What Song Are You Listening To Right Now?

[Brumerican]

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

Frank Sinatra - That's Life.

Having an oldie night to acompany my whiskeyyyyyy

[Brumerican]

Frank Sinatra - That's Life.

Having an oldie night to acompany my whiskeyyyyyy

I did my school work experience in River Island Sutton Coldfield back in 1996 and that song was one of about 15 songs that were played on loop all day everyday in the shop. Strangely it was the only song that never made me want to top myself.

[Brumerican]

[stewiek2]

[jonno_2004]

Badge - Eric Clapton (Live in Hyde Park)

[Condimentalist]

Lenzman - Open Page

[Wol.]

[jonno_2004]

Critical Acclaim - A7X

[leviramsey]

(she does a good enough job on this to be touring with Robert Plant... I actually think I prefer the stripped down soul rendition to the original :shock: )

Wall Street Journal"]

Bettye LaVette observes that most rock fans tend to identify songs with the bands that perform them rather than their composers. A memorable performance by a band that anchors a song to a single style can overshadow its musical integrity and lyrical depth.

"It's a challenge for the listener to hear the song," Ms. LaVette said when we spoke by phone recently. "My greatest challenge is to insist that you do."

On her new album, "Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook" (Anti), Ms. LaVette reimagines, gloriously so, some of the most famous rock tunes of the 1960s and '70s, at times beyond the point of easy recognition. We hear "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me," "Wish You Were Here" and "Maybe I'm Amazed"—and are reminded, or perhaps made aware, of their depth of expression.

As an interpretative singer must, Ms. LaVette approaches a song eager to find what it has to say. "I'm arrogant," she said. "When I can hear me singing it, that's when I like a song."

On "Interpretations," there are several stunning performances that can make you feel as if you've never heard the songs before, though you probably have—hundreds of times. Take "It Don't Come Easy," written by Ringo Starr with help from George Harrison. Mr. Starr's bright-pop version bathes his vocal in horns, backup singers, percussion and Mr. Harrison's chiming guitar, and the lyric seems a grab bag of the era's peace-and-love axioms. But in Ms. LaVette's reading, it's a gut-level plea, the words liberated by her intensity in a swamp-blues setting. It may be that Ms. LaVette unearthed Mr. Starr's intention as a writer, but it seems more likely that she's instilled her own raw emotions in his words.

She's been doing that sort of thing for a good long while. Now 64 years old—and looking about two decades younger—Ms. LaVette had her first hit when she was 16. She jumped among labels and in 1972 signed with Atlantic, which shelved an album she recorded without telling her. Hard times followed and successes worthy of her talent were few—a disco hit, a stint in the touring company of the musical "Bubbling Brown Sugar," an award from the Blues Foundation in 2004 for her comeback album, "A Woman Like Me." In 2005, she teamed up with Joe Henry for a killer disc, "I've Got My Own Hell to Raise," in which she sang songs by Fiona Apple, Joan Armatrading, Rosanne Cash, Dolly Parton and Lucinda Williams, among others. Last year, she released "Change is Gonna Come," a collection of standards including "Lush Life" and "God Bless the Child."

In late 2008, with the help of her husband, Kevin Kiley, Ms. LaVette grabbed a spot on the Kennedy Center Honors program in which The Who's Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend were among the honorees. For the nationally televised event, Ms. LaVette sang Mr. Townshend's "Love Reign O'er Me." Her rendition, which recast the song by removing its defiant tone, stunned the attendees; Mr. Townshend told her it brought him to tears. "[He] said the best part of the night was when Barbra Streisand asked him if he really wrote that song," Ms. LaVette said. "See, she really heard it."

That performance, which closes the new album, brought Ms. LaVette a recognition she'd long been denied. "I finally feel a part of the business," she said.

In preparing for "Interpretations," Mr. Kiley presented her with some 300 songs from which to choose. Ms. LaVette didn't select the songs for her album on the basis of their fame—would she have picked Lennon-McCartney's "The Word" or Jagger-Richards's "Salt of the Earth" if she had? Nor did she pick the songs based on the lyricists' context: It's safe to say she was unaware Robert Plant wrote the words to "All My Love" after his son's death or that "Wish You Were Here" is Roger Waters's tribute to his troubled friend Syd Barrett. Instead, Ms. LaVette connected with their stories of loss or, in other cases, what's implied by their imagery. On the stage at the Highline Ballroom Wednesday, she told the audience she connected to the emotions of Waters's composition by remembering old friends Marvin Gaye and Otis Redding.

"No one could tell me what 'Nights in White Satin' means," she said. "But the power of the song is that millions of people got the gist of it."

Often on "Interpretations," the marriage of singer and song is perfect. Her slow take on Mr. Harrison's "Isn't It a Pity" is so forceful it seems definitive, and her version of the fairly obscure "No Time to Live" by Stevie Winwood and Jim Capaldi tells us the song is an underappreciated gem.

Ms. LaVette, who will tour this summer with Mr. Plant, would be pleased if fans gave new thought to the songs she's chosen, though she's well aware that it can take a long time to convince listeners that a new, authoritative version of a song exists.

"It took me 20 years to separate 'Lush Life' from Johnny Hartmann," she said.

[Xann]

Merkin - 'Here Together'

[leviramsey]

Barry Manilow - Copacabana

[jonno_2004]

Clapton - I Shot The Sheriff (Live in Hyde Park)

[Condimentalist]

Animal Collective - Summertime Clothes

[YLN]

Super catchy. It's getting a repeat on my iTunes

[Gringo]

Barry Manilow - Copacabana

Duuuuuuuuuuude

I put Barry on the spotify selection in the local bar on friday night. Locals didn't know what was going. Neither did herself who had asked for some korn.

[Xann]

Majistrate - 'Big Tings'

As for Manilow.

"Bermuda Triangle It makes people disappear

Bermuda Triangle Don't go too near"

A lyrical bludgeoning that bad has to be admired.

:winkold:

[CVByrne]

One Touch - LCD Soundsystem

[rjw63]

Majistrate - 'Big Tings'

That is **** awful!

[Ryan.]

Elbow - One Day Like This, the song is **** EPIC!