Choose artist...
Home   >   Projects   >   Blackbirds
Bettye LaVette

Blackbirds

Verve Forecast

Press Release

Read press

Artist Details

Read bio

Tour Dates

View

Website

Visit
KXCL: A Neon Jazz Interview Bettye LaVette
Bettye's first appearance on Late Night 07/28/05
Stern Grove Festival's Best of the Fest: Episode 7 - Celebrating Women
Best of MONTCLAIR JAZZ FESTIVAL:
Michael Dorf's The Music of....
1 I Hold No Grudge (Nina Simone)  
2 One More Song (Sharon Robinson)  
3 Blues For the Weepers (Della Reese)  
4 Book Of Lies (Ruth Brown)  
5 Romance In The Dark (Lil Green)  
6 Drinking Again (Dinah Washington)  
7 Strange Fruit (Billie Holiday)  
8 Save Your Love For Me (Nancy Wilson)  
9 Blackbird (The Beatles)  
Show all tracks
Hide

Song to be featured on her upcoming album "Blackbirds," a tribute to iconic black women in music on August 28

"It really is horrifying that nearly 80 years later, through Billie's lifetime and now my 74 years, the meaning of this song still applies. It might not be men and women hanging from trees, but these public executions are now on video and it feels like they're doing it for sport. I hope the song will be a reminder that we have had enough, and I support the Black Lives Matter movement," said LaVette.

Blues Hall of Famer Bettye LaVette has released a new track, "One More Song." The song, written by Sharon Robinson, is the third song to be released from Blackbirds, out on August 28 via Verve Records. 

Blackbirds features songs primarily popularized by some of her peers, other iconic women in music, who she personally respected and admired. The album finds LaVette in top form delivering powerful renditions of songs that touched her personally. It also re-unites her with producer Steve Jordan.

From Dinah Washington's "Drinking Again," Nina Simone's "I Hold No Grudge," Nancy Wilson's "Save Your Love For Me" and more, all delivered in LaVette's rich and raspy tone with a touch of the blues.

Bettye LaVette is a native of Detroit. Her first recording in 1962, at the age of sixteen, was on Atlantic Records. She later charted with such singles as "He Made A Woman Out Of Me" and "Do Your Duty," Since then she has recorded ten albums. Her most recent album Things Have Changed, also produced by Steve Jordan (John Mayer, Keith Richards), was released on Verve in 2018 and received two GRAMMY nominations, which brings her total Grammy nominations to five.

  • Bettye LaVette savors another moment / relix Q&A
    Posted At: October 20, 2023
    Hailed by the New York Times as “one of the great soul interpreters of her generation”, Bettye LaVette is a vocalist who can take any type of song and make it completely her own. Bettye is one of very few of her contemporaries who were recording during the birth of soul music in the 1960s and is still creating vital recordings today. To quote the late, great George Jones: “Bettye is truly a ‘singer’s singer...

  • Bettye LaVette uncovers gems from Randall Bramblett's catalog / American Songwriter
    Posted At: June 13, 2023
    Review: Stirring ‘LaVette!’ American Songwriter's HAL HOROWITZ writes….Great soul singers are not necessarily great songwriters. That’s the case with R&B veteran Bettye LaVette, who doesn’t pen her material, yet has an eye and ear for quality tunes. It has served her well over the past twenty years since her comeback from obscurity in 2003.Over that time she has performed songs written by a wide sw...

  • Bettye LaVette confirms new album / CLASH
    Posted At: May 16, 2023
    Hailed by the New York Times as “one of the great soul interpreters of her generation”, Bettye LaVette is a vocalist who can take any type of song and make it completely her own. Bettye is one of very few of her contemporaries who were recording during the birth of soul music in the 1960s and is still creating vital recordings today. To quote the late, great George Jones: “Bettye is truly a ‘singer’s singer...

