The “Great Lady of Soul” returns to the Twin Cities, performing at the State Fair Sunday and Monday nights, September 2-3 (8:30 pm) at the Linnie Bandshell. Bettye LaVette has had a long-standing love affair with the Twin Cities, appearing nearly annually at the Dakota Jazz Club since her triumphant return to full-time touring in 2004. The State Fair performance should bring out her local legion of fans as well as introduce her to a new audience. And it’s free (with Fair admission).
LaVette was raised on the blues in Detroit, but unlike many soul sisters of song, she did not start off singing gospel in church. “Discovered” by the legendary Johnnie Mae Matthews, she recorded her first record at age 16. “My Man - He's A Lovin' Man” was quickly purchased by Atlantic Records and reissued as a big soul hit. Soon she was touring with James Brown and recorded another smash single, “Let Me Down Easy” in 1965; it remains the emblematic hit of her career. Through the 60s and 70s, Bettye LaVette made a number of highly regarded recordings (most getting little support from their labels), toured extensively, and had runs at a number of clubs including Smalls in New York. Covering some of the biggest tunes in the R&B canon, she regarded herself as an interpreter, not songwriter: “I’m a better editor. If you make a statement, I can make it a stronger statement. And, if you write a story, I can make it a stronger story. But I rarely think of a story I ever want to write myself.”
Described in the New York Times as having “pure, magnificent soul: passion carried by an eloquent voice and exquisite timing,” LaVette was the hit of the 2003 Chicago Blues Festival. Said Chicago Tribune critic, Kevin McKeough, “LaVette sang in a raspy, sultry voice that resembled Tina Turner, filling her soul ballads with murmurs, growls and cries.” Recalling her January 2004 stint at the Dakota, Star Tribune critic Jon Bream noted, “She's old-school in sound and attitude, singing with her entire body, and without compromise.” Fueled by the success of A Woman Like Me, Bettye won theW.C. Handy Award in 2004 for “Comeback Blues Album of the Year” and was the Living Blues critics’ pick as “Best Female Blues Artist of 2004.”
The idea for I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise (2005) came from Anti Records President Andy Kaulkin, who suggested that she record songs exclusively written by women songwriters. At first Bettye rejected the idea. “I didn’t want to do it at all,” she said. “I just felt that woman would write songs that would be too pitiful and they wouldn’t be exactly what I wanted to say…“I don’t really like to sing things that I wouldn’t say.” After considering over 100 songs, she ended up selecting no R&B/soul tunes at all: “I want everything that I know in my voice to be heard. You can’t pick all the inflections up in a straight ahead rhythm and blues song. I feel I’ve completely mastered rhythm and blues because it is so straight ahead. These kinds of songs I haven’t really had a chance to do.” Yet, despite the raw material, there is no doubt that LaVette remains the Great Lady of Soul. “I’m a soul singer,” she admits. “If I did an aria, it would be being done by a soul singer. I don’t know how to sing any other way.”
In 2007, Bettye unleashed Scene of the Crime, backed by the southern rockers, Drive By Truckers. Recorded at Muscle Shoals' Fame Studios, the latest recording is a defiant retort to Bettye’s never-released Child of the Seventies, an album that Atlantic Records oddly never distributed. It’s a diverse set with covers of everyone from Willie Nelson to Elton John. Noted Joshua Klein (Pitchfork Review), “Lavette's singing hasn't really been diminished by the passage of time, or at least not so much that it really matters. Here LaVette is all growl, snarl, bark, and, if you train your ear to the nuances in her delivery, sometimes deliciously mean and mirthful, too.”
Bettye is our annual soul felon in the Twin Cities, one that this reviewer always anticipates eagerly despite the fact that I am otherwise rather immune to the attraction of soul and R&B. My ears perk up for Bettye. My eyes as well—you could turn off the volume and still be mesmerized by the visually expressive LaVette. And maybe I also get considerable satisfaction seeing “an old broad” (as she calls herself) carry on like the teen sensation she was in her early career.
In the words of Elle magazine, "She lays us flat with her powers of slow-burning devastation." Be ready to be devastated, and thoroughly entertained, when Bettye LaVette “raises hell” at the State Fair Sunday and Monday nights. This is a free performance, sponsored by the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewery.
The Minnesota State Fairgrounds are located at 1265 Snellling Ave North; visit the fair website for maps and more information at www.mnstatefair.orgAdd this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites
