"Child of the Seventies, Singer For All Times" - Knoxville Voice

"The passion displayed in LaVette’s spine-tingling vocals is utterly undeniable. She remains one of the few prime vocalists remaining, relying on actual lyrical and emotional prowess in her delivery and abandoning disgraceful aspects of stylistic superficiality in all forms. Savor Bettye LaVette’s deserved revival while you can. These type of singers come around once in a blue moon." - OBSCURE SOUND

"LaVette avenges...with an album as lean, mean, and gritty as the cover image of someone behind a steering wheel, peering into the rearview mirror with windshield wipers in motion...  LaVette interprets other people's songs, but her palette and taste are vast and unexpected...In a hardened rasp reminiscent of Tina Turner back in the days with Ike, LaVette grinds out the lyrics with a gut-wrenching intensity perfectly suited to the Truckers' aggressive rock instrumentation."
- THE BOSTON GLOBE

"Bettye LaVette...possesses the growl of Tina and the forbidding, earth-moving force of Aretha...she lays us flat with her powers of slow-burning devastation." - ELLE

"Out of the darkness you hear a beautiful, melancholy voice that threatens to save your soul...Evoking Bessie Smith, Janis Joplin, and Billie Holiday, this album could very well place LaVette among them-her rightful spot in the history of blues."
- BUST

"She draws upon her life the way a method actor uses sense memory-not to create what's real, but to create an illusion of it...her shards-of-glass vocals; the clipped, ravaged phrasing so singular that it can only be termed LaVettesque...Her voice is jagged and rusty, weary, but filled with life too, hard as new forged steel, and with no intention of going easy." - NO DEPRESSION

"The second-to-final track “Before the Money Came (The Battle of Bettye Lavette)” was co-written by Lavette and Hood, and is the song that highlights the best of both factions. The band comes on The Silver Bullet band on the best night possible and Lavette’s growl is possessed by bitterness and triumph, and that ultimately is what the blues and soul is about: living it, feeling it, playing it and singing it."
OUTSIDELEFT

"She's the Motown artist you probably haven't heard of, but deep soul smoocher Betty LaVette is in the throes of a long overdue comeback." - New York Music

 

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"LaVette puts her stamp on a collection of songs by
women composers ... with stunning results" - Variety

"That Bettye LaVette has spent most of her 44 years as a performer Is something of a secret among soul aficionados. She's had hits with: "My Man - He's a Loving Man" in the '60s and "Right in the Middle of Falling in Love" in the early '80s -- but never reached the level of acclaim of Aretha Franklin or Diana Ross. But that may be changing.

On her new album, "I've Got My Own Hell to Raise" (Anti), produced by Joe Henry, LaVette puts her stamp on a collection of songs by women composers ranging from Sinead O'Connor to Dolly Parton and with stunning results. Her triumphant show Monday night at the Knitting Factory celebrating the album's release was just as impressive.

LaVette has a classic soul shouter's voice. She may be from Detroit, but the singers she most closely resembles are Southerners such as James Carr or Otis Redding -- powerful yet tender, a little rough around the edges, just as effective celebrating to the heavens as she is damnation and hellfire. If anything, age has burnished her vocals -- when she turns Parton's "Little Sparrow" into a harrowing drama, her pain feels so unvarnished and deep, it causes involuntary shudders and makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. She also turns Fiona Apple's "Sleep to Dream" (which gives the album its title) into a feisty declaration of independence.

She's aided by her four-piece band, which provides her with perfectly understated and flinty backup. But the hourlong show ends with LaVette onstage alone, transforming O'Connor's "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" into an a cappella spiritual, ending the night looking exultant -- her head held high, chin up and eyes closed. Earlier she told the audience, "It's been good, but it's never been good like this." The loving cheers from the audience let her know they felt the same way."

Steven Mirkin

 

"LaVette is easily one of the very best female live R&B singers!"

