Bettye LaVette
Session Name:
Wrap Up/Rev Up
Date of Appearance:
Monday, June 25, 2012 - 2:00pm - 3:00pm
Bettye LaVette: Performance and Revelation
An Intimate Showcase with a Soul Survivor
Since releasing her first single at the age of 16 in 1962, Bettye LaVette has survived the trials and tribulations of a career in the music business and lived to tell the remarkable story in her upcoming explosive memoir, A Woman Like Me (Penguin 9/27/12). The same week (9/25/12), ANTI- Records will release her new album, Thankful n’ Thoughtful, featuring Bettye’s uniquely personal readings of classic songs by Sly Stone, Bob Dylan, and others.
The remarkable second act of Bettye’s career began with her signing to ANTI- in 2005. Since then she has released three massively acclaimed albums, and appeared at such high profile events as the 2009 Presidential Inaugural, at which her telecast duet with Jon Bon Jovi stole the show, and a command performance at the Kennedy Center in 2008 honoring The Who, after which Pete Townshend exclaimed “you made me weep.” Recent accolades for Bettye come from Elton John, James Taylor, Keith Richards, Steve Winwood, Sheryl Crow, Elvis Costello, Pete Townshend, Bon Jovi, and many more. Bettye has been nominated for a pair of Grammys and has won a W.C. Handy Award, Blues Music Award, R&B Foundation Award and hit many critic’s “best of” lists. On her recent residency at New York’s Café Carlyle, the New York Times declared her “the equal of Aretha Franklin and Tina Turner” and “an R&B realist who tells it like it is.”
She has appeared on National Public Radio's World Cafe, All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me, and performed a Tiny Desk Concert. She has appeared in the Mississippi Public Broadcasting series, Blues Divas, and is in a film of the same name, both produced by award winning film maker, Robert Mugge. She has also appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Show with David Letterman, The Conan O'Brien Show, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Lopez Tonight, Austin City Limits, The Prairie Home Companion, The Artist's Den, Good Morning America, The Today Show and The Tavis Smiley Show.
