Bettye LaVette (born January 29, 1946) – Livin' Life On A Shoestring (1973)
This superb soul-funk gem remained unreleased for nearly thirty years after Atlantic foolishly pulled the plug on LaVette's debut album.
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Bettye LaVette's first single was released in 1962 and became a top-ten R&B hit, but her career didn't take off until the 2000s. Mostly because her superb debut album was shelved by Atlantic Records and remained unreleased for nearly thirty years.
Betty Jo Haskins was born in Michigan and raised in Detroit, where she was signed by a local record producer and recorded her first single at age 16. “My Man — He's a Lovin' Man” was picked up by Atlantic Records and went to #7 on the R&B charts, which led to her touring with Atlantic stars like Barbara Lynn and Otis Redding. She released several more singles throughout the sixties, charting again with the bluesy, emotional breakup tale “Let Me Down Easy” in 1965, which reached #48 R&B.
In Detroit she was friends with Diana Ross and Aretha Franklin, and watched them become superstars while her own career remained stuck in neutral. She thought success was just around the corner in 1972, when she re-signed with Atlantic/ATCO and went to Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama to record what was intended to be her debut album. Titled Child of the Seventies, it was recorded with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and produced by Millie Jackson's longtime producer Brad Shapiro.
What should have been her breakthrough moment instead turned to heartbreak when Atlantic decided not to release the album. The reason turned out to be an internal label disagreement. As LaVette recounted in a 2014 interview:
“I'm just finding out now bits and pieces. I just got lost in that power struggle. Jerry Wexler [who produced Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin, among others] was on my side, and [Atlantic Records founder] Ahmet Ertegun was on [the other] side. I got lost in the middle.”
One of the finest tracks intended for the album and recorded in November, 1972 at Muscle Shoals was the powerful plea for racial unity “All The Black And White Children.” It was co-written by Ernie Shelby and the legendary singer/songwriter Prince Phillip Mitchell.
While the album was stuck in limbo, LaVette returned to the recording studio in November, 1973, this time at Bolic Sound Studios in Los Angeles, CA. There she recorded two more tracks, “Waiting For Tomorrow” and the stunning, high-energy soul-funk gem “Livin' Life On A Shoestring.” She co-wrote the latter with Shelby's songwriting partner Dick Cooper and Don Juan Mancha, who ran Groove City Records.
At long last, most songs recorded for Child of the Seventies saw the light of day in 2000 under the title Souvenirs, released by French producer Gilles Petard on his Art and Soul label. Six years later in 2006, Child of the Seventies got its long-delayed official release when an expanded edition was issued. It included “Livin' Life On A Shoestring,” and the world finally got to hear what we missed out on.
During the same period, LaVette released the critically acclaimed albums A Woman Like Me (2003), which won the award for Comeback Blues Album of the Year, and I've Got My Own Hell to Raise (2005), featuring covers of songs written by other women. All of this put her back on the road to stardom she should have been traveling all along.
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