Bettye LaVette
American soul singer-songwriter
Bettye LaVette (born Betty Jo Haskins, January 29, 1946) is an American soul singer who made her first record at sixteen, but achieved only intermittent fame until 2005, when her album I've Got My Own Hell to Raise was released to widespread critical acclaim, and was named on many critics' "Best of 2005" lists. Her next album, The Scene of the Crime, debuted at number one on Billboard's Top Blues Albums chart and was nominated for Best Contemporary Blues Album at the 2008 Grammy Awards. She received the Legacy of Americana Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2023 Americana Music Honors & Awards.
LaVette's eclectic musical style combines elements of soul, blues, rock and roll, funk, gospel, and country music. In 2020, she was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.
Life and career
LaVette was born in Muskegon, Michigan, and raised in Detroit. Unlike many of her contemporaries, she did not begin singing in the church, but in her parents' living room, singing R&B and country and western music. She was raised as a Catholic.
She was signed by Johnnie Mae Matthews, a local record producer. In 1962, aged sixteen, she recorded a single, "My Man – He's a Lovin' Man", with Matthews: the disc was credited to Betty LaVett, the surname being "borrowed" from Sherma Lavette Anderson, the singer's friend who had introduced her to Matthews.
The public source identifies “Bettye LaVette” as american soul singer-songwriter. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Bettye, LaVette and American.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q453456. VIAF identifies the subject as 80230562. The Library of Congress control number is n95001391. 5 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1946, 2005, 2008 and 2023.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bettye LaVette” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.