  • Bettye LaVette, singing through pandemic / Boston Herald
    Posted At: August 1, 2021

    Boston Herald's JED GOTTLIEB writes.....Singing in the shower is for amateurs. Bettye LaVette full-on belts it out in the bathroom. "Half of my pandemic has been devoted to me keeping myself upright," LaVette said with a laugh. "I have to work out. I have to vocalize. Now my vocalizing isn't like (running scales). This is hollering. This is, get in the bathroom with some steam and holler really loud,...

  • Bettye LaVette snags a Detroit Music Award for 'outstanding national indie recording on 'Blackbirds' / Detroit Free Press
    Posted At: April 12, 2021

    The Detroit Free Press - Brian McCollum writes.....What a difference a year can make. For its second streaming edition, the Detroit Music Awards served up a crisp, lively, tightly produced affair Sunday night - a bright and optimistic contrast to the homespun virtual event scrambled together during the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. If nothing else, it's clear that everyone has gotten ...

  • The Bluegrass Situation's 'Show On The Road' features an intimate conversation with Bettye LaVette
    Posted At: April 1, 2021

    The Bluegrass Situation's Z. LUPETIN writes.....This week on The Show On The Road, we feature an intimate conversation with beloved soul and R&B singer, Bettye LaVette. Covering her remarkable six decades in show-business, we dive deep into LaVette‘s beginnings as a Detroit hit-making teenager during Motown's heyday (her neighbor was Smokey Robinson), to her early career touring with Ot...

  • Soul-Patrol! spotlights Bettye LaVette
    Posted At: March 16, 2021

    Soul-Patrol writes......Betty LaVette has a well known reputation for ALWAYS "keeping it real/keeping it 100." Here are her comments on learning that she did not win the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album: "Those of you who know me know I'm pissed. But they also know and I want all of you to know , how Very grateful I am for where I am at this point in my career. It has been a long haul but, ...

  • Bettye LaVette gets 'Throwback Thursday: FUV Live' pick
    Posted At: February 11, 2021

    WFUV's Eric Holland wtites.....It's never not a good time to enjoy a Bettye LaVette performance, but between her 75th birthday (celebrated on January 29) and a chance at a Grammy win in March, she gets our vote for a "Throwback Thursday" FUV Live pick today. Back in April of 2018, Bettye and her band stopped by Studio A to perform songs from her album of Bob Dylan tunes, Things Have Changed, ...

  • Westwood One renews 'Jazz Variations' for 15th year & launches new feature: 'Quarantine Time with Bettye LaVette'
    Posted At: February 1, 2021

    Jazz Variations, a 2-hour internationally syndicated radio program hosted by Tonia King, is pleased to announce that Westwood One has renewed the program for the 15th year to provide international programming in Saudi Arabia. Jazz Variations has also launched a new 24 hour streaming platform available right on the website, www.jazzvariations.com.  Jazz Variations has been providing music pro...

  • Bettye Lavette nominated for 2021 'Blues Music Award'
    Posted At: January 28, 2021

    Widely recognized as the highest honor bestowed by the blues community, The Blues Foundation's Blues Music Awards applaud the past year's exceptional achievements in blues music recording, performance, and songwriting, as well as supporting the blues' rich cultural traditions. The 42nd Annual Blues Music Awards will be presented as a virtual event on Sunday, June 6, 2021 starting at 4 p.m CTon The Blues ...

  • Bettye Lavette Interviews with jazzcast
    Posted At: January 18, 2021

    Blues Hall of Famer Bettye LaVette released Blackbirds in 2020. The album features songs primarily popularized by some of her peers, other iconic women in music, who she personally respected and admired. The album finds LaVette in top form delivering powerful renditions of songs that touched her personally. It also re-unites her with producer Steve Jordan. From Dinah Washington's "Drinking Again,...

  • Bettye LaVette - Blackbirds featured on ABC - Australia: The Music Show with Andrew Ford
    Posted At: January 5, 2021

    The 'singer's singer' Bettye LaVette has fans in Pharrell Williams, Keith Richards and Barack Obama. She's been in the business a long time: in 1962 she recorded her first single at the age of sixteen and in 2020 she released a new album Blackbirds which honours the Black female rhythm and blues singers who came before. No matter whose song she's interpreting (be it John Prine, Fiona Appl...

