Bonnie Raitt and Lyle Lovett, both polished to a high gloss, represent the blues that came out of Texas and the Mississippi Delta with a richness of vision that comes only with success.

Raitt, whose mentor Fred McDowell was a fierce example of the hardcore Delta style, has modified her approach over the years until now she's as unclassifiable as Lovett, who does his Lone Star number with exuberance so soulful it borders on the pathological. But both come from honest roots in music that flourished with the advent of recording technology. They came along late but they connect somehow with "the folks", the citizens of that pre-World War II realm that critic Greil Marcus calls "the old, weird America."

Raitt's best work has always been steeped in blues as a mystique, as a means of articulating the inarticulate speech of the heart ("River of Tears" comes immediately to mind). Lovett's deep-delving cowboy sonatas tell a different story of lust and betrayal. His "L.A. County," for example, rings with murderous irony, the very stuff of the best blues.

Neither Raitt nor Lovett is stuck in the past, however. They're part of the living tradition of blues interpreters, performers who have absorbed the music so thoroughly that everything they do exudes its most powerful qualities. And there aren't many around to compare them with. The blues grows now in a hothouse atmosphere that focuses too much attention on the
best specimens to allow for the kind of unselfconscious development that gave birth to the blues in the first place. Robert Johnson didn't play stadiums and Raitt and Lovett don't work jukes and roadhouses.

The difference is in the amenities, one of which is ease of living. Out of this ease comes dreamlike creativity that is hardly the essence of hobo life. Instead, it's the reflection of this world--consumer America--with all the peerages and pressures that come with it. In this day and age, the blues constitute an artifact, an archetype maybe, on which to base an assessment of the human condition. But there's no reason they can't be vital signs in the midst of plenty. Raitt and Lovett, at their best, make that seem like the greatest irony of them all. They're so slick and smooth they elevate the blues to the highest level of society and that, in a way, is what the blues were always trying to reach.

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