Mighty Mo’ Rogers bemoaning the days of «Sweet Soul Music» is very apposite indeed for those who produced the music of the time are still around although they are being put aside by new trends lacking genuine force of expression. Betty Lavette is a fiery singer with a stage presence as sensuous and elegant as her music. Gospel has indirectly nourished her expression with particular fervor although her husky voice has definitely a more bluesy ring. Born Betty Haskins in Muskegon (Michigan) 29th January 1946, she has sung with the Don Gardner & Dee Dee Ford Revue, toured with the James Brown Review and performed at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem with Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye. Now Bettye since 1982, she has enjoyed a long and fruitful career with an original maturing process. Calling to mind people as diverse as Irene Reid, Nancy Wilson or Spanky Wilson, Otis Redding or Sam Moore, she shows total honesty and devastating energy on stage, as the French audience was able to discover at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Club at the Meridien Hotel in Paris (Jazz Hot n° 591, June 2002). Singing for 40 years hasn’t made her a star. Better than that she has become a great singer, full of a joyful vibe and incredible emotional vitality.

A conversation with Jean Szlamowicz


Jazz Hot : Was your family into music at all?
Betty Lavette : No, I’m the only one in my family on either side who’s ever done anything this weird and ridiculous (laughs). They were basically working people although my mother could sing and was a kind of a gospel groupie. She knew Sam Cook when he was with the Soulsters and the Five Blind Boys. My family sold corn liquor - so all the gospel singers came to our house after their performances whenever they were in town. I grew up in Detroit, in the main city.

What kind of musical scene was there at the time?
It was a strong musical scene before Motown left and certainly before the riots. There was a place to perform every other door! There were so many recording companies, some in basements, some in big studios. Almost everybody had a recording company at that time. You almost recorded in the sixties if you could sing at all. And many people who haven’t recorded since the 60’s and that you probably never heard of recorded for a long while - local. Everybody was recording.
When my first record happened with Atlantic, people always said «why were you not with Motown?» You know at the time Berry Gordy wanted to be with Atlantic as well! Motown was just a small local company and I was going with a major company.

What kind of music was around?
Gospel and jazz wasn’t very big then. It was mostly rhythm and blues. We had maybe three jazz clubs. Many jazz players are from Detroit... but they all left. I still live in Detroit but I have lived in New Orleans, in New York, Kentucky, Texas, California... mostly for musical reasons and once for marriage reasons - in Kentucky and Texas.
I moved to New Orleans in 1971-72 because my husband was a hotel manager so I followed him there and wound up playing all the clubs there. They knew nothing about my records, nothing about me but I was fortunate enough to have a manager, Jim Lewis, who was the director of the musicians’ union and who had been a trombone player in the big band era. When he got hold of me, he insisted that I learn all the real tunes, the standards, the ballads. He didn’t like any of the things I’d done. If he hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have had anything to do in New Orleans because they didn’t know who I was. In fact had the records hit I would have been confined to the records and I wouldn’t have become the broad artist that I am. It made me much broader having flop records! (laughs)

Going back to an earlier period, how did you develop as a singer at first?
I wanted to be a groupie. It never occurred to me that I would be a recording artist. I wanted just to be where the entertainers were, or just people in dark places wearing black dresses and smoking cigarettes. And I was the youngest one there of my group. The Temptations, Aretha Franklin they’re all from 3 to 10 years older than me. So everybody thinks I’m older than I am. I was just hanging around them, singing around in the dressing rooms and whatever. And a young artist named Timmy Shaw liked me. It was a come into the world and I’ll make you a star kind of thing. He was really just after me (laughs) but he introduced me to his producer, Johnnie Mae Mathews, who passed away recently. She was one of the first female producers in record companies in the world. Had she not been such a crook and crossed so many people - she had the Supremes at one time, when they were the Primettes, the Temptations when they were the Primes, the Falcons, she crossed all of these people and wound up dying broke! Very broke and very hated. But anyway, in one week, I went from Betty Jo Haskins to Betty Lavette. Just suddenly, it was a matter of days: Atlantic bought the records before it was even released.

