Bettye LaVette - 'Child of the Seventies'

 

Bettye LaVette was born Betty Haskin in Muskegon, Michigan in 1946.  Unlike most soul singers, she didn’t learn to sing in church, but instead with her family in Detroit.

Betty began her recording career as a teenager in the 1960s for Atlantic Records, and had a couple hits on the soul charts, including “My Man—He’s a Lovin’ Man” (recorded when she was just 16), and the simmering, lovelorn “Let Me Down Easy.”

In 1972 Betty signed once again with Atlantic Records, and hit the road with Ben E. King, and Barbara Lynn.  Unfortuatley, Bettye couldn’t find the same kind of exposure her Detroit contemporaries like Martha Reeves, Diana Ross, and Aretha Franklin were seeing.

On December 12th 1973, Bettye went into FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to record the album "Child of the Seventies".  The album recorded in the same studio that produced hits for Aretha Franklin, Little Richard, Etta James, and countless others was to be her comeback album for Atlantic Records.

Atlantic released the single "Your Turn to Cry", a retitled cover of Joe Simon’s "Your Time to Cry" on its sub-label, ATCO Records.  Bettye's version is a throat-shredding, and heart-breaking rendition.  For whatever reason, the single failed to chart.  My guess was that someone in Atlantic’s promotional offices was "out to lunch".

Bettye made a phenomenal album, the product of a woman with a distinctive voice, both literally, in terms of her growling, scathing storm-like vocals, and in her cross-pollination of rock, funk, R&B balladry, and country soul.

Then, at the last minute, Atlantic Records decided to shelve the project.  Some say the album may have been shelved over commercial concerns, as genre-pushing music often is.  Others claim it was record company politics, with fears that her success would diminish the stars of other Atlantic artists, including Aretha Franklin. 

"It’s not so much anger, it’s hurt." Bettye said about the decision, speculating it was made because "My voice sounded more like Wilson Pickett than Dionne Warwick. I don’t think they knew how they could package a young, attractive woman who sounded like that."

What ever the real reason was, it certainly wasn’t due to quality control.

In 2006, the Rhino Handmade label released a deluxe version of 'Child of the Seventies'.  It has the original album, plus a couple of unreleased songs from the 12/12/1973 session, mono singles, two singles from 1972 (including a very cool funky version of Neil Young's "Heart Of Gold", and four singles from 1962 thrown in for good measure.

This is one very cool release.

For the freeload, what decade are you a child of?