Many years ago, making small talk with a Chicago cab driver, the subject of music came up. "You know, I used to sing with Sam Cooke," the man suddenly revealed. He then proceeded to sing Cooke's "Cupid" with perfect pitch and timing, like a pro. So was he telling the truth? Who knows? The point being, there are still great singers walking among us, some of them forgotten, some of them retired, some of screwed over beyond repair, and very few of them ever given the kind of second shot afforded Bettye LaVette.
On her 2005 comeback I've Got My Own Hell to Raise, LaVette recorded songs written by Lucinda Williams, Sinead O'Connor, Fiona Apple, and Aimee Mann-- unlikely songwriters for a Detroit-raised vet of the soul circuit to tackle, no doubt chosen from a pile of potential tracks hand-picked by producer Joe Henry. For The Scene of the Crime, LaVette made the perhaps equally unusual choice of hooking up with the Drive-By Truckers.
Loyal sons of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the Drive-By Truckers know their Southern soul. But as a guitar band par excellence, the Truckers have never really shown how they would fare actually playing soul. Yet LaVette, by all accounts, suffers no fools, and knows exactly what she's doing; you don't survive as long as she has in the music world without some good instincts. It turns out her long-lost album Child of the Seventies was recorded in Muscle Shoals and featured David Hood (father of DBTs singer Patterson) on bass, making the aptly named Scene of the Crime a sort of exorcism of lingering bad feelings over that earlier album's mistreatment (and mysterious shelving).
Patterson Hood is back for more on this disc, and legendary songwriter and keyboard player Spooner Oldham rounds out the line-up, but the spotlight here is shared by LaVette and her partners in crime the Drive-By Truckers. It turns out to be a pretty smart choice. The Truckers may excel at Southern rock writ large, but they're respectful enough to hold back. Not that their playing is necessarily in check on Scene of the Crime, but it is exceedingly simple and sympathetic, ceding LaVette every inch of space she needs.
She needs a fair amount, too, since unlike such fellow comebacks (and Anti- labelmates) Solomon Burke and Mavis Staples, LaVette's singing hasn't really been diminished by the passage of time, or at least not so much that it really matters. Here LaVette is all growl, snarl, bark, and, if you train your ear to the nuances in her delivery, sometimes deliciously mean and mirthful, too. As for the band, the Truckers have never sounded so groove-minded as they do here, particularly the rhythm section of Brad Morgan and Shonna Tucker but also guitarist Mike Cooley, relegated for once to a mere supporting roll but excelling at his flash-free duties.
LaVette is a proud interpreter, and even back in her earlier days she was covering David Bowie and Neil Young, but on Scene of the Crime her choices are a little less NPR-friendly than they were on the all-female critics darling roster of Hell to Raise. Here she handles Willie Nelson's "Somebody Pick Up My Pieces" like one of Ray Charles' legendary country excursions, and tackles Elton John's "Talking Toy Soldiers" with the kind of gritty gusto John could never muster. But she also underscores John Hiatt's status as one of the most underrated contemporary singer-songwriters with his "The Last Time", and does the same for Eddie Hinton's "I Still Want to Be Your Baby (Take Me Like I Am)".
The sole original, co-written with Patterson Hood, is the autobiographical "Before the Money Came (The Battle of Bettye LaVette)", a where-you-been? round-up. "I was singing r&b back in 62, before you were born, and your mama, too/ I knew David Ruffin when he was homeless, sleeping on my floor before he crossed over/ All my friends on the Grammy show, I was stuck in Detroit, trying to open doors/ Record deals kept falling apart, one with Atlantic nearly broke my heart."
LaVette sings that last line like she's pulling a knife out of her side, releasing every bit of frustration, pain, and disappointment from her soul. Of course, she's the one getting the last laugh. "Forty years I kept singing, before the money started rolling in!" she declares. But it's not just the cash that's bringing her so much satisfaction in 2007. It's the principle.