You never went through any formal training?
Later on I did to get vocal instruction but it was mainly to take the stress off my voice, learning the tricks. Schools are mostly for the jazz musicians, rhythm and blues singers still go from the streets.

Is the street a defining element of your music?
Yes, it certainly brings a certain flavor to my music. It probably made me break rules that, trained, I would not have broken.

Who were your early influences, people you looked up to?
Certainly the gospel singers although I’ve probably always been too arrogant to look up to anyone (laughs). But they were people whose voices interested me and whom I emulated because they sounded good no because I was in such reverence of them. Sam Cooke, because I knew him so early as a gospel singer. And when I started to try and sing, these were the only voices I heard so it was the only way I knew to sing. It wasn’t that I wanted to sing like them - I just didn’t know any other way. It was very long before I thought of myself as a part of them. I still considered myself a groupie for very long.

Did you go through a church education?
No. I’m probably one of the only black performers who didn’t come out of church. My mother liked gospel singers as a groupie; it wasn’t that she was so involved in church. She just liked to party with them and they just happened to sing gospel. But she wasn’t a church person.

What do you think of the partition between blues and gospel, one being supposedly street music and the other church music?
I think that rhythm and blues, as well as blues, certainly has a gospel influence. I am very glad when people recognize that there is no gospel in my voice. Now certain people, mostly white, who are not really familiar with the ins and outs of the sound of the music, assume that whenever you holler, it has to do with gospel. But my voice is strictly blues - it has no gospel overtones at all. Some people have recognized it and I take this as a true compliment, when you hear that.

Who are the singers that you feel a certain kinship with?
Billie Holiday for sure. Because she was not a melodic singer, a «pretty» singer and neither am I. It’s hard to associate myself with Sarah Vaughan or Dionne Warwick or anyone like that. I think of them as being melodic singers. I tend to be more of a song stylist or phraser, like Louis Armstrong, Billie or Ray Charles. And then because I don’t sing that way, I can’t make you feel «oh that’s beautiful» I have to make you feel exactly what I am feeling.

Prettiness seems to be a prerequisite of the industry for female singers...
It plagued me for a long time. Billie had those problems too. She always felt that she sounded more like one of the guys. And I felt that way. Otis Redding was a great influence on me in terms of grittiness. I adored him and we were very good friends. Billie felt there was a form of shame that she didn’t sound like the rest of the girls. I felt that way too. Now I appreciate that difference - I love it. Spanky Wilson is considered to be part of that group too.

How do you want people to listen to your music?
I want them to do just that, to really listen, not just hear it and say «oh yeah, I like that.» I’m always grateful when someone takes the time to check what I’m saying, see the differences, with my voice and my performance and realize it.

You pay particular attention to lyrics...
Yes, it’s a very conscious thing because I’m a song stylist. If you have nothing to say you can’t style it. If you’re Janet Jackson, you can just throw them all away and do something else with them. But in order to be a song interpreter, I have to have the lyrics.
That’s one thing I’m particularly glad about my latest album: Dennis Walker did most of the writing and all of the lyrics sound just as good as if you sat and said them. Dennis did a lot of work with Robert Cray, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King.

What did you do after your stint with Atlantic?
It has always found me. I’ve never gone after things. One record would come out, if it flopped one producer would say «she can really sing. I know what was wrong with this record, I can do a better one.» And they would try to do a better one... and it would flop! (laughs) People have always known that there was something there, and they have always helped me.
When I did the first tunes for Atlantic, «My Man», «You’ll Never Change», «Witchcraft» they’re on the Souvenirs CD. And none of them worked. So they gave me release me from the contract and I moved to New York. My booking agent was there and my manager at the time was the accountant at Shaw Artist Corporation which was the biggest booking agency. So I became a part of the local New York scene and in doing that I got a recording contract with Calla, to do «Let me Down Easy». So I did it and the next one flopped. I went back to Detroit. I got to work in clubs and producer Ollie McLaughlin, who did all the stuff on Capitol with Robert Lewis, came, heard me, recorded me and signed with Atlantic again. We did two, three, for five things there that didn’t work. Atlantic released me again.
My promotion man for «Let me Down Easy» was Kenny Rogers’ brother and I also did a tune called «What Condition my Condition is In». Kenny Rogers was performing in Detroit and that was his biggest record with Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. He liked my rendition of it, loved it and called his brother, Lelan, who was starting a new company in Nashville, SSS International. So I signed with them and I did «He Made a Woman Outta Me», «Do You Duty». Charly released all the stuff I did in Nashville. That petered out (laughs). I went back to Detroit, signed to Atlantic yet again. The Souvenirs album was not released, it was to be my first album and 28 years later, it came out!

