KAXE conversation with Bettye LaVette details illustrious R&B career

Bettye LaVette has been in the music industry for 60 years, releasing a new album Friday, June 16, simply called, LaVette!

On the new album, her mastery of interpretation continues after partnering with songwriter Randall Bramblett. LaVette! is KAXE’s Album of the Week for June 2-8, 2023.
Bramblett, best known for his time with The Allman Brothers and their spinoff group Sea Level, may seem like an odd choice to some.

Music

Album of the Week: 'LaVette!' by Bettye LaVette

Malachy Koons

"LaVette!" by Bettye LaVette is KAXE's Album of the Week for June 2-8, 2023.

“He writes exactly what I want to say,” LaVette said during a conversation on KAXE’s New Music. “That is exactly where I am in my life, right now and that is exactly what I would write if I could write. And as I said he’s had this arduous career, just like mine; he's had seventeen albums and none of them sold. And he's just a brilliant writer. I mean, he just writes what I want to say.”

Having experienced many peaks and valleys in the music industry since 1962, LaVette is currently in what she is calling her “great fifth career.” Her last album out in 2020, Blackbirds, included songs made popular by Black women, while her 2018 release was of Bob Dylan songs.

“It was so hard to find myself in Bob Dylan’s songs because he writes about things … that have happened and I’m not too much of a social commentator,” LaVette said. “ … Since I had no kinship with them (the songs) and had never heard them before, I just picked out the ones that I identified with.”

Because of that process, LaVette ended up choosing songs that aren’t his most well-known, while also finding out a lot about Dylan himself in those songs.

At 77 years old, LaVette said she reflects on time and the value of it.

“Nobody asked for anything on their death bed but more time,” LaVette said. “They don’t ask for more shoes, more nothing. More time.”