  • Bettye LaVette - Blackbirds makes 'Country Universe: Best Albums of 2020'
    Posted At: January 5, 2021

    Kevin John Coyne from 'Country Universe writes.....Quarantines and working from home made discovering music easier than ever in 2020, so much so that forty albums were embraced by Country Universe as being among the year's best. With women being constantly sidelined by radio, 2020 was all about female artists removing the shackles of genre expectations.  Aubrie Sellers delivered a rocking co...

  • Bettye LaVette - Blackbirds makes 'Americana Music Show: Best of 2020'
    Posted At: December 29, 2020

    Blues Hall of Famer Bettye LaVette is a native of Detroit. Her first recording in 1962, at the age of sixteen, was on Atlantic Records. She later charted with such singles as "He Made A Woman Out Of Me" and "Do Your Duty," Since then she has recorded ten albums. Her album Things Have Changed, produced by Steve Jordan (John Mayer, Keith Richards), was released on Verve in 2018 and received two GRAMMY nomi...

  • Bettye LaVette - Blackbirds is a powerful album, to say the least, and makes SRI's 2020 Mix
    Posted At: December 28, 2020

    bettyReceiving the Ear Bliss look-see this week is the latest release from singer Bettye LaVette called Blackbirds. It finds LaVette putting her interpretive powers to work on a collection of songs all from black female songwriters. It is a powerful album, to say the least. Let's get to it and here's wishing a happy and safe holiday season to all you Ear Bliss readers out there. The singer Bettye LaV...

  • Bettye LaVette - Blackbird makes 'theinterrobang: Best of Filtered Excellence 2020'
    Posted At: December 26, 2020

    2020 was a year that we would all like to forget, but some outstanding art emerged through all of the tragedy and chaos. Included in the best of the best movies, TV shows, and music that make 2020 bearable was Blackbirds by Bettye LaVette. The Blues Hall of Famer decided to release her stirring rendition of "Strange Fruit" ahead of schedule as it says as much about the history of American racism and ...

  • The five careers of Bettye Lavette / BBC - Outlook
    Posted At: December 24, 2020

    Bettye Lavette was a 16-year-old growing up in Detroit when she had her first hit, My Man, in 1962. In 2009 she performed at President Obama's inauguration celebration and called it "the greatest day of my life." But the path from that first hit to the recognition she now enjoys around the world has not been smooth. She talks to Emily Webb about how she spent the intervening years "working, not waiti...

  • Arising to this moment: Bettye LaVette's 'Blackbirds' / The Good Men Project
    Posted At: December 23, 2020

    When Bettye LaVette sings "to be free," the recent Blues Hall of Fame inductee opens a door and steps into the light. LaVette's new album Blackbirds is inspired by the African American women she sees as her musical forerunners. The concluding track, "Blackbird," the Beatles song she has performed in concert for a decade, crowns the record. But don't read the last chapter first. LaVette's "Blackbird" ...

  • Listen to Bettye LaVette on the Talkhouse Podcast
    Posted At: November 24, 2020

    The soul legend and the indie wunderkind talk releasing music during the pandemic, privilege in the industry, and making Pete Townshend cry. On this week's show, we pair in conversation the artists behind two of 2020's best albums: soul and blues legend Bettye LaVette and indie wunderkind Phoebe Bridgers. Though separated by five decades in age, when the two met backstage at a Tibet House US benefit ...

  • It's pretty obvious that Bettye LaVette - Blackbird is 'album of the year' / GOLDMINE
    Posted At: November 23, 2020

    Has any artist ever had such a late-career surge of one great album after another? With five gems in the last 10 years, Lavette, 74, with her craggy one-of-a-kind voice that has matured into a sophisticated, soulful strong instrument, has stood head-and-shoulders above almost anyone else of her generation male or female.  Now she's given proper due to those who preceded her with a tantalizing br...

