Articles

Romance in the Dark - Celebrating Bettye LaVette's Latest Release

By Mary Foster Conklin

Included are new releases from Bettye LaVette (pictured), Champian Fulton, Nubya Garcia, The Moore-McColl Jazz Society and Kenny Washington plus singles from Emilie-Claire Barlow & Bocana and Sue Maskaleris with more birthday shoutouts to Charlie Parker (100!), Hilary Gardner, Naomi Moon Siegel, Russ Kassoff, Jimmy Rowles and more. Thanks for listening and please support the artists you hear by purchasing their music during this time of lockdown. Playlist Champian Fulton “Quasimodo" from Birdsong (Self released) 00:00 Giacomo Gates ...

Bettye LaVette: Things Have Changed

By Doug Collette

Bettye LaVette's Things Have Changed isn't merely a homage to Bob Dylan, it is also a remarkable combination of invention and polish, as arresting in production, arrangement and playing as in the novel choice of songs. The venerable r&b/soul vocalist collaborates with an esteemed roster of musicians, overseen by producer/drummer Steve Jordan (Keith Richards, Boz Scaggs), all of whom sound as inspired by each other as by the range of the Nobel Laureate's compositions, spanning over forty years. The remarkable ...

Bettye LaVette: Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook

By C. Michael Bailey

Cross Nina Simone with Tina Turner and you get Bettye LaVette. Finally receiving the attention she deserves, LaVette finds herself on a most receptive world stage. LaVette appeared at the 2008 Kennedy Center Honors, in tribute to The Who's Peter Townsend and Roger Daltrey, singing “Love Reign O'er Me," from Quadrophenia (Polydor, 1979). Video of the performance shows a stunned and humble Townsend and Daltrey, hearing their iconic song sung by an icon. Interpretations is a bold and are breathtaking ...

Bettye Lavette: Interpretations - The British Rock Songbook

By Jeff Dayton-Johnson

Bettye Lavette Interpretations: The British Rock SongbookAnti- Records2010

Perennial also-ran Bettye Lavette, among the many very good 1960s Detroit soul singers not signed to Motown--others include Barbara Lewis, Deon Jackson and Edwin Starr--offers a concept album of sorts. An interesting concept, too: R&B covers of classic British rock hits, from roughly the mid-1960s to the early 1970s (Led Zeppelin's “All My Love," from 1979, is an outlier in temporal terms).There ...