The forgotten woman of Detroit’s soul explosion, Bettye LaVette reveals why she was too lewd for Motown, her rivalry with Aretha Franklin and why she loves Kamala Harris
Bettye LaVette is talking about James Brown and liberally fire-hosing one of her favourite words down the fuzzy line from New Jersey. “That muthafucka,” she crackles, her throaty drawl sounding like a thousand log fires. As she tells it, she had been opening for the funk taskmaster on tour in the mid-60s, but he had refused to talk to her the entire time. The only exception was when he stopped her from performing her single Let Me Down Easy at the end of her set, jealous of its rapturous reception. “He made me move it because I was on right before him,” LaVette remembers. “In the theatre, when someone else comes on stage and people are still clapping for you, they call it ‘stepping on applause’. But he would just step all over mine. He was an asshole.”
Until the mid-2000s, when her career took flight once more – “my fifth career!” she hoots – LaVette was all too familiar with others stepping on her applause. She had signed to Atlantic Records when she was 16, her first single a major hit of 1963. But for the next 40 years, the rhythm and blues singer bounced between label deals and near-destitution as her peers such as Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross became superstars. She grew up in Detroit, birthplace of Motown, where the party was never-ending, but the rivalry was as big as the bouffants. On one occasion, Motown’s Tammi Terrell burst into her dressing room wielding a gun to boast she could “out-sing” her on “any day of the week”. Berry Gordy, the label’s founder, never brought her on to his sparkling roster.
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