Bettye Lavette - The Scene of The Crime

TRACKLISTING      
1. Take Me Like I Am (Still Want To Be Your Baby)  
2. Choices  
3. Jealousy  
4. You Don’t Know Me At All  
5. Somebody Pick Up My Pieces  
6. They Call It Love   
7. Last Time  
8. Talking Old Soldiers  
9. Before The Money Came  (Battle Of Bettye LaVette)  
10. I Guess We Shouldn’t Talk About That Now


Bettye LaVette’s acclaimed 2005 release I’ve Got My Own Hell To Raise brought well deserved recognition to this R&B maverick who has been recording since the early sixties, and another chapter in her storied life.  Now comes The Scene of the Crime, an almost autobiographical look back at the long hard road LaVette has traveled.  To make music this raw and direct, LaVette enlisted “dirty south” rockers The Drive By Truckers as her backup band and coconspirators.  With swampy guitars, slippery Wurlitzer piano (courtesy of the legendary Spooner Oldham), and a driving backline, The Scene of the Crime conjures up the spirit of great loose 70’s bands like the Faces while offering Bettye a urgent, vital setting for her razor-sharp vocals. The CD also features Bettye’s first songwriting credit, a cowrite with the Truckers’ own Patterson Hood titled “The Battle Of Bettye LaVette,” a hard rocking tune that chronicles her struggles in a pointed, take-no-prisoners style.

The album was recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, a city known for its legendary soul & pop recordings. It is also the town where Bettye recorded a masterpiece titled “Child of the Seventies” back in 1972 that was shelved, then finally released 30 years later. For Bettye, going back to Muscle Shoals to record was like returning to the scene of a crime; thus the album title, and the intense, personal music within that will make this a soul album for the ages.

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