Bettye LaVette

After a string of R&B hits in the '60s and stints touring with James Brown and Otis Redding, Bettye LaVette's career hit a brick wall when Atlantic shelved her 1972 album, Child of the Seventies, which was recorded with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. A disco hit, "Doin' the Best...

By Jason Heller

August 26, 2010

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After a string of R&B hits in the '60s and stints touring with James Brown and Otis Redding, Bettye LaVette's career hit a brick wall when Atlantic shelved her 1972 album, Child of the Seventies, which was recorded with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. A disco hit, "Doin' the Best That I Can," and a one-off album on Motown followed, but by the end of the '80s, the Detroit singer's career was all but over. Child was finally released in 2000, though, and interest in LaVette's deep, gritty soul skyrocketed. She signed to Anti-, and her 2005 comeback album, I've Got My Own Hell to Raise, re-established her as one of soul music's fiercest, feistiest voices. The Scene of the Crime, on which she was backed by Drive-By Truckers, followed in 2007, and her latest full-length, Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook, is a love letter to vintage English rock and roll.

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