Few artists could have struggled through a career as thoroughly frustrating as that of American soul singer Bettye LaVette and still continue to display the strength and good humor that she does.
After four decades of disappointments and obscurity in the music business, her perseverance is now paying off as, in her early 60s, she is at last getting the wider recognition and financial rewards that have long eluded her. In the last three years alone, she has released two new albums as well as some earlier work and has toured extensively worldwide, including an upcoming appearance at the Fuji Rock Festival.
Unlike many other soul singers, LaVette (born Betty Haskins in 1946) did not get her start singing at church. "My parents were too busy with hangovers on Sunday mornings to go to church," she chuckles down the phone from her home in New Jersey.