Bettye Lavette

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“Ms. LaVette, 64, now rivals Aretha Franklin as her generation’s most vital soul singer. She uses every scrape, shout and break in her raspy voice, with a predator’s sense of timing, to seize the drama of a song.” -The New York Times

“Talk about interpretations: LaVette has a knack for taking hold of a tune, wrapping herself up in it, and simply becoming the damn thing… By the time you’ve made one pass through Interpretations, however, Bettye LaVette has you believing that these tunes were written for her to begin with. And maybe they were.” – Jambands.com

“Bettye LaVette is far more than a compelling back story or artistic charity case. She’s someone who this very minute could unleash a performance that would make your hair stand on end. She’s a timeless singer who connects the present day with the deepest soul tradition.” -Anthony DeCurtis, Rolling Stone

 Bettye LaVette brings the British Invasion home to its American R&B roots on her latest CD, Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook. Produced by Bettye, Rob Mathes and Michael Stevens, the album is a 13-song journey through compositions by the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd among others, before concluding right where the very idea for Interpretations started: Bettye’s visceral show-stopping rendition of The Who’s “Love Reign O’er Me” from the 2008 Kennedy Center Honors, which appears here as a bonus track.

That performance – which first brought Bettye together with Stevens (the event’s producer) and Mathes (its musical director) – served notice that Bettye is no mere singer. As an extraordinary interpreter of song, she doesn’t merely mold a piece of music to suit her tastes; she is a conjurer of deep, emotional truths.

Throughout Interpretations, her performances are a revelation not just of raw emotion, but of the inexorable ties between British rock ‘n’ roll and the American blues and R&B, which when combined, catalyzed popular music. That Lennon, McCartney, and so many others who crossed the Atlantic in their wake, were deeply influenced by American music is no great secret. What Bettye demonstrates here so convincingly is the degree to which rock ‘n’ roll and American soul remain bound by bloodlines.

Notable Appearances/Awards for Bettye:

*Nominated for a 2010 Blues Music Award (Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year), a category she won in 2008. In 2004 she won for Comeback Blues Album of the Year for her CD, A Woman Like Me.

*Performance with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr at Radio City Music Hall in New York for David Lynch Foundation’s Transcendental Meditation Benefit, April 2009.

*Performed at The Obama Inaugural Celebration at The Lincoln Memorial in a duet with Jon Bon Jovi (broadcast on HBO, January 2009).

*Appearances on Late Night with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson, Austin City Limits.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 8th, 2010 at 9:17 pm and is filed under Past Shows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.