  • News12 Connecticut interviews Bettye Lavette
    Posted At: November 21, 2020

    Hailed by the New York Times as "one of the great soul interpreters of her generation," five-time Grammy nominee Bettye LaVette is a vocalist who can take any type of song – jazz or country, pop or rhythm & blues – and make it her own.  LaVette's commitment to artistry has earned the admiration of musical peers such as Jon Bon Jovi ("she doesn't just sing the song, she lives ...

  • Bettye Lavette interview attached jazz variations
    Posted At: November 20, 2020

    Blues Hall of Famer Bettye LaVette released "Blackbirds" (Verve) earlier this year which included her stirring rendition of "Strange Fruit." The track says as much about the history of American racism and the state of the country today.  "Strange Fruit" was originally recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939 and written by Jewish teacher Abel Meeropol who wrote the song based on a phot...

  • Soul Patrol reviews 'A Woman Like Me.' The Bettye LaVette bio
    Posted At: October 14, 2020

    A singer who has been performing and recording for almost 60 years. But in that time has never achieved the massive star status her talent so richly deserves. A series of possibly bad decisions and many unsupported record deals have led to disappointments, recording companies promise the world but often fail to deliver on those early promises. She has also suffered at times actual physical abuse. All the...

  • Bettye LaVette's 'Blackbirds,' is far from dated by 1960s shackles / Elmore Magazine
    Posted At: October 14, 2020

    An American treasure, Bettye LaVette's a blues-soul singer with a truly remarkable background and heritage. "I'll be 75 in January," she told me, and she has weathered countless twists and turns in her own musical journey since first recording as a sixteen-year-old with Atlantic Records, in Detroit. As we chatted, UK pop giants The Beatles surprisingly somehow creep, albeit forcefully, into the conversat...

  • Everything feels tighter on vinyl version of Bettye LaVette's wonderful new album; 'Blackbirds' / Audiophile Review
    Posted At: September 30, 2020

    Earlier this month I previewed Bettye LaVette's wonderful new album -- Blackbirds, click here to read it -- based on high resolution streams on Tidal and Qobuz.  The album sounds great there, streaming in 96 kHz, 24-bit MQA and Hi Res formats, respectively. And depending on the nature of your gear, those may be more than adequate for your listening needs and perhaps will fit better in your lifes...

  • Bettye Lavette - A star in her teens, a star in her seventies / BBC: SOUNDS
    Posted At: September 30, 2020

    Bettye Lavette was a 16-year-old growing up in Detroit when she had her first hit, My Man, in 1962. In 2009 she performed at President Obama's inauguration celebration and called it "the greatest day of my life." But the path from that first hit to the recognition she now enjoys around the world has not been smooth. She talks to Emily Webb about how she spent the intervening years "working, not waiti...

  • Bettye LaVette, the underdog of American blues, chats with JazzFM91
    Posted At: September 24, 2020

    Bettye LaVette's first single in 1963 was a major hit, but for the next 40 years, the R&B singer bounced between label deals and near-destitution as her peers such as Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross became superstars. LaVette grew up in Detroit, the birthplace of Motown, but the label's founder Berry Gordy Jr. never brought her onto his roster. But LaVette is having the last laugh. At...

  • The songs on 'Blackbirds' are given Bettye LaVette?s characteristic treatment / SOUL HOUSE
    Posted At: September 18, 2020

    Bettye LaVette has cemented her reputation as a raw, emotional interpreter of other people's material. With I've Got My Own Hell to Raise (2005) she covered the likes of Fiona Apple and Joan Armatrading; in 2010 she tackled Pink Floyd, The Who, and the Rolling Stones with Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook; and the Grammy-nominated Things Have Changed (2018) drew entirely from the songbook of Bob...

