Bettye LaVette Brings Her Distinctive Soul-Rock to Helsinki Hudson

Bettye LaVette (HUDSON, N.Y.) – Soul singer Bettye LaVette, the self-described “overnight sensation after 50 years in the music business,” brings her impassioned, elastic vocals and her dynamic R&B remakes of pop and rock hits by the likes of the Who, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel, the Animals, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Lucinda Williams and Sinead O’Connor to Club Helsinki Hudson on Friday, July 24, at 9pm.

Bettye LaVette’s music career began with great promise, when as a 16-year-old, the Detroit native had a top ten R&B hit with “”My Man — He’s a Lovin’ Man.” Yet things never really broke her way, and for the next four decades she struggled for gigs and record deals in between taking odd jobs simply to make a living. She finally began gaining recognition with her 2003 album, “A Woman Like Me,” which garnered her the W.C. Handy Award for “Comeback Blues Album of the Year” in 2004.

But it was her 2005 album, “I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise,” featuring songs by contemporary female singer-songwriters including Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple, Sinéad O’Connor, Lucinda Williams, Joan Armatrading, and Dolly Parton, that introduced LaVette to a wider audience for the first time, and helped establish her new aesthetic as a soulful interpreter of songs from the rock arena, as heard on her 2010 album, “Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook.”
The CD, including an un-edited version of her Kennedy Center Honors performance of the Who’s “Love Reign O’er Me,” was critically acclaimed and nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album. LaVette subsequently became a frequent guest on NPR music programs, late-night TV shows, and at public events including 2009’s “We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration” at the Lincoln Memorial.

Reviewing her January 2014 concert at Helsinki Hudson, local music critic Seth Rogovoy wrote, “She commands the stage like a master.”
For reservations in The Restaurant or in the club call 518.828.4800.

 

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