Bettye LaVette

Bettye LaVette is one of the greatest soul singers in American music history, possessed of an incredibly expressive voice that one moment will exude a formidable level of strength and intensity and the next will appear vulnerable, reflective, reeking of heartbreak.
Preferring to fulfill the role of a song interpreter rather than attempt to write her own material, Bettye has a near mystical ability to get inside a song’s lyric, melodic line and harmonic implications. In the process, she invariably makes anything she covers her own. She listened endlessly to master song interpreters such as Sarah Vaughan and Frank Sinatra, to the intricacies of phrasing and timbre manipulation that are part of the sonic art of any truly great vocalist.
In a career that spans over 50 years and includes more than 20 albums, Bettye has won numerous R & B and blues awards and received two Grammy nominations for “Best Contemporary Blues Album” for The Scene of the Crime and Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook. She starred for six years in the smash Broadway hit musical Bubbling Brown Sugar. In January, 2009, Bettye and Jon Bon Jovi performed “A Change Is Gonna Come” for President Barack Obama at the kick-off Inaugural Celebratory concert, We Are One. Later that year she shared the stage with Sir Paul McCartney & Ringo Starr at Radio City Music Hall for David Lynch’s Change Begins Within benefit concert. Bettye’s 2012 autobiography, “A Woman Like Me”, was co-written with David Ritz, author of books on R&B legends Ray Charles, Smokey Robinson, Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye. It has been described as ‘engrossing’, ‘riveting’, ‘hair-raising’ and ‘only suitable for the over 18s’.
Songs: “My Man – He’s a Lovin’ Man”, “He Made a Woman Out of Me”, “Right in the Middle”.
Tickets on sale February 18 for Players Club Members, February 20 for general public.