budget-friendly theme, Jimi Jamison’s “I’m Always Here.”
As for Raitt, she didn’t do badly herself. Nick of Time topped the Billboard 200 chart, and went on to sell five million copies and win three Grammy awards, including Album of the Year. It launched a winning streak in her career that continues to this day.
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