Bettye LaVette - Child of the Seventies

When last we heard from Mz LaVette she had recorded some credible singles, had a minor hit at 16, and had toured in James Brown's Review, the teenager was blossoming into a real talent in her early 20's and so...

"....In 1972, she signed once again with Atlantic/Atco. She was sent to Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama to record what was to be her first full length album. Titled Child of the Seventies, it was produced by Brad Shapiro and featured the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, now known as The Swampers, but Atco chose not to issue the album.

The mid 1970s saw a brief stint and two 45s with Epic, and in 1978 she released the disco smash on West End Records "Doin’ The Best That I Can". In 1982, she was signed by her hometown label, Motown, and sent to Nashville to record. The resulting LP (her first album actually issued), titled Tell Me A Lie, was produced by Steve Buckingham. The first single, “Right In The Middle (Of Falling In Love)” hit the R&B Top 40. She briefly gave up recording for a six–year run in the Broadway smash Bubbling Brown Sugar, appearing alongside Honi Coles and Cab Calloway.

After LaVette had played her own personal mono recordings of Child of the Seventies for Gilles Petard, a French soul music collector, he sought the master recordings at Atlantic, whose personnel had previously thought they had been lost in a fire some years back. In 1999, he finally discovered the masters and then licensed the album from Atlantic and released it in 2000 as Souvenirs on his Art and Soul label...." wiki

I'm having the same reaction upon hearing this album and realizing that it was deliberately shelved, that I did the first time I heard Paul Pena's New Train (another album inexplicably suppressed in the same year); "What the hell were they thinking?". This album has variety in genre's, great musicians and arrangements, cool songs and strikingly original vocals. Individual songs had appeal across a variety of radio markets, how did they miss it?

You have my old pal wouter to thank for this one, he kindly sent the lossless links (rapidshare) and I have added mp3 links (embedupload).