Page 26 - Blues Festival Guide Magazine 2021

Photo by Kim Yarbrough

Living Legend:
Miss Lavelle White

By Pamela Cosel It was an early introduction to singing on stage when she
She was born at the tail end of the Roaring Twenties, and performed with guitarist Clarence Hollimon in various blues
the day after her birth, the entire country celebrated with music clubs. In an interview with Kathleen Hudson, White
fireworks and a national party. Miss Lavelle White (“Lillia remembered, “I went to the clubs singing, and I couldn’t
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Mae” in childhood) came into the world on July 3, 1929, in carry a tune in a paper bag. Clarence taught me my timing.”
Jackson, MS, and surely that decade of music and romping, Guitarist Johnny Copeland (also known as the “Texas
singing and stomping must have been in her blood, giving her Twister”), helped White get signed to a recording contract
an early outlook that life should be a party. with Don Robey’s Duke Records in 1958, and she recorded
Born the youngest of 11 children to parents who were for the label until 1964.
sharecroppers, her father left when she was a baby. She was She continued writing songs, one of which was a 1960
raised by a single mother in Amite, LA, who was a gospel hit record for Bobby “Blue” Bland, called “Lead Me On.” The
piano player, and she was deeply connected to the local song is credited, however, to Deadric Malone, but White said
church in her youth. Her musical history is wide and deep, that she ghost-wrote it. Throughout the 1960s, White shared
and now at the age of 91, Miss Lavelle White continues to stages with legends, including Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke,
sing and draw applause. Otis Redding, the Drifters, James Brown, Jerry Butler, Junior
White first began writing poems at the age of 12, which
led her to writing songs. In a 1994 interview, she said, Parker and The Isley Brothers.
“Hardships in life made me start to write and the first record I White left Houston for Chicago in 1978 for what would
cut was with a gospel group.” The song was “Precious Lord, become a near decade-long residency at renowned blues
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Lead Me On.” nightclub Kingston Mines, where she performed with the
By the time she was in her teens, she ran away from home likes of Buddy Guy, Lonnie Brooks and Junior Wells. She
to Houston, TX, where an older brother lived. “She snuck out returned to Texas in 1988, playing clubs and later becoming
of his place at night to sing in clubs when she was just a a regular performer at the famous Antone’s Nightclub in
teenager,” says her booking manager, Deborah Lerner. downtown Austin.

24 Blues Festival Guide 2021