Do you think producers had more open ears at that time?
Oh yes. They didn’t have a little box already prepared to put you in. They tried to build the box along with you and see which way your box should look. Brad Shapiro, who’d produced Wilson Pickett, produced the Souvenirs album. The whole deal fell apart and after that they asked me to come to Broadway for Bubbling Brown Sugar. Vivian Reed (?) was leaving and I took up her role. Someone saw me in that and another record deal came up. I went back to the South to record , in Memphis and - I can’t even remember what came out of this session (laughs). But I had another Grammy Award-winning producer, Steve Buckingham, and I went to record for him in Nashville. I also had the «off» a disco hit, produced by a 19 year old who later went on to discover Run DMC - I’ve had a very strange career! I hated disco so badly that I told them that if they would let me go they could keep the royalties. I didn’t want the disco record, I didn’t want to be with them. So I went to Nashville. And that deal fell apart. I finished Bubbling Brown Sugar and I got married, moved to New Orleans... and two or three years later Steve Buckingham called me: Diana Ross was leaving Motown and they wanted a female singer who wasn’t a kid, who knew her way around and they were giving me a big contract. So I moved to California where they had relocated and finally recorded with them while I never had the opportunity when they were in Detroit! It was a different Motown - I didn’t know anyone there, they didn’t really know me... We did the album but it was an unusual album, the Europeans didn’t seem to like it, Motown didn’t know what to do with it so it just languished, it just floated around out there. But it got me another deal! (bursts out laughing)

You never had to push yourself...
It always found me, they’ve always come to me. People have always helped me, producers have always sought me, they’ve always helped me. In this new instance with the Dennis Walker thing, the president of Shanachie Records in New York, Grass (?) called me to say that he loved my music but that his company was not big enough, he felt, moneywise to do what I needed. So he promised me that he would give me either a very good gig or a producer or an agent. He turned me on to Dennis Walker, who found me a record company... All these people are fans, they’ve encouraged me, wrote letters to me all over this forty year period. They write about me when I’m doing nothing just to mention my name!

In what way has Detroit shaped your music?
All of these things that I’ve done shaped me. It was a long time before I became a good singer. I just had a voice at first - a voice and an attitude. And now I’ve become a really good singer and performer. The Broadway thing taught me staging and theater and New Orleans made me sing standards. It made me a wholly different night-club artist being there doing that. So I learned just to stand near the piano in a small little smoky place. The first time I left Detroit to go to New York I was only 16 - that helped shape something. Being in Memphis helped me shape a more gritty soulful sound. Living in California, working in clubs out there gave me a certain smoothness. I’m the result of all that.

Were you classified as a rhythm and blues singer?
Yes, it’s only recently that I’ve been termed a «soul» singer and I don’t know how that’s come about and what that term involves. I just consider myself a good singer in that now I can sing anything but I have a rhythm and blues voice when I sing «Lover Man» it’s very different from a jazz singer. And again, if my first records had hit, I would have been restricted to just one thing. I am also a big Bing Crosby, Julie Holiday fan. I think Fred Astaire is on of the great phrasers. In fact most of the people that I probably do fashion myself after are so far from me that no one hears it. But it’s there...

What does the term «soul» mean? It’s become a commercial label...
It means the same it used to mean to me. I have not accepted it as a «type» of singing. I would characterize my singing as soulful. Any good singer can be soulful. Frank Sinatra is soulful. It’ more a matter of how you do your singing, as opposed as a type of singing. If it makes you cry and comes from your soul, it is soulful. I hear a lot of r‘n‘b but not all of it soulful. I think the terms «soul», superstar», etc. are being too loosely used nowadays.

