Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook

Bettye LaVette | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 25, 2010)
• Original Release Date: May 25, 2010
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: ANTI
• ASIN: B003A4IFDW
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #23,281 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Review

She has a depth of emotional understanding that surpasses what many of those singers did in the R&B world back in the 60s and 70s. Bettye has brought the old methods of her genre into the modern world in a new way. --Pete Townshend

Bettye LaVette punched a hole right through her version of Pete Townshend s Love Reign O er Me, letting all the song s emotion pour out in a way that its creators never conceived. --The New York Daily News

Product Description

Bettye LaVette brings the British Invasion home to its American R&B roots on Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook. Produced by Bettye, Rob Mathes and Michael Stevens, the album is a 13 song journey through compositions by the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd among others, concluding right where the very idea for Interpretations started: Bettye s visceral rendition of The Who s Love Reign O er Me from the 2008 Kennedy Center Honors, which appears here as a bonus track. That performance which first brought Bettye together with Stevens (the event s producer) and Mathes (its musical director) showcased for a national television audience what her devoted fanbase already knew: Bettye LaVette is without parallel as an interpreter of popular song. The success of this performance lead to another astonishing moment on the national stage, her duet of Sam Cooke s Change Is Gonna Come with Jon Bon Jovi at the Obama Inaugural Concert.

Now comes Bettye LaVette s first release since those extraordinary performances. Finding new excited fans at her shows, Bettye decided to explore more of the repertoire that had brought her all this attention. From the wistful naiveté of The Moody Blues Nights in White Satin, which Bettye matures into a deep and unshakeable lament, to the funky workout of Ringo Starr s It Don t Come Easy, Bettye inhabits these songs, revitalizes them and exposes the humanity that makes these 13 tracks not just pop songs, but enduring works of art.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an astoundingly cool collection of cover songs, May 26, 2010

By 

gbear "al" (St Paul, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook (Audio CD)

I was browsing at an honest-to-god record store when The Word came on over the stereo and I thought 'who IS this?', when Traffic's 'No Time To Live' (also covered wonderfully by Brian Auger) came up, I swooned and asked the clerk for a copy. Listening to the album in the store was fun because it's not always readily apparent who's songs she's covering: it took me a few minutes to realize she was covering Led Zeppelin. Both the store manager and I were getting ready to cringe as Nights In White Satin approached, but she made that song new too. Others are going to write in more detail about the individual performances but I'd just like to say that I cannot believe that anyone could take this list of incredibly familiar songs and just take them all home and make them her own from start to finish. Brilliant. I think it may be one of my favorites for a while.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Powerful, raw, emotional., May 26, 2010

By 

apricots & jazz - See all my reviews

This review is from: Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook (Audio CD)

This is an interesting album based on an interesting idea.
In the mid-1960s, Brotish bands took their interpretations of American R&B back to the States in the so-called "British invasion".
On this album, the veteran, Detroit-raised blues diva ( and a contemporary of more famous peers like Aretha Franklin and Smokey Robinson) returns the compliment and goes the opposite route.
Well, we know, she has always done things her way, from her youthful excursions with James Brown and Otis Redding.
Decades on, her rocking, rip-roaring soul vocal style has established a broad fan base, and this latest album comes with endorsements from many of the artists she's covered, including Elton John, Pete Townshend and Keith Richards.
"Interpretations" centres on LaVette's charismatic takes on 1960s/70s British rock classics .
She has a rasping voice somewhere between Nina Simone and Tina Turner.
She is now turning to the great British rock songbook, reworking the back pages of The Beatles ("The Word"), The Stones ("Salt Of The Earth") and Pink Floyd ("Wish You Were Here") in a series of devastating melodramas.
LaVette's passionate vocals crackle with soul, raunch and innovation, and it sounds like the songs (originally inspired by US R&B) have come full circle.
This is no conventional covers album, it is more a showcase of extraordinary standards.
The accompaniments are of the tastefully restrained variety, with plenty o' Memphis folded in, and the tempos are at the slow end of the scale.
She has chosen songs that give her the most wiggle room -- the chance to strip the whole thing back and rebuild it.
Thus, we get Ringo Starr's "It Don't Come Easy".
The opening couplet is a bit of a throwaway when Ringo sings it, but it's a whole other matter when Lavette confronts you: "You wanna sing the blues? You gotta pay some dues. 'Cos it ain't coming easy".
"Yet, whether she's singing "Maybe I'm Amazed", "Nights in White Satin" or "Wish You Here", Lavette makes it sound effortless". - Mark Edwards
Raw, powerful, emotional.
If you like her style, you will love this album.

Scene of the Crime
I've Got My Own Hell to Raise

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stellar soul take on UK favs., June 3, 2010

By 

Philip Bradshaw (toronto canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook (Audio CD)

First off, Bettye LaVette sure has a wonderful voice - all earth, gravel and feeling. However, as viewers of Idol and other programs or visitors to African-Americans places or worship can attest, there is apparently an infinite supply of black Americans with great pipes. What differentiates the great soul singer from the mundane are, for me, just two things. First there is soul - not the appearance of soul - but the genuine article. The myth that only black Americans can sing soul or rhythm and blues is if course as preposterous as the presumption that a singer has soul simply because he or she is of colour. Bettye has soul in abundance! Second there is the material. The songs chosen for this collection are an interesting bunch. Led Zeppelin to Moody Blues to Ringo to Floyd to Stones. I like some of the originals much more than others. Bettye makes them all her own and therefore I find myself really admiring her take on Ringo Starr's It Don't Come Easy, not a song I've played five times in my life!

Some have complained that, for the most part, the songs here are slower than the originals; that there is an unfortunate sameness infecting the disc. There is some truth to this observation. After an exuberant gospel inspired The Word (from Rubber Soul) most of the recording is very slow-paced. In lesser hands this could have been disastrous - boring and repetitive music - music that you'd play once or twice and then discard. In this case I think that the deliberate nature of the pacing allows the performer to shed new light on the material. It's great stuff and I know that when I play it for friends they will turn to me (we all love this don't we?) and say "Phil, who's this?" I'll reply "Bettye LaVette" and they will look puzzled and wonder how on earth this 63 year old escaped their radar.