When Two Of Your Favorite Musicians Collaborate, After Nearly 50 Years

Let me tell you a story of how the stars aligned to bring two of my favorite musicians together with the release of the new album LaVette!, by veteran singer Bettye LaVette. It’s a story fifty years in the making.

Getting a driver’s license, and having access to a car, often means expanded freedom for a teenager. For me, it meant being able to drive to downtown San Diego to a record shop called The Arcade specializing in used and “cut out” or remaindered albums. On one visit in 1975, while flipping through the bins, I came across a cut out by Randall Bramblett entitled That Other Mile. Now, I had never heard of the guy, but I did like the album cover. I also liked Bonnie Bramlett, whose name lacked the extra letter. So I went ahead and bought it, sound unheard, and drove back home to give it a spin.

My first listen thrilled me. Bramblett combined elements of southern rock, blues and gospel in compelling ways, and his lyrics created a world of fascinating characters. To this day, it’s one of those records I’ve kept through multiple relocations, despite periodic downsizing of my record collection. Listening to it today, it takes me back to that first time I heard in my childhood bedroom

Bramblett released some more solo albums, then joined with Chuck Leavell and Lamar Williams of the Allman Brothers Band to form Sea Level, a more jazz rock outfit with edges of country funk and soul produced by the Capricorn label in Macon, Georgia. After the release of their second album, Cats On The Coast, I played it so often for my college friends and roommates that I talked some of them into borrowing a family car to drive from Milwaukee to DeKalb, Illinois to see the band live at Northern Illinois University.

After Sea Level broke up, Bramblett left the music industry for a decade or so, before getting a call from Steve Winwood to join him on tour. Soon he began producing a dozen or so solo albums that feature some of the best songwriting and musicianship of the last couple of decades.

I first heard of Bettye LaVette in 2005, thirty years after that trip to The Arcade. Roughly the same age as Randall Bramblett, she had spent decades just missing stardom as an R&B/soul singer, including a six year stint on Broadway in Bubbling Brown Sugar with Honi Coles and Cab Calloway. I knew none of this when I read reviews of her new album I’ve Got My Own Hell To Raise, featuring her interpretation of songs by popular female singers including Sinead O’Connor, Lucinda Williams, Joan Armatrading, Dolly Parton, and Fiona Apple. This time around I had YouTube to consult. Her voice stunned me with raw emotion, creative intonation, and power. How had it taken until her fifties for her talent to be taken seriously?

Over the past two decades, LaVette proved herself to be one of the foremost interpreters of popular music. Her albums include collections of British rock songs, Bob Dylan songs, and country and Americana songs. The latter album, 2007’s The Scene Of The Crime, features the southern rock band Drive-By Truckers as her studio band. When The Who were given Kennedy Center Honors, she was invited to sing her version of their anthem “Love Reign O’er Me.” Both Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend were visibly moved by her performance.

All of this history brings us to the present, and her new record including a collection of twelve songs (on vinyl) written and recorded by Randall Bramblett over the course of his career. Personally, I find the convergence of story telling talents remarkable. Produced by the legendary drummer Steve Jordan (now a Rolling Stone), LaVette! includes contributions from Steve Winwood, John Mayer, and Jon Batiste among others. While the musicianship is stellar, the arrangements clearly highlight her vocal imagination. In interviews, LaVette says she never approaches a song thinking about how someone else has sung or might sing it. She thinks only of how she can sing it. That’s for the best, considering no one else can sing like Bettye LaVette.