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LP
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CHARLLP 041LP
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2013 release. Bettye Lavette's appearance at Barack Obama's inauguration concert in January 2009, singing "A Change Is Gonna Come", introduced her to a global audience of millions who had hitherto been totally unaware of her immense talent and interpretive powers. She now appears regularly on US TV and has had guest slots on Jay Leno, Letterman, and on most other significant American late-night chat shows. She is a true American music legend, although the critical acclaim, awards and accolades deservedly showered upon her in recent years were a long time coming. Although Lavette recorded for a variety of labels from the early '60s onwards, many soul fans regard the material she recorded for Silver Fox and SSS International in Memphis in the late '60s and early '70s as some of her finest. Nearer To You is a collection of all the singer's recordings from these two labels and includes two fine duets with Hank Ballard. This is the first time this collection has been available in two decades; Nearer To You was originally released in 1991.
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CD
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REEL 78003CD
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"A rare classic of 1980s soul music. Soul vocalist Bettye LaVette first caught the eye of the music world with her 2005 album I've Got My Own Hell To Raise, which was wildly acclaimed, and was a 'Best-Of-The-Year' pick for innumerable publications. Despite this, LaVette had already been recording as far back as the age of 16, and her earliest singles date all the way back to the early 1960s. From 1962 to 1978 she was strictly a singles artist, cutting potent and high-energy soul, disco, and neo-funk tracks for Atlantic, Epic, and West End Records among others, before landing at Motown in the 1980s. It was during this time that LaVette recorded her full-length debut, 1982's Tell Me A Lie. The Steve Buckingham-produced album was teeming with Southern soul flair across ten solid tracks of Motown greatness that stood firmly in contrast to the electronic, synth-heavy style that R&B espoused at the time. Tell Me A Lie was only a lukewarm commercial success, in spite of the heavy promotion Motown rolled out, but it was highly acclaimed critically, and is oft heralded as an unsung classic of '80s soul. From her ripping, funk-inflected version of 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine', to the proto-Pointer Sisters joint 'I Like It Like That', to the title track, which would later render a Billboard Country Songs hit for Janie Fricke."
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