Bettye LaVette has been singing professionally since she was 16, releasing a moderately successful R&B single here and there, but real fame proved elusive for decades.
But signing with ANTI- Records at the tail end of her 50s, LaVette released 2005’s I’ve Got My Own Hell To Raise, an album produced by Joe Henry and made up of tunes penned by female songwriters from Fiona Apple to Dolly Parton. Folks finally took notice of “The Great Lady of Soul” and were taken aback that the world had nearly missed out on an incredible talent.
Reissues of older recordings followed in short order, as did a second new studio album, 2007’s The Scene Of The Crime. This time LaVette covered songs by Elton John, Don Henley, Willie Nelson, and others, backed by Drive-By Truckers and sharing producer duties with the band’s frontman, Patterson Hood. Once again, LaVette proved just how marvelous she is at interpreting others’ songs.
In fact, it was her live performance of The Who’s “Love Reign O’er Me” at the 2008 Kennedy Center Honors that served as the genesis for her latest release, Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook. She wowed not only Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend, but also fellow honoree Barbra Streisand, who asked Townshend if he really wrote it. Responding to the overwhelmingly positive reaction that night, LaVette’s husband suggested she do a whole album inspired by the British Invasion.
LaVette admits she wasn’t initially familiar with the songs considered for the album, including tunes by The Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. “I had heard seven of them,” she recently told NPR. “When these songs were released, there was black radio and there was white radio, and rarely did the twain meet. All of these British artists, the inspirations for these songs were from black music, but nobody on white radio played them.”
In a cosmically comic way, after 48 years in the business, it’s fallen to 64-year-old LaVette to bring that inspiration full circle. With Interpretations, she’s connecting the dots for an audience that may never have registered rock music’s R&B roots, taking on these classic-rock tunes and unearthing the soul sometimes buried deep within. She’s not only helping to pay a debt long owed and somewhat forgotten, she’s finally getting paid too.
My favorite track from Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook is LaVette’s exquisite, impassioned take on Led Zeppelin’s “All My Love.” In fact, the cover led to quite the opportunity for LaVette. Robert Plant enjoyed her version so much that he asked her to open for him on tour this July. Hear here:
Nodding to her own inspiration, LaVette’s Kennedy Center Honors performance of “Love Reign O’er Me” is featured on Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook as a bonus track.
Purchase Bettye LaVette – “All Of My Love” via iTunes, Amazon MP3.