"The Echo Cafe show confirmed that Bettye LaVette is indeed in the top three performers I've ever seen in my 40 years as a soul music fan, up there with '60s Aretha and Nina Simone. I watched intently as she delivered song after song from her upcoming album "I've Got My Own Hell To Raise," songs written by female artists which seem tailor-made for this woman who is finally finally coming into her own."  
David Nathan, The British Ambassador Of Soul

 

"Pick Hit: "A Woman Like Me" - Blues Bytes

"Well, here it is only March and I hold in my hand the CD that will undoubtedly be my "Best of the Year for 2003"; Bettye LaVette's new CD is perhaps the best female soul release in years. A Woman Like Me (Blues Express) was produced by Dennis Walker who also produced all the early Robert Cray releases. Walker was a major contributor as a songwriter on all of those early releases too, so it is no wonder that he has written nine of the 12 songs here, including two, "The Forecast (Calls For Pain)" and "Right Next Door (Because Of Me)" each appearing on one of Cray's Mercury releases, with the latter's lyrics being used to title Cray's "Strong Persuader" release.

Enough talk about Robert Cray, though, since this is a Bettye LaVette release all the way - and what a release it is. As mentioned in the album's liner notes, this release is only the second time her talents have been showcased in a full length album. She first recorded in the early ' 60s and has had numerous single releases over the years with limited success. As is the case with so many of our soul/blues performers, she has a large following in Europe, prompting a 2000 live release from Germany coupled with a fine French release of her complete Atlantic/Atco recordings from the late '60s and early '70s. Both of these releases are well worth seeking out, as I am sure you will want to do after hearing this new release on Blues Express.

Seconds into the opening track, "Serves Him Right," you realize that the years have been good to her. Her voice is as strong and convincing as ever. When she growls out the lines "...He can go to hell for all I care..." you know you are in for an emotional experience. 12 tracks later, you are in awe of this newly rediscovered diva, and are bewildered that she has not been a major star. Hopefully that will change. The previously mentioned second track, "The Forecast," rivals Cray's performance. It is a well crafted song that works well in LaVette's hands. The track that follows, "Through The Winter," is an absolute jaw dropper - a slow burner wrought with as much emotion as a singer can deliver. What a trip! Song number four is the other Cray song, "Right Next Door," a cheating song on a par with the best of that genre. When she sings "...I was just another notch on his guitar. He made me lose the man who really loved me, he made me break my baby's heart...", mine broke too. Jumping to the sixth track, "Thinking About You," a sensuous song about a woman longing for her man. When she moans "hot," I break out in a sweat. What passion in her voice!

Only halfway through the album and I am already in love with her. Jumping once again to track number eight, "It Ain't Worth It", you hear Bettye in a different light, a torch song very much in the Billie Holiday mold. This track has some fine piano by the great Rudy Robinson who unfortunately passed away shortly after recording this album.

Track number nine, "When A Woman's Had Enough," is a great Dennis Walker tune also recorded by Shemekia Copeland on her new CD. If you want to hear how sensational Bettye LaVette is, compare those two tracks. We all know how great Shemekia is. Well, Bettye's version leaves Shemekia's in the dust. "Salt On My Wounds" has a fine sax intro and is another intense slow burner about lost love. Whew!

There isn't much more I can add to this review. If you aren't convinced by now, you never will be. Buy this CD. It will not leave your CD player. When you have sympathetic live musicians, an understanding producer and the great, great Bettye LaVette on board, the perfect CD can be created."

Alan Shutro, Blues Bytes, March 2003

 

"Bettye LaVette's stunning comeback"

"I can feel the pain, Lord, it's raining in my heart," Bettye LaVette howls on "The Forecast," and it sounds like it. On this stunning comeback - her first American release in over 20 years - the feisty soul singer rips through an hour of music with the pent-up hunger of a caged tiger at feeding time.

Helped immeasurably by producer/songwriter Dennis Walker, best known for his breakout work with Robert Cray, LaVette moans, screams, shouts, pleads, and growls her way through a dozen tracks that'll leave even the most jaded R&B fan begging for more. One of the casualties of music biz politics, LaVette has a style that has only sharpened with age. In her mid-fifties at the time of this recording, the singer has a husky voice that tears at the edges, adding deeper emotion. Although the production leans toward the slick side, it leaves room for the singer to dominate each track. Walker, who wrote or co-wrote nine of these tunes, provides heart-tugging yet defiant material perfect for LaVette's take-no-prisoners approach.