How would you describe your approach to music? What do you want to do when you sing?
I want to give you my soul. I want you to feel exactly the way that I am feeling. It’s coming from my soul. Not being really a singer it doesn’t come from my voice, it has to come from my soul! (laughs). It’s more feeling than anything. Some musicians hide behind the technique. James Brown does that now. When he used to sing «Try Me» he could make you cry, now he just hollers! Because it’s soulful-sounding. He’s no longer my favorite.

What distinction do you make between all the various styles - blues, gospel, soul, r‘n’b. There’s so much in common...
There’s definitely a common link. For instance the word «lord», when you sing it you say «lawd» and I probably say it more than anyone else. So that would be my one gospel influence. But then right after that I’ll say «oh daddy!» which goes right into something else!

Your music used to be called «race music». Do you think the audience has widened or is it still a «community music»?
It meant that it was done by black people, and it was very insulting. But then the audience widened. Acceptance of black things by whites, period. Black sex, black music, black food... that has all broadened. And with that the music, the food, the clothing - white kids dress, talk, act like black children - they would have been crucified for it thirty years ago. And a black who spoke correctly or was well educated was kind of considered pretending to be someone else. We’re really becoming Americans. We’re all blending together now.

What do you think of the recent terminology using «African-American» meaning «black»?
I’ve never lived in Africa. Irish American don’t go around calling themselves «Iro-Americans» or «Italo-Americans». I consider myself a black American, purely American. Everything I know about life is American. I like just now knowing where I came from which we weren’t permitted to know before. But other than that I pride myself on being American and not being associated with anything African. I associate myself more with the revolutionaries that fought in Boston. All of my family’s blood, sweat and tears is American.

How do you view the evolution of American society since the sixties?
I think we’re coming along wonderfully. The bad things are reported much more. I think there’s still a lot of racism in America, in the world. Since September 11th we’ve really become closer since then. As Americans we feel we’ve been picked on and we feel we’re in this together.

Do you think cultural ties within the community are as strong as they used to be?
Segregation was good in one sense, in that at one time we had black-owned everything. And now we don’t. The youth as a whole in America, particular black, has been very weakened. But I see us coming out of that. I see it in my own home. There’s my mother who was born and raised on a plantation, there’s me, my daughter who is a University of Michigan graduate, my grandson who is on his way to college... I see that in my own home!

How did you react to the sixties, what with the Civil Rights Movement and the changes in America?
As an entertainer, you’re never really treated like a normal person. It’s had more effect on my people and therefore on me. But in the early sixties, before the riots, when I first started singing, I could go places that other blacks could not go. Of course there were still places I could not go because I was black. But as a singer there were always some white people to sneak me in. Being in show business it’s almost a race of its own. Black and white entertainers have always intermingled, married, had girlfriends, etc.

Do you think the world of entertainment had an effect on American society?
Yes, I think we did a great job toward integrating and opening doors. Because after they let you in, you bring your brother, cousins, and whatever! It was white people who single-handedly kept me alive. And now they’re introducing me to my own people. Although the whole «I’m black and I’m proud» thing among entertainers was almost just a commercial thing. It was something that the black people wanted to hear said but I really don’t know how political it was or that it was a conscious this-will-help-us kind of movement. That may be true but I don’t believe it.

Do you think the black American audience has deserted its own music?
If you take the B.B. King group, when I started singing we didn’t want to be associated with him at all. He was South, he was uneducated, he was the stereotypical black and we wanted to be more sophisticated than that. All of that has changed now, among the entertainers too. With the Motown thing what happened was that they deliberately went after the white audience. We wanted this sophistication, we didn’t want to be just a little black thing. And Motown opened all those doors. We used to be able to name the black singers with a white audience, who worked in big white hotels, like Nat King Cole. And you always aspired to that. But now you see Michael Jackson in places that I think are sacrilegious for him to be! I was telling someone about the Ritz and the history and I think it’s disgraceful that Prince and Janet Jackson were allowed to stay there - they haven’t contributed enough to be allowed to stay there!! (laughs)

Do you feel you’re part of a lineage?
I think so now because it has become so very legitimate. I didn’t before, I used to feel so disconnected. But now I do think of myself as an extension of Koko Taylor as well as Billie Holiday.

