Bonnie Raitt likes to write songs, but you won't find any of hers on her new album "Souls Alike," which is the focus of her U.S. tour.

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"My songs didn't make the cut," explains the Grammy-winning Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, who was distracted in recent years by the deaths of both her parents (her father was Broadway legend John Raitt) and her brother's battle with brain cancer. Instead she turned to other writers, including keyboardist Jon Cleary and guitarist George Marinelli from her own band.

"I don't have any ego attachment to that, thank goodness. Though you can make a lot of money if you write songs, it's never been what drives me. It's always which ones knock me out at the time. These other songs came along and I just wanted to sing them and talk about them for the next few years more than I wanted to delve back into my own."

"Souls Alike" is Raitt's first set of new material since 2002's "Silver Lining." She starts a North American tour on Oct. 5 in Tulsa, Okla.