- Look how excited Bettye is to perform for you
Back in the ’60s, Bettye LaVette’s manager ordered the up-and-coming soul singer to study the jazz masters. The payoff was a long time coming, but it arrived with a sizable chunk of interest. Over the past several years, the Detroit-bred singer has evolved from underappreciated R&B belter to one of our most distinctive, and increasingly celebrated, interpreters of popular music. While LaVette’s chart success was a now-and-then affair after her 1962 debut, “My Man — He’s a Lovin’ Man,” her fiery, deep-soul delivery — and the nuance she likely picked up from the force-fed Sarah Vaughan and Sinatra — garnered her numerous “second chances” over the following decades. Kudos worthy of LaVette’s talents finally arrived in 2005, when she infused works by Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann, and others with old-school values on I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise. On her latest album, Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook, LaVette reveals layers of untapped emotion in songs like the Moody Blues’ “Knights In White Satin.” Bettye LaVette plays the Beachland Ballroom at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20.50 in advance, $22 day of the show. Call 216-383-1124 or go to beachlandballroom.com.—Duane Verh
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