  • Bettye LaVette doesn't sing a song; she wrestles it to the ground / Montana Public Radio
    Posted At: September 15, 2020

    Bettye LaVette's big ears, wide-open mind and ability to get inside a song's lyric, melodic line and harmonic implications "LaVetticize" every song she interprets. Her career parallels the rise of soul music, and she's among a tiny handful of her contemporaries who continue to create vital recordings. She was born Betty Jo Haskins on January 29, 1946, in Muskegon, Michigan. Bettye's f...

  • On 'Blackbirds,' Bettye LaVette takes songs made popular by iconic women and transforms them / The Guardian
    Posted At: September 11, 2020

    To take a classic pop song people have heard dozens, if not hundreds, of times and rework it to the point where people feel like they're hearing it for the first time requires some serious chops. Legendary soul/R&B artist Bettye LaVette has those kinds of chops. And nowhere does she more ably demonstrate that than on her cover of The Beatles' Blackbird, the closing track from her latest proje...

  • Bettye LaVette's new 'Blackbirds' album is searingly powerful, and deeply personal / The Philadelphia Inquirer
    Posted At: September 11, 2020

    Bettye LaVette got her start as a young soul singer who scored an R&B hit with her debut single, "My Man - He's a Lovin' Man," as a 16-year-old in 1962. Blackbirds, which was produced by Steve Jordan, the master drummer and bandleader who's done sparkling work with Keith Richards and Robert Cray, again finds LaVette reshaping songs, finding new shades of meaning and depth of feeling in compos...

  • On 'Blackbird' Bettye LaVette delivers the lyrics with assertion and paints them with believability, as only she can / Musicalmemoirs
    Posted At: September 3, 2020

    The distinctive voice of Bettye LaVette opens her latest CD with a song sung by Nina Simone titled, "I Hold No Grudge."  When Bettye LaVette sings, you believe every word.  Her band is soulful and oozes the blues.  There's a long, inspired guitar solo by Smokey Hormel that fades-out Track 1.   Track 2 is the current single release by Ms. LaVette titled "One More Song," written by ...

  • 'Blackbirds' is another great example of what Bettye LaVette does and how well she does it / ALL MUSIC
    Posted At: September 1, 2020

    Bettye LaVette took a long time to achieve the success she deserved (and one could reasonably argue she still deserves to be much more famous than she is), in large part because she's hard to pin down stylistically. She's a performer in the tradition of the great Southern soul singers of the '60s, she sings with the fearless emotional depth of a blues artist, and she's willing to linger o...

  • relix Q&A with Steve Jordan
    Posted At: August 31, 2020

    Beat Odysseys: Steve Jordan on Recording with Mix Master Mike, Bettye LaVette and Robert Cray "Being an artist or a musician is a preexisting condition," Steve Jordan reflects. "It's not a smooth ride. There are some amazing highs, but there are also some deep valleys. You need to go through all of it. You don't really have a choice." The drummer/songwriter/ producer describes these travails in conju...

  • Bettye LaVette - Blackbird celebrates black female voices / Variety
    Posted At: August 28, 2020

    Bettye LaVette is widely - and wisely - revered as one of our greatest living rhythm and blues singers, and maybe right there at the pinnacle. Her star as a knock-down, drag-out, leave-no-prisoners stylist has risen in the decade and a half since she made her return to prominence in her late 50s, 60s and now early 70s after decades of having seemed publicly MIA. But her comeback hasn't been fueled by min...

  • 'Blackbirds' finds Bettye LaVette taking a turn with Della Reese, Nancy Wilson, Nina Simone and Billie Holiday / relix
    Posted At: August 28, 2020

    During her lengthy career-coming up on 60 years since her debut single at age 16-Bettye LaVette has paid tribute to all manner of influences: album-length considerations of music associated with British Invasion artists and Bob Dylan, tunes by everyone from Fiona Apple to Willie Nelson, and so much more. She's one of the most individualistic interpreters in contemporary music, but until Blackbirds, her n...
Go to artist details