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There’s a space in American music where country
meets soul, where elements of blues, folk, pop, jazz,
gospel and R&B meld in seamless alchemy, where genre
boundaries are ultimately not very meaningful. For my
money, the best of that music is rooted somewhere around
two or three in the morning, when all is quiet, one’s
emotional guard is down and the musicians are able to
drive the voodoo down, getting at the essence of what
it is to be human.
This is a space that is all too
rarely accessed in most contemporary recordings, yet
it is a space that Bettye LaVette returns to again and
again on "I’ve
Got My Own Hell to Raise". The result is a record
of majesty, richness and depth, of naked, raw, visceral
emotion, a record that will raise the hairs on the back
of the neck of any fully alive, blood pumping, breathing
human being. It is also a record that reflects the wisdom
and musical acumen acquired over a forty-three year career
by a song stylist par excellence.
Who is Bettye LaVette you ask? The simple answer is Ms.
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. Unfortunately, it
says much about the vagaries of the popular music industry
that, although LaVette has been recording for over four
decades, up to this point she has remained criminally
unknown.
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