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Bettye LaVette

01.15.2008 -- Review by: Don Zelazny

I assume that most of you reading this review have heard of this CD. In fact, if you follow music even casually you are likely to have seen this CD on some of the innumerable year end “Best of” lists (including mine). The synopsis: legendary soul singer from Detroit releases a CD on which she is backed by one of the top bands of “people like us,” the Drive-By Truckers. Right now you should be closing this review and heading to your favorite CD site to snag a copy.

I won’t even insult Bettye by trying to say who she “sounds like.” A voice like hers comes along very rarely, and a pairing with a backup band like the Truckers… it’s the first one I recall! Bettye’s career began in 1962 and as a teenager she enjoyed an R & B hit with the song “My Man (He’s a Loving Man).” Her peers in Detroit were many of the artists who went on to fame and fortune with Motown and Atlantic. At the height of the classic soul period in the early ‘70s Bettye herself was signed to Atlantic Records and was taken to Alabama to the famed Muscle Shoals Studio (yes, the one from “Sweet Home Alabama") to record what was to be her breakthrough album. Unfortunately the album collected dust at Atlantic for 30 years for no apparent reason. Bettye’s luck improved with the 2000 release of this “lost” Atlantic recording on a small French label. She then released a well received CD I’ve Got My Own Hell To Raise” in 2005. The president of her label, Anti- Records wanted to pair Bettye with a working band for her next CD, and from this the collaboration with the Drive-By Truckers was born. So, 35 years later Bettye returns to “The Scene of the Crime,” Muscle Shoals, to record this amazing CD. Apparently things got a bit dicey at times between Bettye and the band, but you would almost expect and hope for that when two diverse talents get together and have to create together. A listless collaboration likely would not have yielded such a gem. The Trucker’s Patterson Hood said of the sessions:

“As the sessions got underway, word seemed to spread across the music community about what we were up to and soon more and more of the original Muscle Shoals players began to show up to check it out or pay respects....but beyond the great players and stories and food the real highlight of making the record was whenever Bettye began to sing.”

Bettye definitely hasn’t forgotten what happened in 1972. The first sentence of the liner notes reads “Return to the Scene of the Crime (Bettye LaVette in Muscle Shoals, Alabama- 35 years later)” She lays down the law right out of the box on the first tune on the CD, “I Still Want To Be Your Baby” when she sings “I’ve been this way too long to change now - you’re gonna have to take me like I am” This bit of a personal anthem is followed by two great slow tunes, “Choices” and “Jealousy,” both of which have minimal backing from the band so you are just sucked in by Bettye’s magnetic voice. The Drive-By Truckers do a great job backing Bettye both with their playing, and the fact that they let Bettye be Bettye and don’t try to do too much (maybe where some of the tensions came from?). Another highlight of the CD is the old Elton John tune “Talking Old Soldiers,” which is said to be Bettye’s “defiant statement of her survival and an exorcism of the demons brought on by years of mistreatment and indifference from a musical industry that prefers cookie-cutter formulas to artistic genius.”

The CD is full of wonderful elements of soul, blues, rock and americana. As I mentioned, in reading the innumerable pieces reviewing the year 2007 in music I saw no other CD mentioned more in as wide a range of forums focusing on as many different styles of music as The Scene of the Crime.” This speaks highly to the wide appeal of the CD and says perhaps that there are more folks in the music industry who “get it” than there were in 1972! Better late than never!

Don Zelazny is a music lover who plays dentist by day.  He ‘listens’ with his two young children, and wife Michelle in Michigan.

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Artist Name: Bettye LaVette Album Name: The Scene of the Crime Website: http://www.bettyelavette.com/ Record Label: Anti- Release Date:

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