Customer Reviews

I've Got My Own Hell to Raise

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'd never heard of this performer until a report on "CBS News Sunday Morning" by Bill Flannagan of VH1 ("Up Next and Recaps" on September 25) included a brief description about this meaty slice of music. I'm not normally grateful to a newscast, but in this case I certainly am - I might have missed out on this incredible singer.

Comparisons to Ann Peebles or Tina Turner come to mind, but that misses the mark since there's a smouldering presence in Bettye's voice that isn't matched elsewhere. The late Janis Joplin would have had this voice in her head as an ambitious ideal to approach, but could never hope to attain.

The musicians in the back give Bettye some wonderful support, enabling her to simply deliver without having to carry lesser talent along with her. The recording quality is supurb, and whatever ambience the studio brought to the table only helps to create the magic surrounding these knockout performances.

If you thought that there was no genuine soulful entertainers left anymore, give this a listen before you walk away. If you miss this, you've missed the world.

This is no comeback album. Bettye LaVette is right where she's always been, doing what she's always done; reaching into a song, finding its heart and staking a claim to it as her own. This is our chance for the world to catch up with her, and it couldn't be a finer opportunity.

"I've Got My Own Hell To Raise" is ten songs from ten female writers who, at first blush, might be surprised they've written soul songs. In each case, opening with the cappella Sinead O'Connor's "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" and closing with Fiona Apple's "Sleep To Dream," LaVette not only taps the emotional essence of each song, she's able to transmit that emotion with no wasted effort or dramatic puffery.

Even better, the brilliance of her performance is matched by the vitality of the attitude portrayed in each song. There's not a whimper to be heard from beginning to end. There's vulnerability, but no weakness. The show of strength is exhilarating.

For those current day melisma-addicted "neo-soul" singers who think it's necessary to stretch every word over a dozen notes and add senseless swoops and trills as a sign of sincerity, "I've Got My Own Hell To Raise" will be a master class on what it means to sing with real soul. The great delight is that we get to sit in on the lesson any time we like.

LaVette sings on the razor's edge of emotion. Every note, every tone, every pregnant pause has a meaning. It is naked, it is pure, it is powerful. LaVette knows what she wants to say, and even better, she has all the tools to tell us. This is a real voice. When she wants to hammer, she hits hard. When she needs to cut deep, she's a laser.

The production of the CD provides the perfect setting for her performance. It's spare, and stripped down, making sure LaVette is always the centerpiece. Those who think horns are necessary for soul music might be disappointed, but they shouldn't be, because with this CD, horns would just get in the way. This is soul music, distilled to its essence, the way it should sound all the time.

The CD is a flat out gem. You need this CD.

Bettye LaVette can't sing. Lavette can "sang." Time and sour taste has weathered her voice and bent a weird saddened state to her phrasing but it works here. She sounds like the last great gospel singer. She has the kind of voice that Aretha should have if she fell on hard times.
The entire production is showstopping but the care she gives to Dolly Parton's work is masterful. It's an utter shame that this work might be ignored when awards are handed out but that's not the point. The point is that her work has gravity to it in a time when music is all about prodcution above everything else.
Only Mavis Staples and the still great Etta James can come close to evoking such an a lived in performance to another's material.

I'll keep this short and sweet: this is an album that can make a grown man cry. It's also powerful evidence to all the young whippersnappers who think they're God's gift that some things in life only ripen over time....like Bettye's ability to express her heart and soul.

What a voice! Phenomenal band! Great selection of tunes! Wow!

I was completely unfamiliar with Bettye LaVette, until "Down Beat" recently reviewed this album and one of its critics gave it 4 and 1/2 stars. Any singer's album that gets rated that high by that magazine immediately gets my attention.

Now I know why.

This album reminds me of a cross between Janis Joplin and Tina Turner. Ms. LaVette shouts like these two. Everything she does has that stamp of personal heartache and pain; but like Tina and unlike Janis, Bettye sounds like a survivor. She has drunk from the chalice of whiskey and vinegar, and lived to tell the tale without self-inflicting cirrhosis of the liver.

This album has songs from such artists as Sinead O'Connor, Rosanne Cash, Dolly Parton, Fiona Apple, and Joan Armatrading. (My favorite, though, is the title track, which is self-penned and is a tremendous anthem of self-affirmation.) But recall Janis with Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee", or Tina with Fogarty's "Proud Mary." It really doesn't matter much what she does; everything that comes out of her mouth comes from the depth of her soul, and sounds like a product of The New High Priestess of Soul. For that reason, highly recommended. RC

The reviews here at amazon.com are great, but you should see the ones coming from professional newspapers, magazines and online music critics! Some are hailing I'VE GOT MY OWN HELL TO RAISE as a "masterpiece."

