“I am not a writer,” declared Bettye LaVette with a chuckle before launching into “Before the Money Came (The Ballad of Bettye LaVette),” a song she did indeed co-write that was her last song of the night at the Highline Ballroom on Monday. Throughout the set, the soul singer delivered a scorching version of “They Call It Love” associated with Ray Charles; kicked her shoes off and sat cross-legged onstage as she transformed Willie Nelson’s “Somebody Pick Up the Pieces” into a soul number; and — as an old soul that’s been chewed up and spat out by the record industry — gave an astounding rendition of Elton John’s “Talking Old Soldiers,” lending it new significance.

All of these songs were hand-picked by Spooner Oldham for her new album The Scene of the Crime, but choosing to end her performance with the sole track she penned on the project was a tough declaration of just exactly what she’s capable of. Though she might have attempted to conceal her strengths behind a self-deprecating laugh, LaVette is a woman that has defied the hard times, and rightfully emerged victorious. As a result, she’s not a woman who suffers much from self-doubt, a point she gleefully proved in writing and performing this song.

“All my friends on the Grammy shows
I was stuck in Detroit
trying to open doors
record deals kept falling apart,
one with Atlantic nearly broke my heart”

Although she had enjoyed several hits with stand-alone singles during the preceding decade, LaVette was robbed when her first record Child of the Seventies was inexplicably shelved by Atlantic in 1972 (she was 26). Not one to wallow in self-pity or wait around for an apology, LaVette spent the next three decades on the road, amassing fans and enduring a brief and not terribly successful stint with Motown. Then in 1999, a French soul collector discovered Child of the Seventies. He licensed the rights to the album from Atlantic and released it in his native country the following year.

What followed has been termed a “Bettye LaVette revival,” a misleading description to anyone who has seen her live. Watching this brazen, powerful 61-year-old woman, a dynamic singer with a physique any 20-year-old would envy storming across the stage and commanding the room as she belted out lines like “I was singing R&B back in ’62, before you were born, and your Momma too!” It was apparent that Bettye LaVette has never gone away.

That said, with the handful of records LaVette has released (bearing titles like I’ve Got My Own Hell To Raise), it’s hard to miss the fact that she was getting something off her chest. Today, her load lightened and her head held high, you get the sense that the songs pouring out of her come from a place of satisfaction, not bitterness, as she cheekily reminds us: “Forty years I kept singing / before the money started rolling in.” These days, LaVette is laughing all the way to the bank.

You’ll get a strong sense of who LaVette is by listening to The Scene of the Crime, but her pride and the sheer force of her personality only truly transcend in watching this hurricane of a woman take pure delight in the audience, her music, and her achievements. “I got so much to say / so proud I was built this way…”

Bettye LaVette is a writer, as well as a singer. She’s a force of nature, a fighter, but to call her a survivor would be an understatement: she’s doing a whole lot more than merely surviving.
–Julia Clarke