Bettye LaVette: The Scene of the Crime

As a rule, I don't like singers who only perform other people's songs. We don't celebrate authors who simply re-tell other writer's stories, and we don't go to galleries to see paintings by artists who blatantly copy other artists, so why should we praise singers who only sing other people's songs?

Bettye LaVette has made me reconsider the value of my rule. LaVette does magical things to other people's songs. She finds things in the originals that none of us knew were there, and she reinvents the songs based on her discoveries.

Music:
On the surface, this album is similar to LaVette's first release on Anti Records. On closer listen, though, it feels totally different. This album seems darker and more painful than I've Got My Own Hell to Raise. Almost as if LaVette raised her hell, and is now sitting in the aftermath, looking around at how different things have become.

The Scene of the Crime is unquestionably a soul record, but hints of rock and country flow through it. It might be because producer Patterson Hood and most of LaVette's session band are all members of alt-country heavyweights Drive-By Truckers, or it might be because LaVette understands all great music shares a common spirit that transcends categorization. Take a listen to Willie Nelson's "Somebody Pick Up My Pieces" and you'll hear how LaVette found the soul inside a great a country song.

And don't even get me started on her rendition of Elton John's "Talking Old Soldiers". This one gives me chills.



Packaging:
The liner notes follow the same basic theme as LaVette's last album: simple design, minimal use of color, a few stark photos, detailed credits, and an essay. The essay is well-written, and it gives me an appreciation for pretty much every person and place that was involved in the making of this record. On the downside, the photos -- mostly of the vintage studio gear from Muscle Shoals' Fame Studios -- are generic, and the striped back cover doesn't make any sense. I guess it's supposed to represent the stripes on a prison uniform, but it just looks like some kind of random, seizure-inducing optical illusion.

Listen if you like: Tina Turner, Wilson Pickett, Drive-By Truckers

If it were food, it'd be: a late-night shot of whiskey in a lonely Alabama dive bar

Bettye LaVette: I've Got My Own Hell to Raise

(I've been away from the blog for awhile, but I'm hopefully back to the regular Tuesday/Friday updates.)

Bettye LaVette is proof that, in some people's careers, everything can go wrong. Bettye LaVette is also proof that sometimes, after everything's gone wrong for a decade or four, the fates finally smile down upon you.

I'm glad the fates smiled on Bettye LaVette. I'm glad because she worked for a long time and deserved a break, but I'm also glad because her voice is incredible and if she hadn't gotten a break, I never would've heard her sing.

Music:
I've Got My Own Hell to Raise opens with a powerful cover of Sinead O'Connor's a capella "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got." It's a great song and a great start to a very good album.

The second song is when that truth of the album really begins, though. It starts with a guitar that is a little rough and a little sexy and a little raunchy. Then a second guitar kicks in, and it's the kind of guitar that sounds as if it spent a few years wandering the streets before it decided to walk into the studio and be recorded. The drums creep up, and they are as thick and rich as the soil that holds the roots of a mighty tree. Then the bass starts, and it sounds as deep as the desire to discover joy when you're stuck in the roughest parts of a rough place.

Then LaVette starts singing.

The second song on the album, "Joy," is amazing. It is everything that simple music -- rock or soul or country or blues or hip-hop or punk -- can and should be. It is emotional, it is powerful, it is awesome, and it sets the tone for an album that practically overflows with soul.

(If you're wondering why I only gave the album four library-cards after those glowing comments, it's because there's very little range in the song tempos and dynamics. It's a relatively minor complaint, but it makes the album feel somewhat monotonous.)

Packaging:
The package has almost everything a CD jacket should have. There are a handful of photos that fit the mood of the record. There's a little bit of information about each of the songs (all of which are covers). There aren't lyrics, but it's easy to understand every word that LaVette sings. Best of all, though, is the essay by Rob Bowman, in which he tells LaVette's story. It's a good essay, and it makes me grateful that more and more artists are choosing to add more and more words to their liner notes.

Listen if you like: Stories. LaVette's got a fascinating story, and it comes across both in how she sings and the music she performs. Every song on the record is a cover of a song originally performed by a woman; if you like the stories that Fiona Apple, Dolly Parton, Aimee Mann, or Lucinda Williams tell, wait 'til you hear Bettye LaVette tell them.

If it were food, it'd be: a classic and complex wine that's been hiding out in dark rooms for 40 years, just waiting for its delicious flavor to be discovered.