Bettye LaVette has been called the ‘greatest living soul singer in America’,with a career spanning fifty years. Stunning the world with her voice, she’s had quite the journey – these are her Rock And Rules.
LEARN TO DO SOMETHING ELSE
When you look up and you find you’re nearing fifty and you don’t know how to do anything but sing, then that is a very scary proposition. So if you know how to do anything else, you should keep on doing it – even if it’s only how to write and arrange music or play an instrument. But you need to be a broader person than someone who just sings.
LEARN FROM PEOPLE IN THE BUSINESS
When me and all the Motown crew came into show business, we were children. We were just hoodlums off the street but we learned to walk and we learned to talk by growing in this business and listening to people. I’m glad they’re starting to do this to the people on these TV talent shows. I think it’s so ridiculous when you look at some of these millionaires now and they can’t even speak audibly.
BE PREPARED FOR ‘BUZZARD LUCK’
It’s just an old black phrase meaning that it’s worse than any other kind of bad luck that you could have. I think that when you start off with an entire country saying that you’re wonderful, then you are totally unprepared for some of the things that happened to me. I know that they almost killed me and I wasn’t even a star, and I didn’t think that I was one. If I had thought I was a star and all that shit happened I would have killed myself.
RESPECT PEOPLE’S EXPERIENCE
I think that one of the things you have to experience if you win one of those thirteen-week talent shows is to go on the road with me. That’s what you should do after you win the contest, and then we’ll know whether or not you really deserve it. After I was lucky enough to sell that first recording [1962’s ‘My Man – He’s A Lovin’ Man’], I had to go on the road with these people I had been listening to on the radio, and they were kicking my ass on a nightly basis. I was young, and I was cute and many of them felt sorry for me and took me under their wing and I learnt from them. I take the attitude, that because of my training and my learning, I don’t care how big you are; I DARE you to go into a small room with me with a piano. No matter who you are or how many records you sold the last time around, meet me in a little lounge with a piano.
STAY HUMBLE
It’s pretty hard to stay humble when everybody is throwing their panties at you and waiting outside your window. How can you stay humble when that happens? Especially when you’re young. That’s why it’s so hard to sustain a fifty-year career: you either burn out or wear yourself out or make all the wrong decisions in the first ten or fifteen years. So nowadays, I’d like to see the young people now sustain a fifty-year career the way Frank Sinatra did.
KNOW THAT YOU’RE NOT AS GOOD AS PEOPLE SAY
I think the main mistake I see over and over is not having enough humility that even when you’re home at night on your own to say, ‘Hey, I’m not that good’. I think Elvis Presley is perfect for that point. He was always afraid that he wasn’t as good as they said he was. I think that was very healthy.
Words by Interview by Josh Jones
Illustration by Bert @ Bert Industries
