Post by ClassicSoul on Dec 7, 2005 17:43:10 GMT -5
Raisin’ Hell : R&B singer Bettye LaVette hits the comeback trail
By Brian Baker
BETTYE LaVETTE’S CAREER has suffered more bad breaks than Evel Knievel’s body. Although her latest album, the stunning I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise, has garnered overwhelming critical acclaim since its September release and earned her a slot on The Late Show with David Letterman, it comes four decades after she embarked on her criminally underappreciated soul/R&B path.
A Detroit resident since age 4, LaVette’s first shot came at 16 with her discovery by Motor City music icon Johnnie Mae Matthews. Her first record, 1962’s “My Man — He’s a Lovin’ Man,” was done for a small Detroit label, but Atlantic Records picked it up and took it to the R&B charts Top 10. Three years later, LaVette hit the R&B charts again with “Let Me Down Easy,” her signature song from that point on. For most of the ’60s, however, LaVette’s career was plagued by naïveté, bad timing and missed opportunities, complicated by the fact that she came up in a time between trends.
“Before R&B crossed over with ‘Respect’ for Aretha [Franklin], I had ‘Let Me Down Easy,’ which was a little early for the crossover,” says LaVette via phone from her Detroit home. “Then it got to a thing where they’d record an album and take a single out of it. My records flopped in the period where if your single didn’t sell, you didn’t get an album. When it all changed, I wasn’t in the mix.”
Even with success overwhelming her peer group — Aretha, the Four Tops and the Temptations were friends, and Stevie Wonder wrote “Hey Love” specifically for her —LaVette struggled for similar commercial acceptance. LaVette finally caught a break when Atco signed her in 1972. Her first full album was recorded under the title Child of the Seventies but was bafflingly shelved without apology or explanation. Shortly thereafter, LaVette accepted a role in Cab Calloway’s Broadway smash Bubbling Brown Sugar, where she remained for six years. In 1979, LaVette scored a major hit with the disco track “Doin’ the Best That I Can,” and three years later Motown finally released her first full album, Tell Me a Lie, which spawned the minor hit “Right in the Middle of Falling in Love.”
For the next 18 years, LaVette took any gig she could find. She worked the U.S. club circuit incessantly and cultivated a small but devoted following in Europe, playing for any amount offered. LaVette’s lack of financial success has been a source of frustration for the gifted singer, who’s been favorably compared to successful contemporaries like Aretha, Otis Redding and Tina Turner.
“It’s not like Joss Stone being compared to Aretha Franklin; it’s me being compared to a broad I’ve actually had an argument with,” says LaVette with a wry laugh. “These are people I’ve seen naked, broke or drunk or all three. If you’re young and they keep saying you’re like Otis Redding or Aretha Franklin, then maybe it would annoy you, but only because you’re young and you should take it as a compliment. But there’s only so much compliment I can take it as. These people and I all started together. Did they suddenly get better than me? It’s extremely frustrating.”
Five years ago, things started to change. A high-profile date at Columbia University renewed interest in LaVette’s work, and then a French label bought the masters to her canned ’72 album, releasing them as Souvenirs. In 2001, a Dutch label recorded one of LaVette’s Holland shows for Let Me Down Easy: In Concert, which led to 2003’s A Woman Like Me earning LaVette the 2004 W.C. Handy Award for Comeback Blues Album.
LaVette’s return is complete with her signing to Epitaph imprint Anti and her breathtaking work on I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise. At the suggestion of label head Andy Kaulkin and producer Joe Henry, LaVette interpreted the work of ten female songwriters, most of them — Lucinda Williams, Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple, Joan Armatrading, Dolly Parton — well outside of her blues/soul frame of reference
“The words had to be something a 60-year-old woman could look you in your face and say,” says LaVette. “My show is more conversational now. I don’t use the word ‘boy,’ and I don’t say things that I wouldn’t naturally say.”
While LaVette considers her current career upswing as vindication for years of neglect, it hasn’t yet translated into broad financial success. She makes no bones about the fact that her current focus is on gaining the notoriety and money that she so richly deserves. And when that very success is wished for her, she responds with true warmth and a throaty laugh that hints at the magnificently soulful voice that should be captivating millions.
