Page 37 - Blues Festival Guide Magazine 2025 Digital Edition

in a racially divided America, she feared she’d never get the
chance because all the stars she saw on TV were white.
That all changed by chance in 1962 when LaVette was
16. One of her closest friends, Sherma Lavette Anderson, was
a well-known groupie in the Motown music scene. Through
her, Bettye met soul singer Timmy Shaw, who – two years later
– would strike gold with the single, “Gonna Send You Back
to Georgia,” on the Wand label. He was mesmerized when
he heard Bettye sing. Soon after, he introduced her to his
producer, Johnnie Mae Matthews, the undisputed godmother
of Detroit soul prior to the rise of Motown.
Johnnie Mae’s stable included both the Primettes and the
Elgins – the future Supremes and Temptations – among others.
And she’d been working with another singer, trying to record
the single, “My Man – He’s a Lovin’ Man.” But she was in a
quandary because the artist found it impossible to lay it down
the way Matthews wanted.
Frustrated, she gave Bettye a chance despite the fact the
teen hadn’t ever attempted to sing anything from a chart
before. But the ingénue worked her magic. Ten days later with
the tune in the can, Betty Jo Haskins reinvented herself as Betty
LaVett, rebranding herself to honor her groupie gal pal. The
“e’s” came later.
“I hated that song!” she remembers. “I was 16, and it was and Ben E. King. A year later, after charting with “Let Me
kinda ‘adulty.’ None of my friends danced to that kinda stuff… Down Easy,” James Brown hired her to be part of his revue.
But I like it now (laughs)!” In short order, Bettye became the most high-profile African-
“My Man – He’s a Lovin’ Man” backed with “Shut Your American female singer not to cross over from R&B to the pop
Mouth” was released as a 45 by Atlantic Records and charts. Her frustration grew as she witnessed Diana Ross and
became a major R&B hit in the winter of 1963 and ’64. Aretha Franklin achieve international acclaim. Things got so
It catapulted LaVette into the stratosphere. Before she knew bad, in fact, that she asked Atlantic co-founder Jerry Wexler
what was happening, she was touring in shows with Otis to release her from her contract.
Redding, Clyde McPhatter, Chuck Jackson, Barbara Lynn “He asked me where I was going,” she says, “and I didn’t
know. It was the biggest mistake of my life!”
The next decade was full of ups and downs. She signed
with a new label, Calla, and was charting again with “Let
Me Down Easy.” But two months into the new partnership,
Calla’s owner was gunned down in a mob hit. A move to the
Silver Fox imprint produced two money-makers, “He Made a
Woman Out of Me” and “Do Your Duty,” before she returned
to Atlantic, which was now part of the Warner Bros. empire.
But that arrangement proved to be a bust. She traveled to
Muscle Shoals, AL, and recorded a full-length album, but it sat
in the can for more than two decades before being released
by a French label in 2000 under the title Souvenirs.
Good fortune came Bettye’s way again in 1978, when
she was recruited to replace singer/actress Vivian Reed as
Irene Paige, starring opposite the legendary Cab Calloway
in the road company of Bubbling Brown Sugar, the Tony-
nominated musical that recreated the sounds and feel of the
Harlem Renaissance.
It’s a blessing, she says, that her early manager, Jim Lewis,
had made her learn Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” and “Lover
Man,” Sinatra’s “Drinking Again,” and the standards “God
Bless the Child” and “Sweet Georgia Brown,” both of which
were in the score of the play.

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