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Blue Rider Press
October 2012
On Sale: September 27, 2012
272 pages
ISBN: 039915938X
EAN: 9780399159381
Kindle: B0085DOXQQ
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Memoir
Bettye LaVette celebrates her 50th year in show business with her stunning memoir, A Woman Like Me, and her new album, Thankful N' Thoughtful.
As a teenager in Detroit, Bettye LaVette had a hit single with βMy ManβHeβs a Lovinβ Man.β By the time she was twenty, she had faded back into obscurity and was barely surviving in New York City. For the next forty years, despite being associated with legends such as Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, and James Brown, she remained relatively unknown outside a circle of devoted fans. Every time it seemed that her dream of stepping into the spotlight was finally coming true, bad luck smashed her hopes, again and again. Then, after a lifetime of singing in clubs and lounges, her unforgettable televised performances at the 2008 Kennedy Center Honors and at President Obamaβs pre-Inaugural Concert at the Lincoln Memorial in 2009 won her the recognition she had sought for her entire life. Bettye LaVetteβs career has been a one-of-a-kind roller-coaster ride through the world of music; it has taken her from the peaks to the pits and back. In this unflinchingly honest memoir, she boldly recounts her freewheeling childhoodβher parents ran an illegal liquor business out of their living room, which was frequented by some of the top acts of the forties and fiftiesβher short-lived conquest of the R&B world in the 1960s, her decline into poverty and despair, and her recent comeback and career revival, with two Grammy-nominated CDs and numerous appearances on major television talk shows. Poignant, brazen, and fearless, A Woman Like Me is a tour de force from one of the most outspoken female performers singing todayβand sheβs a force to be reckoned with.
 Media BuzzTavis Smiley - November 29, 2012
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