When the 2004 W. C. Handy Award nomination were released recently, there was a new name among the nominees who see to remain relatively staid from year to year. Bettye LaVette may be one of the greatest voices in soul music that few people have ever heard of. LaVette has performed all over the world for over forty years, achieving some acclaim in Europe, but little following in the United States.
Thanks to the 2003 release of her new CD, A Woman Like Me, the 58 years young, Detroit native may now get the recognition that she so richly deserves in her homeland. Thanks to the success of the new recording, LaVette received Handy Award nominations for Soul Female Artist, Soul Blues Album, Comeback Album and Blues Album.
Along with her new found domestic popularity, LaVette has started to appear on stages and in cities where she has never appeared before. Such was the case on Wednesday night when Bettye LaVette was completing her three day engagement at the new Dakota in Minneapolis.
Anyone who has ever heard a Bettye LaVette record knows that the woman can sing. However, seeing Bettye sing is another experience entirely. It is hard to imagine anyone that can visually display the emotion of a song as succinctly as Bettye LaVette. In an all too short 60 minute set, fighting a cold that made her speaking voice raspy, LaVette proved that she is a performer who is willing to leave everything on the table no matter what.
After a couple of opening numbers by her band The Detroit Express, including bill Farris (guitar), Patrick Prouty (bass), Darryl Pierce (drums) and band leader/keyboardist Alan Hill, LaVette stepped through the curtained doorway and literally whirled into her opening number, AStealer@ followed by the powerhouse AHe Made A Woman Out of Me.@
LaVette is a singer who puts her entire being into every song, wrenching the emotions from her face, eyes and the movement of her body. On the song ASouvenirs,@ LaVette sat down on the stage, singing with all her heart and looking as if she would burst into tears at any minute. On others, like AServes Him Right,@ LaVette=s eyes smoldered as if she were expressing her righteous anger at a misguided former lover. As the audience listened to each and every song Bettye and the band performed, it was virtually impossible to not get caught in the emotions of the moment. When she closed with the title track from A Woman Like Me and left the stage, I could swear that she was about to burst into tears as the audience stood clapping, in awe of what they had just witnessed.
I first heard Bettye LaVette back in August at the Bayfront Blues Festival in Duluth where she impressed me with her energy and talent. At the Dakota, I was even more impressed with her performance and emotion driven presentation, combined with the fact that I knew her singing would have been even more powerful had she not been hampered by a cold brought on my the cold Minnesota weather. As I left the Dakota, all I heard were glowing comments on her performance and admiration of her enormous talent.
I am sure that I am not alone in hoping that Bettye LaVette's three days at the Dakota are the first of many appearances in the Twin Cities. To learn more about Bettye LaVette, visit her website at www.bettyelavette.com.To find out about other upcoming shows at the Dakota you can visit their website at www.dakotacooks.com.
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