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: #16,453 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #90 in Music > R&B > Classic R&B

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

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Slow and Tortured, July 10, 2010

By 

Thomas E. Moore "thomasmoore6" (Fairfax, VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook (Audio CD)

I sense there is a movement to give Bettye Lavette the recognition she should have received earlier in her career, and I really, really wanted to like this album, but unfortunately it doesn't deserve the accolades. First, too many dirges - and many of the slow songs are paced even more slowly than the originals. The album drags, badly. Second, too many rasping, tortured vocals which, combined with the lack of variety in tempos, eventually seem monotonous and nearly monotone. There are two songs I like very much: "The Word," which is the only really cooking soul workout on the album (if only there were more like this), and "It Don't Come Easy," which imbues Ringo's poppy original with real emotional weight. Other than those two, I would rather listen to the far superior originals of every song on this album, including the over-rated Kennedy Center performance of The Who classic (maybe you have to see it). I have ordered the re-release of her 70s album "Do Your Duty" from Amazon and judging from the samples, I think I'll like it a lot better. It appears to be Bettye in her prime and in her element.