Do you feel a sense of community among musicians?
Not so much among singers as among musicians. Musicians have always had a sort of brotherhood. When you’re the star, the one out front, you’re more isolated, you’re a little protective of your space. If Wes Montgomery were alive, there are things he would do with George Benson that I would never do with Alicia Keys And then she doesn’t have the respect for me that George has for Wes. Musicians don’t become stars as readily as singers, so they have to stick together it’s two different mindsets.

Did being a woman make things easier or more difficult in the business?
More is required of women but I think we’re in control! Look who’s in the charts today... Men don’t act the way women do, women throw their pants on stage. Men don’t act that way, they secretly send us flowers! As far as the business is concerned it was never a problem because men liked me and men run the business. In my songs I never sing about being ill treated by men. I’ve never been ill treated by a man. Maybe he liked someone else and left me but that’s it. Men have taken care of me. I don’t know one woman who has ever helped me in this business.

How do you pick up your songs?
There are songs that I like to listen to but that I would not sing because the lyrics are not strong enough. There are songs that I have recorded when I was young but I feel I’m too old to say those words now, they would sound stupid now... There are songs that don’t say what I want to say. I never say the word «boy» - when I was 14 my boyfriend was 27, I never had to do with «boys». I don’t sings about being disrespected or ill treated by a man, I’ll sing songs that imply «I’m not gonna take any shit» but I don’t sing songs that imply «I’m bad and I’ll kick you back». That may be one of the things that men like about me, I tend to see them as men, not as equals. I tend to look up to men. I was my father’s only child so I tend to have a different sort of reverence to men than a lot of women do.

In what way has the music business changed?
It’s changed tremendously. The thing I like about it is that artists tend to know more about it than they used to. The negative thing is that every artist thinks they can produce. I wish Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Luther Van Dross would let someone else produce them now. There’s only so much you can see of you. You can’t see the back of your head. I like those singers and I don’t think they’re doing a good job with themselves. (jokingly) That’s gonna be very bad, that’s gonna help me kick their ass. (laughs)

What do you think of the way everybody uses the term jazz for absolutely anything?
I don’t like that at all. At the Grammys some of the young people who are winning the rhythm and blues awards have nothing to do with rhythm and blues, it’s more like pop. I don’t like avant-garde either. For me a song is something you can hum. If you can’t hum it in the shower, it’s just someone’s concept of something. It’s no something that I can relate to. As long as John Coltrane was playing a melody, it was all right. When he was going into all sorts of sounds, it was something in his head that I couldn’t follow. If there’s no melody I can’t share it with him.

Do you think in terms of building a communication with your audience?
Oh absolutely. I want them to see what I’m a saying. That’s why I look at them so directly sometimes and say things to them, to certain people. I said some things to you yesterday! (laughs)

I remember that!
I’ll never say «everybody put your hands together». I just want you to get in that conversation with me and let me tell you the story. It’s a story. I love it when people are listening for each word. I don’t want to just be repeating a record.

Is there anything that I haven’t asked you and that you wanted to talk about?
I pretty much say everything I have to say on stage. You pretty much know how I feel about everything in life when you see my show. And when I come off stage, I feel like I’ve been in bed with you ! I’m completely wet, drained, exhausted...

Where are you on the music scene today?
It’s my fortieth year. So many things could happen right now. Things have never been lined up like this for me. I have the best band I’ve ever had. I chose them singularly: you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince! It’s the first white band I have ever had. This is because the blues thing is broadening so. They’re all from Detroit but I used to work in the city while the white musicians are in the suburbs. Detroit is very very separated. This new acceptance of blues and soul has got me here.


A selective discography

Leader
LP. 1980. Easier to Say Than Do, Charly 107
LP. 1982. Tell Me a Lie, Motown 12166
CD. 1985. I'm in Love, Charly 1059
CD. 1991. Nearer to You, Charly 276
CD. 2000. Souvenirs, Art & Soul 851012
CD. 2000. Let Me Down Easy: In Concert, Munich 507
CD. 2003. A Woman Like Me, Blues Express 4

Sidewoman
LP. 1974. Maria Muldaur, Maria Muldaur, Warner 2148
Vanthology: A Tribute to Van Morrison


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