Bettye LaVette has always been a great singer. While her childhood friends enjoyed success on the charts (Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Aretha Franklin, Martha Reeves, Temptations, etc.), LaVette remained, chiefly in obscurity. Many people knew that she was still in show business, but "friends" don't help others after THEY'VE make it.

I played "The High Road" at least 20 times before I could go on listening to this CD. Recently, I had the chance to see Bettye perform it "live" in New York...nobody breathed during her dramatic reading of this beautiful soul ballad. "Joy" was a saintified, footstopping jubilee and brought the house down.

This is the CD that will "deliver" Bettye LaVette to the masses, world-wide. Did somebody say, "Album of the Year?"

after all these years, bettye has a voice like a bag of rusty nails soaked in scotch and cigarette smoke, which is just about as perfect a soul voice as anyone could ever want. this disc is also incredibly well produced. sparse, crunching, swampy guitar licks and simple blues ryhtms provide a mean backdrop for a voice that oozes life in almost every shade of blue. a classic.

Bettye LaVette is an artist who produced a handful of singles in the sixties. For Soul music fans these have been obscure and hidden gems for decades. Lavette's voice has always been able to compete with better known performers like Irma Thomas, Ann Peebles and even Tina Turner. Due to theatrical training her shows have always been a joy. Yet it wasn't until the new millennium Bettye got the attention she truly deserved.

It was a Dutch record company who gave Bettye her first opportunity to really get her recording career going. To me that makes her another prime example of how true talent is ignored in the United States. In Europe the musical legacy of the America is often treated with more respect than in the States itself.

After two fine albums on Munich Bettye was picked up by Joe Henry for a recording session. Joe revived the career of Solomon Burke a few years back, taking an approach much akin to Rick Rubins handling of Johnny Cash. Henry chose a minimal production for both Solomon and Bettye. In the process he is not only reviving these beautiful voices but giving Soul music a new form and voice as well. Gone are the strings, horns and choruses. What is left is not the clean urban sounds of nu-soul but a much more gritty and natural sound of just bass, drum and guitar. In a production like that Bettye voice gets al the room she needs.

It's not just the production making this album refreshing. The material is somewhat new to Soul music as well. Using country tunes in Soul already was a well known practice. Al Green did some beautiful Soul renditions of country in the seventies. Joe Henry takes this concept one step further. For this album he and Bettye picked solely country and rock tunes penned by women. Unfortunately they were not penned specifically for LaVette as was the case with Joe Henry's Burke album. Never the less the results are astounding.

The album opens with a brave attempt at a Sinead O'Conner song with just Bettye's voice to carry the song. The result is astounding. You hear pure pride, a woman standing tall against adversary. Next the album rips in to Lucinda Williams' Joy. Very seldom did rock guitars sound so soulfull. Next highpoint on the album is an absolutely haunting version of Dolly Partons Little Sparrow with stripped down arrangement and lyrics. The Album closes with a fine Sleep to Dream clocking in at little less than 40 minutes. Leaving you hungry for more.

Raw, deep Southern soul in a solid set of covers that LaVette makes her own with a weathered voice of experience that brings Otis Redding immediately to mind. She lives on his raw side, closer to Janis Joplin or even Lucinda Williams, but always more soulful than bluesy. Southern church is everywhere near by. Her transformation of non-soul material into compelling Southern music brings Gary U.S. Bonds to mind. Her choice of songs is uniformly better than that on, say, Bonnie Raitt's Souls Alike. And the songs create a coherent suite, speaking of a woman beaten down and strengthened by her experience-what doesn't kill me makes me stronger-and now determined to stand up for herself. Not a weak track on the CD. [39:08]

This CD was one that Amazon prompted me to consider based on the "people like you bought this" technology. And lo and behold, they were spot on! I like to play this CD while working out--nothing like "Joy" or "Why am I Different" to get the blood going. Yes, these songs are "he done me wrong" songs but so what? This is what women talk (and evidently, sing) about.

There are only two songs on the album that I would say are 4 stars as opposed to 5--the opening song by Sinead O'Conner and the closing song by Fiona Apple. It's not that these are bad songs just that Bettye LaVette's interpretation of them was not quite what I was expecting. But that's me...others here seem to like them quite a bit.