Bibliograph

A woman like me, Bettye LaVette ; with David Ritz

Type

Label

A woman like me, Bettye LaVette ; with David Ritz

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes selected discography and index

resource.biographical

autobiography

Illustrations

illustrationsplates

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

A woman like me

Nature of contents

discographies

Responsibility statement

Bettye LaVette ; with David Ritz

Summary

The singer's autobiography charts one missed chance and blown opportunity after another on the way to belated renown 40 years into her career. Born Betty Haskins in Michigan, she was a high school dropout, married and a mother by the age of 15, and ran wild through the Motor City clubs. Rechristened Bettye LaVette, she dove into the music scene, notching a top-10 national R&B hit on Atlantic in 1962. While she reached the top 40 several more times through the early '80s, LaVette never experienced sustained success. Her latter-day albums for the independent label Anti- finally brought her the audience she coveted. Her own recounting suggests she was the victim of her own monumentally misguided judgment. She indulged heartily in alcohol, cocaine, marijuana and sex--she counted Otis Redding, Solomon Burke and Jackie Wilson among her many paramours, sustained a decades-long affair with record exec Clarence Paul, had a long-term female lover and worked off and on as a prostitute

Contributor