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- Summary: The latest full-length release for the R&B singer features songs sung by other female artists and was produced by Steve Jordan.
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- Record Label: Verve
- Genre(s): R&B
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Score distribution:
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Positive: 6 out of 7
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Mixed: 1 out of 7
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Negative: 0 out of 7
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Aug 27, 2020LaVette came so close to a Grammy with her interpretations of Dylan’s songs. Blackbirds may just push her to the top. It’s difficult to imagine anyone else delivering an album that oozes such deep emotion with each lyric. Clearly, it cements her status as one of today’s elite interpreters of song.
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Aug 27, 2020By the time the Beatles’ “Blackbird” closes the set in a slowed down blues arrangement with a string quartet, most listeners will be wrung out emotionally from these expressive takes on generally seldom heard gems. Bettye LaVette may not have penned any, but she owns them just the same.
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Sep 4, 2020It’s like she’s got a hundred catches in her voice, and you’re left hanging, riveted, on each one. That helps this album’s resurrected paeans to sexy uncertainty sound movingly weathered and remarkably unfamiliar, all at once. As the Beatles would also say: And your bird can sing.
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Aug 31, 2020Blackbirds is proof that she's not resting on her reputation, and hearing her explore the architecture of a great song is a rare treat to be valued.
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Under The RadarSep 16, 2020The album sits more as tribute than an effort to outdo. That being said, the funky take of Della Resse's "Blues For The Weepers" and the extra playful version of Dianh Washington's "Romance In The Dark" stand out for their variation from the originals. [Aug - Oct 2020, p.86]
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Aug 27, 2020She brings her personal touch to the material and makes it her own. That can be to her advantage on such songs as Ruth Brown's "Book of Lies."
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UncutAug 27, 2020She approaches the material with understated expressiveness. [Sep 2020, p.32]