Bettye LaVette Blackbirds LP

Blackbirds features songs primarily popularized by women who were the "bridge she came across on." The album finds LaVette in top form with powerful renditions of songs that touched her personally. From Dinah Washington's "Drinking Again," Nina Simone's "I Hold No Grudge" and more, they are all delivered in LaVette's rich & raspy tone. Blackbirds honors LaVette's heritage as an R&B singer and the women who came before her. LaVette A&R'd and sequenced the record herself - her first true curation.

LaVette puts secret sex at the forefront, with subtle swing, on Lil Green's romantic blues song 'Romance in the Dark.' Her rendition of Holiday's searing 1939 anti-lynching song, 'Strange Fruit,' is bluesy and intense. LaVette turns Paul McCartney's 'Blackbird,' the album's last song, into an aching, first-person account of what it's like to finally be free. Recording/mixing engineer Dave O'Donnell and mastering engineer Greg Calibi get credit for this album's first-rate sound.