Gates: 6:30pm
Doors: 7:30pm
Show: 8:00pm
Seating: $55
Standing: $35
Tickets are non-refundable and non-transferrable.
About Bettye LaVette
Bettye LaVette is not a song writer. She is a singer in the tradition of great vocalists who have come before her: Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and Dinah Washington to name just a few. Bettye is an interpreter of the highest order. Her gift is being able to take a song from any genre, whether well known or obscure, and making it completely her own. She will take a writer's lyric and alter it so that the words come out sounding like something that she would say. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, and Bruce Springsteen are just a few of the artists who have had their work re-imagined by Bettye. To quote another great vocalist, the late George Jones, "Bettye is truly a 'singer's singer' ".
The Bettye LaVette Duo features Bettye and her keyboard player, Evan Mercer. These intimate shows allow her voice to be the complete center of attention. They feature Bettye performing songs from throughout her 55 year career, including songs that she used to perform in small Detroit clubs before her 21st Century resurgence began. Many of these songs she does not perform with her full band. Bettye has always said that just a voice and one instrument is all you need to sell a song. Hearing Bettye in this intimate setting, stripped down to just her voice and a piano, is a very intense and moving experience.
Her career began in 1962, at the age of 16, in Detroit, Michigan. Her first single "My Man - He’s a Loving Man", was released on Atlantic Records. She recorded for numerous major labels, including Atco, Epic, and Motown, over the course of the 1960s through the 1980s.
The 2000's started what she calls her "Fifth Career". Her CD, A Woman Like Me, won the W.C. Handy Award in 2004 for Comeback Blues Album of the Year. She was also given a prestigious Pioneer Award by The Rhythm & Blues Foundation. She has received Blues Music Awards for Best Contemporary Female Blues Singer and Best Soul Blues Female Artist. She recorded 4 CDs for hipster indie label ANTI- Records over the course of 8 years, 2 of which received Grammy nominations. Her 2015 CD, Worthy, was also nominated for a Grammy.
Now, in her 55th year in show business, she has been signed to Verve Records, and has recorded an album consisting of all Bob Dylan songs. Things Have Changed is a masterpiece of interpretation of the songs of one of the greatest songwriters alive, by one of the greatest soul singers alive.
Fans, critics and artists have nothing but high praise for her live show and her vocal prowess. Now 72 years old, she is still performing with the ferocity of a woman half her age. She is one of very few of her contemporaries who were recording during the birth of soul music in the 1960s and is still creating vital recordings today.