The singer plays the part of the scorned, aggressive woman, left behind but strong enough to know she's better off without that no-good scoundrel. Song tiles such as "Salt in My Wounds," "Serves Him Right," and "It Ain't Worth It After a While" tell the story without having to hear a lyric. LaVette squeezes every ounce of emotion from this material, lashing into it with a barely contained explosive delight.

Like a stage actress, she builds up the tension gradually until igniting in a shower of yelps and repeated phrases similar to Otis Redding at his most impassioned. This is a powerful album - moving, intense, and honest - from an artist desperately making up for lost time. It's a success for everyone involved, and deserves to put Bettye LaVette back on American stages where she belongs.

Hal Horowitz www.allmusic.com

 

"LaVette's new album gives her career a much-needed boost"

Veteran soulstress Bettye LaVette seems as giddy as a schoolgirl as she settles in for our chat. "I'm really going to play a club in New York!" says the resident of Detroit, in an authoritative, after-hours rasp that makes her unbridled enthusiasm seem even more out of character. Though admirably humble, LaVette's assessment downplays her résumé. It's true that her latest album, A Woman Like Me, is easily the finest of her nearly 40-year career, but perusing the highlights of her time in showbiz suggests that LaVette's gifts as an old-school R&B song stylist have been evident ever since the mid-'60s, when she hit the R&B charts with "Let Me Down Easy" and "He Made a Woman Out of Me." In the meantime, her skills have taken her through ill-fated contracts with Motown and Atlantic, among other prominent labels, and even landed her on Broadway in the 1979 revue Bubbling Brown Sugar.

If anything, the singer's obscurity - most of her recordings are only available in Europe - is something of a cautionary tale for those who think a worthy singer needs little more than good songs and the producer of the moment to strike gold. "At one time or another, I've recorded for every major label except Capitol and Mercury," LaVette says, even as she disses much of her output. "Yes, I've made some bad records, but there's no denying the quality of the songs, which I always handpicked myself."

A Woman Like Me finds the singer's track record for fine tunes intact. It's chock-full of songs written by co-producer Dennis Walker, whom pop fans will recognize as the catalyst behind soulful blues star Robert Cray's success. That's how LaVette came to turn Cray's "Right Next Door" from a tale of uneasy male braggadocio to one of unflinching female guilt. "It was the only song of Dennis' I knew when we made contact four or five years ago, and even though I had to tailor it to a woman's point of view, I knew I wanted to do it," she says. "I had to do the same for the title track because it had kind of a 'man done me wrong / if you leave me I'll die' thing that I just can't identify with. If you listen to the songs, they all say things like 'we are in love,' or 'cheat on me muthuh, and I will leave yo' ass!' When it came to altering them, Dennis just said, 'Do what you have to, baby.' "

However, LaVette has another explanation for the new disc's leap to brilliance. "I wanted a CD that captures me the way I do my show, which I've never done before," she explains. Appropriately, the disc plays like a hip night out at a contemporary juke joint, with a mix of mid-tempo boogie and ballads driven by Walker collaborator Alan Mirikitani's scintillating guitar. On riveting slow pieces like "Thru the Winter," "It Ain't Worth It After Awhile" and "Close as I'll Get to Heaven," LaVette's handle on the lyrics is so sure that her gritty timbre sounds strangely elegant. "My longtime keyboardist and music director Rudy Robinson died shortly after we finished the album," she says, "but I thank God he lived long enough to lay it down exactly the way we've been doing it for years on the road. What you hear is what people have always gotten when they come to see us live."

Interestingly enough, LaVette feels her lack of a commercial breakthrough thus far may have enhanced her live act. "I've developed a pretty big repertoire because the records never dictated my show," she muses, "so I didn't have to be Diana [Ross] singing something like 'Baby Love' forever, or Chubby Checker doing 'The Twist.' Plus, now I know that I'm really worthy of the treatment I thought I deserved decades ago, which is great because, like I said before, New York's a town that don't take no shit." Out comes an animated chuckle. "It's the one place where you've gotta be absolutely great - or at least be really great at the lie you're telling." A Woman Like Me is out on Blues Express.

Time Out New York, July 2003