Bettye LaVette: The Scene of the Crime : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Until she was rediscovered early this decade, Detroit's Bettye LaVette was a great lost soul diva, her career derailed in the early Seventies due largely to record-label troubles. LaVette made a comeback in recent years, earning a spate of new fans -- including Southern rockers the Drive-By Truckers, who back LaVette on this covers-heavy set. The full-bodied soul they provide begs to be heard live in a smoky club, and it's more sympathetic than the raw grooves Joe Henry cooked up for LaVette on 2005's I've Got My Own Hell to Raise. The songs here are well chosen -- particularly Willie Nelson's "Somebody Pick Up My Pieces" and the Ray Charles-associated "They Call It Love" -- and LaVette's nuanced singing evokes prime Tina Turner with even more command. The singer's lone original, "Before the Money Came (Battle of Bettye LaVette)," tells her hard-luck story over a Skynyrd-esque groove, but even better is the spare ballad "Talking Old Soldiers," a 1971 Elton John song that LaVette makes her own.