“Witnessing Winnipeg’s Bros. Landreth Win a Grammy with Bonnie Raitt’s Performance of Their Song

A Winnipegger couple was greeted from the stage during the biggest music night of the year.

“I want to thank the Bros. Landreth for writing this amazing song,” said legendary American blues singer and guitarist Bonnie Raitt in her acceptance speech for Best Americana Performance at the 65th Grammy Awards on Sunday.

The song she won for invented, is a cover of the song by the Winnipeg alternative country and folk group from their 2013 album leave it alone.

“Oh man I woke up on the right side of the bed, let me tell you. It’s a good day,” Dave Landreth, one half of Bros. Landreth, told CBC Manitoba information radio Innkeeper Pat Kaniuga on Monday.

“I’m just over the moon, man. It’s just the best, best news ever, we’re so happy. The entire journey of this song was absolutely stunning and so surreal and so wonderful.”

Bonnie Raitt, winner of the awards for Best Song of the Year, Just Like That, Best American Roots Song, Just Like That, and Best Americana Performance for Made Up My Mind, poses in the press room at the 65th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday. (Jae C Hong/Invision/Associate Press)

Landreth and his brother Joey first met Raitt at the 2014 Winnipeg Folk Festival when they were a relatively new opening act and she was the headliner. They were thrilled to perform on the same day with someone Landreth says they “adored.”

“We raised their biggest fans. Their music was on the radio, it was on the shelves of our record collection … and we listened to it non-stop,” he said.

“We had the first gig and Bonnie closed that night. In the middle of our set, Joey turned left and saw a shock of red hair and then looked ahead, afraid that Bonnie Raitt might be watching our set. As it turns out, it was,” Landreth recalled.

After their set, Raitt invited the brothers to hang out backstage in the Green Room. They talked for a few hours and became friends, Landreth says.

“And she gently suggested that if there were any songs that we thought she might find, that we should get in touch with her and let her know.”

At that point, they didn’t have any, Landreth said, “because the songs we played on stage were all the songs we’d ever written.”

Joey Landreth (left), Bonnie Raitt (center) and Dave Landreth (right) chat during the 2014 Winnipeg Folk Festival. (Stu Anderson/provided by Dave Landreth)

A few years and albums later, it was around Christmas time in 2021 when Dave and Joey heard that Raitt was interested in recording Made up.

Her version was released in February 2022 and became the lead single from the album Just as.

“[It] hit the charts, was #1 on radio for 10 weeks and has now won a Grammy,” Landreth said. “It’s too much, man. Pinch me.”

The song is so popular now – and well known with Raitt behind the mic – that the Bros. Landreth jokingly featured it as a cover song at their own shows.

“We had fun with it because in our minds it was really like when we heard her sing it was kind of good, I think that’s her song now,” Landreth said.

“The song was always in her hands and always came out of her mouth. And that’s exactly how we like to hear it.”

Raitt’s award for Best Americana Performance was one of three Grammys the 73-year-old accepted on Sunday night. She also won Song of The Year and Best American Roots Song, both for Just as.

She beat artists like Beyoncé, Lizzo, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles and Adele for song of the year.

“An artist to win these kinds of awards 52 years after releasing her first record is so relevant, resonates with such a large audience,” Landreth said.

“What it represents for careers like ours in Americana and roots and what kind of trajectory you can have is just so inspiring. Anyone out there who thinks they’re late in their career or that their moment is over, just forget it, hit the gas and move on.”

The brothers have sent Raitt a congratulatory message but don’t expect to hear from her any time soon.

“She has a lot to do. I’m sure she has a lot of people to talk to,” Landreth said.

Besides, he said, Raitt had been more than kind to them.

“She took every single chance she got to talk about us and give us credit for the one song [of ours] that she cut the record. Every time she’s in an interview, our name pops up,” Landreth said.

“She is one of the noblest and most genuine down-to-earth people. It was an incredible relationship.”

As if all of that wasn’t enough to keep Dave and Joey in limbo, The Bros. Landreth also have their own accolades.

her latest album, Come tomorrowis nominated for Contemporary Roots Album Of The Year at the JUNO Awards 2023

“It’s an embarrassment of wealth,” Landreth said.

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