Bettye Lavette: Reading A Woman Like Me While Listening to Thankful N'Thoughtful • We Blog The World

It’s been cold or raining or both for most of December in California and I really have just wanted to read and eat and yes, listen.

Fortunately, there’s no loss of material. Mostly, though, I’ve been on another Bettye Lavette bender since hearing her rendition of “Dirty Old Town” on the radio and discovering she had a book out, too

Read: At the same time she released the new album, “Thankful N’ Thoughtful,” Lavette also published her memoir “A Woman Like Me” this year. Sassy, ribald and rollicking, it covers her 50+ years living big ups and downs of music.

Eat: Smoothies have been replaced by warm rice bowls. Mine usually involves kimchi and avocado, tofu or eggs.

Listen: Who doesn’t want to project as much cool and emotion in a song as Bettye Lavette when they grow up? Her latest collection is full of her reinterpretations of tunes by the likes of Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and Neil Young. She takes the song to an entirely new depth, dripping wisdom and soul. Phew.

Deborah Crooks

Deborah Crooks (www.DeborahCrooks.com) is a writer, performing songwriter and recording artist based in San Francisco whose lyric driven and soul-wise music has drawn comparison to Lucinda Williams, Chrissie Hynde and Natalie Merchant.

Singing about faith, love and loss, her lyrics are honed by a lifetime of writing and world travel while her music draws on folk, rock, Americana and the blues. She released her first EP “5 Acres” in 2003 produced by Roberta Donnay, which caught the attention of Rocker Girl Magazine, selecting it for the RockerGirl Discoveries Cd. In 2007, she teamed up with local producer Ben Bernstein to complete “Turn It All Red” Ep, followed by 2008’s “Adding Water to the Ashes” CD, and a second full-length CD “2010. She’s currently working on a third CD to be released in 2013.

Deborah’s many performance credits include an appearance at the 2006 Millennium Music Conference, the RockerGirl Magazine Music Convention, IndieGrrl, at several of the Annual Invasion of the GoGirls at SXSW in Austin, TX, the Harmony Festival and 2009’s California Music Fest, MacWorld 2010, Far West Fest and many other venues and events. She toured the Northwest as part “Indie Abundance Music, Money & Mindfulness” (2009) with two other Bay Area artists, and followed up with “The Great Idea Tour of the Southwest in March 2010 with Jean Mazzei.