From Bob Dylan to Dolly Parton, from Pink Floyd to Sinéad O'Connor, Bettye LaVette has covered them all—and each time, she’s made the songs she performs uniquely her own. When Margo Price first heard LaVette’s rendition of John Prine’s Souvenirs, it blew her away. In this episode, Margo sits down with LaVette to discuss her childhood growing up in Detroit, making her first record at 16, and all the devastatingly sad music that LaVette was drawn to listening to as a young adolescent. Plus, LaVette remembers what it was like to perform at the 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama.
From Bob Dylan to Dolly Parton, from Pink Floyd to Sinéad O'Connor, Bettye LaVette has covered them all—and each time, she’s made the songs she performs uniquely her own. When Margo Price first heard LaVette’s rendition of John Prine’s Souvenirs, it blew her away. In this episode, Margo sits down with LaVette to discuss her childhood growing up in Detroit, making her first record at 16, and all the devastatingly sad music that LaVette was drawn to listening to as a young adolescent. Plus, LaVette remembers what it was like to perform at the 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama.
Show Notes:
You can get a “She Will F*ck You Up” t shirt of your very own at LaVette’s website.
Before she got her start, LaVette used to hang out at the Graystone Ballroom where she met Sherma Lavett—a local groupie who inspired LaVette (born Betty Jo Haskins) to adopt her stage name, Bettye LaVette.
At 16, LaVette made her first record, My Man – He's a Lovin' Man.
Watch LaVette perform at the inauguration of President Barack Obama in 2009.
Margo’s new album, Strays, will be out January 2023. Stream her latest single ‘Change of Heart,’ available now.
Credits:
Runaway Horses is produced by work by work: Scott Newman, Jemma Rose Brown, Kathleen Ottinger and Emily Shaw. The show is mixed by Sam Bair. Our recording engineers are Nick Byrd, Will Grieg, Thad Kopec, and Lake Wilson. Special thanks to Amy Schmalz and Maddie Case at Monotone, Jazz Atkin at Loma Vista, and Joe Dawson at Sonos. The show’s theme song is Nowhere Fast off of Margo Price's album, All American Made.