Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook
This is a strange concept - soul reworkings of British rock songs by the very emotional veteran Detroit soul singer Bettye Lavette. Overall I found the album a bit samey - the tracks have mainly been slowed down and have a minimal backing which highlights Bettye's wonderful ravaged voice. This is not a collection of classic rock songs, some of the songs here are fairly obscure - Traffic's "No Time To Live" and George Harrison's "Isn't it a pity". I can only presume these are Bettye's (or the producers Rob Mathes and Michael Stevens) favourite British rock songs. I thought that some tracks like the Beatles' "The word" (one of the few fast songs), Ringo's "It don't come easy", the Stone's "Salt Of The Earth" and Elton John's "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" worked wonderfully. Other tracks like the much-covered "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" and "Nights In White Satin", Macca's "Maybe I'm Amazed", Clapton's "Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad" and Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" were OK without really bringing anything new to the songs. Sadly I thought that Traffic's aforementioned "No Time To Live" and the live version of the Who's "Love Reign O'er Me" didn't work at all and I found them hard to listen to. I think that Bettye's fabulous voice is always worth listening to but for me this record was a bit of a disappointment and not as good as her 2005 comeback album "I've Got My Own Hell to Raise" produced by Joe Henry. However, there are a few really good tracks here, hence the four star rating.