Your Morning Wake Up Call: Bettye LaVette Owns the Who

By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 5, 2010 1:00PM

If Bettye LaVette had seen sustained success as a singer when she was younger, the current critical acclaim her career is enjoying would be considered a renaissance. Achieving success as an entertainer as she enters the twilight of her career, LaVette has simply drafted a musical success story that's more engaging than Gaga.

LaVette made the Old Town School of Folk Music feel like a post-2 a.m. Green Mill jam session the other night, drawing much of her set from her recent album "Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook." LaVette is that rare performer who can take a song that's been sung to death and make it her own. The foundation for "Interpretations" was a cover of the Who's "Love Reign O'er Me" that she performed at last year's Kennedy Center Honors to a stunned Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey. It's rare you get to see a singer steal a song from the man who wrote it. Rarer still to see the songwriter say, "It's all yours."