“Baby, that is exactly what I’m hoping for,” she says. “I’m so grateful when you guys write about me. I’ve seriously thought I was going to have to go to everybody’s damn house and do a show on their porch.”
www.freetimes.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2842
By Brian Baker
BETTYE LaVETTE’S CAREER has suffered more bad breaks than Evel Knievel’s body. Although her latest album, the stunning I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise, has garnered overwhelming critical acclaim since its September release and earned her a slot on The Late Show with David Letterman, it comes four decades after she embarked on her criminally underappreciated soul/R&B path.
A Detroit resident since age 4, LaVette’s first shot came at 16 with her discovery by Motor City music icon Johnnie Mae Matthews. Her first record, 1962’s “My Man — He’s a Lovin’ Man,” was done for a small Detroit label, but Atlantic Records picked it up and took it to the R&B charts Top 10. Three years later, LaVette hit the R&B charts again with “Let Me Down Easy,” her signature song from that point on. For most of the ’60s, however, LaVette’s career was plagued by naïveté, bad timing and missed opportunities, complicated by the fact that she came up in a time between trends.
“Before R&B crossed over with ‘Respect’ for Aretha [Franklin], I had ‘Let Me Down Easy,’ which was a little early for the crossover,” says LaVette via phone from her Detroit home. “Then it got to a thing where they’d record an album and take a single out of it. My records flopped in the period where if your single didn’t sell, you didn’t get an album. When it all changed, I wasn’t in the mix.”
Even with success overwhelming her peer group — Aretha, the Four Tops and the Temptations were friends, and Stevie Wonder wrote “Hey Love” specifically for her —LaVette struggled for similar commercial acceptance. LaVette finally caught a break when Atco signed her in 1972. Her first full album was recorded under the title Child of the Seventies but was bafflingly shelved without apology or explanation. Shortly thereafter, LaVette accepted a role in Cab Calloway’s Broadway smash Bubbling Brown Sugar, where she remained for six years. In 1979, LaVette scored a major hit with the disco track “Doin’ the Best That I Can,” and three years later Motown finally released her first full album, Tell Me a Lie, which spawned the minor hit “Right in the Middle of Falling in Love.”
For the next 18 years, LaVette took any gig she could find. She worked the U.S. club circuit incessantly and cultivated a small but devoted following in Europe, playing for any amount offered. LaVette’s lack of financial success has been a source of frustration for the gifted singer, who’s been favorably compared to successful contemporaries like Aretha, Otis Redding and Tina Turner.
“It’s not like Joss Stone being compared to Aretha Franklin; it’s me being compared to a broad I’ve actually had an argument with,” says LaVette with a wry laugh. “These are people I’ve seen naked, broke or drunk or all three. If you’re young and they keep saying you’re like Otis Redding or Aretha Franklin, then maybe it would annoy you, but only because you’re young and you should take it as a compliment. But there’s only so much compliment I can take it as. These people and I all started together. Did they suddenly get better than me? It’s extremely frustrating.”
Five years ago, things started to change. A high-profile date at Columbia University renewed interest in LaVette’s work, and then a French label bought the masters to her canned ’72 album, releasing them as Souvenirs. In 2001, a Dutch label recorded one of LaVette’s Holland shows for Let Me Down Easy: In Concert, which led to 2003’s A Woman Like Me earning LaVette the 2004 W.C. Handy Award for Comeback Blues Album.
LaVette’s return is complete with her signing to Epitaph imprint Anti and her breathtaking work on I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise. At the suggestion of label head Andy Kaulkin and producer Joe Henry, LaVette interpreted the work of ten female songwriters, most of them — Lucinda Williams, Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple, Joan Armatrading, Dolly Parton — well outside of her blues/soul frame of reference
“The words had to be something a 60-year-old woman could look you in your face and say,” says LaVette. “My show is more conversational now. I don’t use the word ‘boy,’ and I don’t say things that I wouldn’t naturally say.”
While LaVette considers her current career upswing as vindication for years of neglect, it hasn’t yet translated into broad financial success. She makes no bones about the fact that her current focus is on gaining the notoriety and money that she so richly deserves. And when that very success is wished for her, she responds with true warmth and a throaty laugh that hints at the magnificently soulful voice that should be captivating millions.
“Baby, that is exactly what I’m hoping for,” she says. “I’m so grateful when you guys write about me. I’ve seriously thought I was going to have to go to everybody’s damn house and do a show on their porch.”
www.freetimes.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2842