Watch Brandi Carlile and Bonnie Raitt Duet on ‘Love Me Like a Man’ for ‘Austin City Limits’ Premiere, Plus a Web-Only Bonus, ‘Angel From Montgomery’ (EXCLUSIVE)

When Austin City Limits launches its 2026-27 season, Bonnie Raitt and Brandi Carlile will co-headline the premiere, an hour-long PBS broadcast that also serves as Carlile's formal entry into the show's Hall of Fame. Though a generation separates the two performers, their mutual respect anchors the pairing. The episode airs on PBS stations Saturday night and features the pair swapping verses on Raitt's signature "Love Me Like a Man," alongside Carlile performing selections from her latest record, "Returning to Myself." Variety obtained an exclusive advance look at the collaboration.

Television viewers will see a single duet, but a second joint number was captured during taping and will be offered exclusively to streamers. In that bonus track, the two interpret John Prine's "Angel From Montgomery," a song Raitt helped canonize in the 1970s. Prine, an Illinois-born songwriter celebrated for his wry, tender storytelling, died in 2020 from COVID-19 complications, and his catalog remains a touchstone for artists across folk and country. Before performing it, Raitt told the crowd, "We miss John and we're gonna hold him in our hearts right now." Most PBS affiliates air the episode Saturday at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT, though local listings should be checked. Full episodes stream through PBS.org and the PBS App, and every Season 52 installment, Carlile's induction included, will be available at no cost on the ACLTV YouTube Channel.

Raitt, who has collected ten Grammys and entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000, devoted her introduction to praising Carlile's singular talent. "For more than half a century now 'Austin City Limits' has been a loving home to all kinds of real music and the real people that make it," Raitt said. "There's really no one quite like her. The most amazing range in voice, clarion and clear and powerful, and as far-reaching as her songs and lyrics." Carlile, whose 2018 album "By the Way, I Forgive You" earned six Grammy nominations and three wins, recalled her first trip to Austin with bandmates Tim and Phil Hanseroth. "Me and my brothers… first rolled into Austin in our old Chevy van, White Lightning it was called, over 20 years ago," she said. "I remember getting to town and wanting two things: Tex-Mex and to know where Austin City Limits was taped." She noted that Austin's skyline once felt more familiar to her than Seattle's, purely because of the program. The Hall of Fame honor places Carlile alongside past inductees such as Willie Nelson and Lyle Lovett, underscoring her standing in the lineage of Texas-rooted musical storytelling.

Moments before the duo began "Love Me Like a Man," Raitt expressed pleasure at Carlile's selection. "I'm so excited that you picked this song and I was so surprised," she said. Whether the surprise stemmed from the track being, as Carlile described it, an "unapologetic blues song," or from Carlile seldom treating a man's love as life's pinnacle, was left unsaid. In their duet, Carlile adjusts the verse's gender to "a woman who can take me home instead of taking me for a ride," while the chorus stays as written. She told Raitt the number ranks among "one of my favorite songs that you've ever done. … The guitar playing alone is about the sexiest thing I've ever been able to fathom, until you factor in the lyrics from this song… So I sent her a little note, and she rolled her eyes at me, but she said, 'Sure, Brandi.'" Raitt's 1971 release "Give It Up" first brought "Love Me Like a Man" to a wide audience, and she has long been counted among the finest blues-rock interpreters of her era.

Carlile's set with her band also includes a rendition of Alanis Morissette's "Uninvited," a staple of her recent live shows, together with the originals "Returning to Myself," "No One Knows Us," "Human," "Church & State" and "You Without Me." Her "Returning to Myself" U.S. tour concludes in San Diego on Sept. 22, with another project arriving just days later. On Sept. 25 she releases a reworked, re-recorded version of the album titled "Returning to Myself… (Sad Gay Version)," and a vinyl edition follows on Dec. 11.