The Scene of the Crime

LaVette agreed to return to Fame some 35 years later, the studio where Scene of the Crime was recorded. The set is co-produced by David Barbe, Patterson Hood, and LaVette. Along with the Drive-By Truckers (Hood, Mike Colley, Shonna Tucker, and Brad Morgan), special guests include Spooner Oldham on Wurlitzer and piano throughout, David Hood on bass on three cuts, Kelvin Holly (a member of Little Richard's band the Decoys), steel guitarist John Neff, and Sum Haque on piano for a couple of numbers. These ten tracks -- all but one are covers, as LaVette considers herself in the proper soul tradition as an interpreter, not a songwriter -- are gritty, loud, raw, and drenched in Southern soul, blues, and gospel-tinged R&B. From the opening notes of "I Still Want to Be Your Baby (Take Me Like I Am)" -- written by another genius chewed up and spat out by the music biz, the late Eddie Hinton -- it becomes obvious why this unlikely pairing was a match made in roadhouse heaven. Roiling and steamy from the word go, the guitars are held in check with a riff that sounds like it could have come from Junior Kimbrough's juke joint over Mississippi way. Oldham's Wurlitzer, the cracking snare, a bottom-heavy bassline -- that has not an iota of rubber in it -- and those distorted intertwining six-strings are still barely enough to hold the sheer wall-busting voice of LaVette. She doesn't have to stretch to get above them (and many of these tracks are comprised of "scratch," or first-take vocals). It comes pouring out of her. She's a disciplined singer who understands tension and dynamic and where in her belly to get the power from. Her reading of Frankie Miller's "Jealousy" is all simmering and scorching soul; the Wurlitzer and rim-clicking snare are her allies here in delivering the lyric. The bassline provides a rock for the trio to jump off and the guitars just color the sound purple. She has all the advice of a strict maternal figure who has learned from hard experience. When the track begins to cut loose of its moorings, she simply gets right on top of the mix and lets her voice fall over it. Whew!