A Woman Like Me

Bettye LaVette | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 21, 2003)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Blues Express
• ASIN: B00007IG3G
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #85,620 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Unless you’re a serious student of classic soul music, the name Bettye LaVette might not mean much. Smarten up. On her first domestic album in more than 20 years, the middle-aged singer with Detroit roots offers a strong, raspy, go-for-broke vocal style that locks onto lyrics by original Robert Cray producer Dennis Walker like a death grip. Indeed, the highly emotional tone in her voice taps deep reservoirs of experience. Savor, in particular, the love-gone-cold ballad "Thru the Winter" and a tuneful manifesto for strong women titled "Close as I’ll Get to Heaven. Unfortunately, some of the songs run a bit long, with padded arrangements and blowzy, overbalanced playing from a few of the West Coast studio players (but not her faithful keyboardist Rudy Robinson). LaVette’s outlay of emotion just may be too rough and demonstrative for some listeners, but it's their loss. --Frank-John Hadley

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Great Bettye LaVette with a Capital "V", February 4, 2003

By 

Oliver Penn - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Woman Like Me (Audio CD)

Start right now, folks. Spell this great diva's name correctly. It's "Bettye LaVette" with a capital "V". When I first heard "A Woman Like Me," I said, "she's singing hard...Bettye is not leaving ANYthing for her stage performance!

I must admit, Bettye LaVette has always sung 'hard'... Other adjectives to describe her style are abrasive, sexy, brutal,exhuberant and gutsy. She is often compared to Aretha, Tina and Mavis; LaVette sounds like none of them but possesses the fire and urgency of those legends.

Most listeners assume that Bettye LaVette had to have been brought up in a black Baptist church. Not true. She grew up as a "child of the blues." Yes, the blues IS gospel's twin sister, so LaVette got the same soul as the Holy rollers. No wonder she stole the 2002 Chicago Blues Festival with her electrfying, revival-like stage show, and had them cheering at the Poretta Soul Festival in Italy recently. I saw her at the prestigous Columbia University in New York and she had the packed house screaming for more.

"Serves Him Right" tells her man, "you can go to hell for all I care..." Bettye's voice is fill with hurt and sarcasm. I loved (We're Not Gonna Make It) "Through the Winter." It meanders and builds to a dramatic fade with Bettye holding nothing back.

I fell out when I heard (Close as I'm Gonna Get to) "Heaven" especially when that lush viola section swooped in without warning. Bettye [sings] "Salt" and wails with the title cut, "A Woman Like Me" with the Tonight Show horn section giving LaVette kicking support.

"Forcast" was one of the songs that I felt Bettye went all the way and back again. Most voices would have given out half way through this one, but Bettye kept pushing her voice and got stronger...even I was exhausted when she finished. Bettye, after being "held back" vocally at Motown, has said, "I get emotional when I sing and sometimes, I feel like hollering!"

Two of the tunes remind me of other favorites of mine, "When A Woman's Had Enough" is pure Ann Peebles and "When the Blues Catch Up With You" conjures up visions of blues guru, B. B. King.

If this CD doesn't make Bettye LaVette a major star in the USA, nothing will. With the mediocrity that has taken over the music business, this brilliant CD is a dream come true for lovers of good music and great singers. PURE SOUL...not an ounce of effort has been spent jumping on the hip/hop bandwagon, and why should it? This is great SOUL music, genuine soul.

It's nice to hear a record with real session musicians, not synthesizers. These are real horns (Tonight Show), drums, keyboards and strings. Enjoy the show!

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Soulful Blues, January 16, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: A Woman Like Me (Audio CD)

If you like to listen to blues with lost of electric guitar and a woman with a beautiful soulful voice singing the lyrics. Then you'll probably rate this album 5 stars.
A little bit less of the electric guitar would have been my preference, hence the 4 stars.
Nevertheless, this is a great album.

Most of the songs were (co)written by Dennis Walker who also worked with Robert Cray. A version of Right Next Door is on this disc I haven't been able to make a dicision yet as to which version I like best.
The songs all have their own caracter. You won't get bored feeling they all sound alike.

One last comment, the album is called: A Woman Like Me

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars best kept secret in soul, January 26, 2003

By 

the duke of soul "yamhill maven" (marlton, nj USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Woman Like Me (Audio CD)

It's hard to believe that a singer as great as Bettye Lavette, who has done a lot of recording since her first r 'n' b hit in l962, could be so little known in America. Maybe it's because until recently hardly any of her music was available on cd. Equally at home singing r 'n' b, blues, jazz and even rock, Bettye is the greatest unrecognized soul singer of the past forty years. Her vocal quality may remind you of Tina Turner or Mavis Staples and sometimes she sings like Ann Peebles or Etta James, but in the end she's an original, incredibly expressive and powerful.
This new album, her first American release since her l982 album on Motown, is a stone winner for anyone who likes classic soul music or soulful blues. Produced by Dennis Walker, who produced and wrote some of Robert Cray's greatest recordings, "A Woman Like Me" is a no-frills, straight-to-the-heart killer. The soul ballad, "Through The Winter" is incredibly moving, a song and performance worthy of Otis Redding's best. "Serves Him Right" may be the nastiest pay-back song you ever heard (lyric: "brotherman got bit by his own snake")laid over a Memphis groove; "Thinkin' Bout You" is a sexy mood piece, "It Ain't Worth It After Awhile" is a heart-rending jazzy torch song she closes out the album with a feisty blues she wrote herself.
There's not a weak track on the album, although the playing and arrangement on "Right Next Door", a tune recorded by Cray, is a little limp in comparison to her ferocious vocal. Throughout there's plenty of hot blues/rock guitar soloing from Alan Mirikanti. With this album, Bettye Lavette is the blues/soul discovery of the year.