Bettye LaVette - Scene of the Crime
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CD Details
Artist: Bettye LaVetteBrand: Baker & Taylor
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
CD Release Date: 2007-09-25
Model: 00045778687329
Music Label: Anti
Soundtracks:
- Take Me Like I Am (Still Want To Be Your Baby)
- Choices
- Jealousy
- You Don't Know Me At All
- Somebody Pick Up My Pieces
- They Call It Love
- Last Time
- Talking Old Soldiers
- Before The Money Came (Battle Of Baeetye LaVette)
- I Guess We Shouldn't Talk About That Now
Music reviews of Scene of the Crime
Music Review: Raw and gritty : her voice comes from so deep.
Rating: 4 Stars
Though Bettye LaVette began her career 40 years ago, it never took off as it should, despite her being the only artist to record for Motown and Atlantic.
She didn't get major attention (and touring dates) until three years ago when she was rediscovered by the edgy Anti Records.
The company had the divine idea to match LaVette's vintage vocals to contemporary songs written entirely by smart women, from Joan Armatrading to Sinead O'Connor.
The resulting album I've Got My Own Hell to Raisestruck a perfect balance between historic depth and modern audacity.
Now she returns with "The Scene of the Crime", an almost autobiographical look back at the long hard road she has traveled, and for her more than worthy followup CD, Ms.LaVette covers songs entirely by men (except for one she co-wrote). Yet it gains a juicier theme, and backstory, from the place it was recorded in: Muscle Shoals Studio.
Her voice has matured to a crackling growl, rich in colour and fierce emotion. It's particularly effective on a heartrending cover of Elton John's "Talking Old Soldiers", and on the country lament "Choices".
Not all her song selections are this astute: much as the self-righteous, take-me-as-I-am lyric suits her, it's a road she screeches down too often.
Still, its magnetic moments make you glad she didn't just give up and get a day job.
She teams up with latter-day country-funk combo Drive-By Truckers, whose leader Patterson Hood is the son of the great Muscle Shoals sideman David Hood. The Truckers put LaVette in just the right stripped and sinewy setting. Hard guitars, dark bass and striking drums surround her.
Her vocals come from so deep in the gut. Yet Ms.LaVette's rip-roaring instrument also remains beauteous to behold.
The album also features Bettye's first songwriting credit, a cowrite with the Truckers' own Patterson Hood titled '"Before the Money Came (The Battle of Bettye LaVette)", a hard rocking tune that chronicles her struggles in a pointed, take-no-prisoners style, an autobiographical account of the many obstacles she has faced in her 40-plus years of trying to make it in the music biz.
The album was recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, a city known for its legendary soul and pop recordings. It is also the town where Bettye recorded a masterpiece titled Child of the Seventiesback in 1972. For some reason, Atlantic Records shelved it. The CD didn't surface until nearly 30 years later - and only in France.
Bettye went back to Muscle Shoals to record this album, it was like returning to the scene of a crime.
This explains the title of the album.
The album highlights: "I Still Want to be Your Baby", '"The Last Time" and "Jealousy".
Description of Scene of the Crime
Her 2005 acclaimed release, "I've Got My Own Hell To Raise", brought well-deserved recognition to this R&B maverick who's been recording since the early 60s. Now comes the almost autobiographical "Scene Of The Crime". To make music this raw and direct, Bettye enlisted "dirty south" rockers The Drive By Truckers as her backup band. With swampy guitars, slippery Wurlitzer piano, and a driving backline, this record conjures up the spirit of great loose 70s bands like the Faces while offering Bettye an urgent, vital setting for her razor-sharp vocals. Recorded in Muscle Shoals, AL, where she recorded "Child Of The Seventies" in 1972 - a masterpiece that was shelved then released 30 years later. Returning to Muscle Shoals was like returning to the scene of a crime; thus the album title, and the intense, personal music within."I've got my mem-mor-eehees," sings Bettye LaVette at the chilling finale of her version of Elton John and Bernie Taupin's obscure "Talking Old Soldiers," holding the last syllable as it fades into a hum while Spooner Oldham's ghostly piano underpins the pain. The singer's whiskey-stained voice infuses those words with a fierce mix of pride, hurt, resignation, sadness, strength, and humility--traits that make her one of the finest R&B singers of her generation. There are other riveting moments rivaling that from this deeply moving set that finds her recording once again at Muscle Shoals' FAME Studios, the same place she created an album in 1972 that Atlantic inexplicably never released. Accompanied by Oldham and the swampy, tightly wound Drive-by Truckers, LaVette digs into material from John Hiatt, Willie Nelson, Frankie Miller, Eddie Hinton, and Don Henley, among others, finding the hidden soul in songs as she rips them apart from the inside out. It's a magnificent performance from a singer who shoots straight, especially on her autobiographical "Before the Money Came (The Battle of Bettye LaVette)," this disc's sole original. The Truckers dial down their raunchy Southern rock, concentrating instead on rugged R&B and creating a greasy collaboration that's as inspired as it is unlikely. Lavette grinds out the intensity, alternating between ballads and roots rockers on a set that never lets up for 40 passionate minutes. Soul music just doesn't get any more fiery, as Bettye Lavette creates indelible images of loves and lives with the voice of one who has walked the talk. --Hal Horowitz
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