Music
Bettye LaVette
born 1946 · singer
Detroit-raised soul singer who cut her first hit at 16 for local producer Johnnie Mae Matthews and found late-career acclaim in the 2000s.
- Born
Muskegon, Michigan
age 80- Birth name
- Betty Jo Haskins
- Also known as
- Betty LaVett
- Detroit years
- 1940s–1970s
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
LaVette was born in Muskegon and raised in Detroit, where she learned to sing R&B and country in her parents' living room rather than in church. Local producer Johnnie Mae Matthews signed her, and in 1962, at 16, she recorded "My Man – He's a Lovin' Man"; picked up by Atlantic, it became an R&B Top 10 hit and put her on tour with Clyde McPhatter, Ben E. King and Otis Redding. "Let Me Down Easy" (1965) followed, and she recorded for several small Detroit labels before signing with Silver Fox in 1969. An album for Atlantic went unreleased for decades, and in 1982 Detroit's Motown signed her and sent her to Nashville to record Tell Me a Lie. After years on Broadway in Bubbling Brown Sugar, she was rediscovered: I've Got My Own Hell to Raise (2005) and The Scene of the Crime (2007) won wide acclaim, and she entered the Blues Hall of Fame in 2020.
Highlights
- "My Man – He's a Lovin' Man" (1962), recorded at 16: R&B Top 10
- "Let Me Down Easy" (1965)
- Signed to Motown in 1982 (Tell Me a Lie)
- Grammy nomination for The Scene of the Crime (2007)
- Blues Hall of Fame (2020)