LOS ANGELES, CA. (Top40 Charts/ Anti-Records) - BETTYE LAVETTE is back, and this time it's personal. Channeling 30 years of blood, sweat, and shattered dreams into one glorious catharsis, transcendent soul stylist LAVETTE returns to "THE SCENE OF THE CRIME"
September 25 with her latest disc (her second from Anti- Records).
Artists and critics alike are heaping praise on BETTYE and her essential new entry into the soul music canon. "BETTYE LAVETTE, a Detroit soul singer denied superstardom in the '70s, possesses the growl of Tina and the forbidding, earth-moving force of Aretha on her latest record," is Carlene Bauer's take in the September issue of Elle. "She lays us flat with her powers of slow-burning devastation."
"Wow! I got chills when I listened to Bettye LaVette's version of 'Choices,'" was country legend George Jones's unequivocal response upon hearing BETTYE's version of the Billy Yates and Mike Curtis-penned track that Jones turned into a GRAMMY-winning hit in 1999. "I can only hope that my version created a similar sensation. Her interpretation is so soulful, and conveys the feelings I had when I recorded the song - the thoughts that I had about some of the mistakes or choices I had made. She did an incredible job, and she is truly a 'singer's singer.'"
The buzz continues to grow for her new offering, which The Philadelphia Inquirer's Nick Cristiano describes as, "the next excellent chapter of a late-blooming career."
BETTYE was recently crowned "Most Outstanding Blues Singer" and "Blues Artist of the Year (Female)" in Living Blues magazine's annual critics' poll - LAVETTE hits the road with a short series of dates including a September 3 performance in her native Detroit at the Detroit International Jazz Festival and a September 24 show at New York's Highline Ballroom the night before "THE SCENE OF THE CRIME" hits stores.
Backed by the freewheeling renegade Southern rock band Drive-By Truckers, and produced by DBT's Patterson Hood, David Barbe and BETTYE herself, "THE SCENE OF THE CRIME" takes LAVETTE back to Muscle Shoals, Alabama - the same setting that saw her greatest triumph become her biggest disappointment when Atlantic Records inexplicably shelved her 1972 album "Child of the Seventies."
Exorcising old demons, contributing a song of her own ("Before the Money Came"), and otherwise stripping familiar songs (including Elton John's "Talking Old Soldiers" and Willie Nelson's "Somebody Pick Up My Pieces") to their emotional core, BETTYE lets loose with a single-minded ferocity as she blazes her own path to redemption.
If BETTYE's visceral appeal is the lifeblood coursing through "THE SCENE OF THE CRIME," it is utterly inescapable when she takes to the stage, as noted in a CD preview in the August issue of Paste:
"She's still got soul... Ever since Atlantic Records shelved her debut album in 1972, she's been harnessing her bitterness through stunning live performances."
Recognized by Esquire as the "Sexiest Female Vocalist Alive" after her breakthrough 2005 Anti- debut "I've Got My On Hell To Raise," the early raves suggest that "THE SCENE OF THE CRIME" is already cementing that status: "'Scene'... is full of simmering open space that lets her hard-fought revelations on love and liquor resonate," writes August Brown of the Los Angeles Times, while USA Today's Ken Barnes declares, "this album... just rips, with some truly sublime peaks."
Simply put by the Washington Post's Josh Freedom du Lac: "Mark your calendar, cuz this one's absolutely worth getting."
For more, check out www.anti.com. BETTYE LAVETTE tour dates are as follows:
DATE CITY VENUE
Sun. 9/2 Marquette, MI Ellwood Mattson Lower Harbor Park
Mon. 9/3 Detroit, MI Detroit International Jazz Festival
Sat. 9/8 Fallon, NV Barkley Theatre
Sat. 9/22 Chicago, IL Metro
Mon. 9/24 New York, NY Highline Ballroom
