A Woman Like Me

by Bettye Lavette

  “And who gave you the authority to tell me what I need?”

  “I’m an exec at the musician’s union. Been around music my whole life. Played trombone for Jimmie Lunceford. I know singing, and especially female singing. You need training.”

  I looked up at this guy. He was over six feet tall and spoke with a deep voice. He was in his early forties. I was eighteen.

  “Look, mister,” I said to him. “You’re saying I need training. Well, I’m saying I need to get to New York.”

  “When are you going to do that?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Fine. But take my card and call me when you get back.”

  “I ain’t coming back,” I said. “I intend to make it in New York.”

  • • •

  When I arrived in New York, my first reaction was to die in the middle of Broadway. Just lie down and let the cars and yellow cabs roll over me. That’s how happy I was. I could have ended my life in the middle of Manhattan and felt like, having seen this magic land at least once, I had lived. I fell for the city almost as hard as I’d fallen for Clarence Paul. The energy got me. The energy pushed me forward. The first thing I did was run over to Atlantic Records.

  Jerry Wexler and I had had some preliminary conversations on the phone, but I had to deal with him in person. I needed to tell him, straight to his face, that Atlantic wasn’t doing shit for me. I wanted Atlantic’s best writer-producers, Leiber and Stoller, the guys who did the Drifters and Ben E. King, to work with me.

  Jerry Wexler was gracious and saw me right away. He was a highly articulate guy with a sincere manner. He gave me a great deal of time while his partner, Ahmet Ertegun, ignored me.

  “Sorry about West,” Wexler said. “I like Robert. I hope you’ve been able to get new representation.”

  “I’m here representing myself, Mr. Wexler,” I said. “You’re not promoting me right. You’re not recording me right, and you’re also not producing me right.”

  “What do you suggest?” he asked.

  “I want Leiber and Stoller. I feel their songs. I could have hits with Leiber and Stoller.”

  “Leiber and Stoller are no longer with us,” said Wexler. “They formed their own label, Red Bird. But I have another writer-producer who I think is right for you.”

  “Who?”

  “Burt Bacharach. He did ‘Don’t Make Me Over’ for Dionne Warwick.”

  “I don’t like the song. Too lightweight. I need gutsier writers like Leiber and Stoller.”

  “They’re gone, and I can’t bring ’em back.”

  “Then I’m gone,” I said. “Everyone says I’ve been on Atlantic long enough.”

  “You sure you want to do this, Bettye?”

  “Damn sure.”

  “You want to go out there alone, with no manager or label.”

  “I don’t feel like you’re all that interested in me as an artist,” I said. “If you were, you’d get me another record right away.”

  He mentioned Burt Bacharach again. I couldn’t imagine singing his kind of fluffy song.

  “I need to be free right now,” I said. “I need you to tear up my Atlantic contract because it’s not making either of us any money.”

  “Tell you what, Bettye,” said Wexler. “I’ll tear up this contract, but then I’m gonna write you a check for five hundred dollars.”

  “For what?”

  “Just because you’re going to need it. No strings attached, just a little money from a record man who worries that you’re gonna find it very goddamn cold out there.”

  Little did I know that Jerry Wexler was right. It wasn’t just cold, it was fuckin’ freezing.

  I went to the hospital to see Robert West. He didn’t look good. Katherine confirmed what I’d already been told. It wasn’t clear whether he’d ever recover. I had to move on.

  The next move was easy. I went to see the only other person I knew in New York—Frank Kocian, the accountant for Shaw Artists Corporation, the outfit that booked me. As it happened, Frank was fed up with accounting and eager to manage. He had eyes to manage me. He took me to dinner and, straight up, asked if I wanted a professional and personal relationship. Professional was good enough for me, and Frank proved to be a gentleman.

  He showed me New York City—the Apollo, the Palm Café, and the Baby Grand, where he got me a gig. When someone said, “I wouldn’t leave Harlem to go to heaven,” I understood. The Baby Grand was the kind of club I’d read about in Jet. Nipsey Russell was closing just as I was opening. Anyone might come through the door—Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Adam Clayton Powell. This was Harlem, baby!

  Sometime after my appearance at the Baby Grand, Frank Kocian took me to Small’s Paradise at 135th Street and Seventh Avenue. Walking through the door, I was smacked in the face by a familiar sound—“Whoa, whoa, ah whoa, whoa . . . need your lovin’ every day.” It was Don Gardner and Dee Dee Ford singing the hell out of their hit “I Need Your Lovin’.” Dee Dee was on organ and Don on drums, blasting the kind of full-powered rhythm-and-blues I saw as my specialty. These were people who would appreciate me.

  They did, and just like that, I found a home in a hip Harlem club. I was especially grateful to be hired as a singer because both Don and Dee Dee were superb singers themselves. The last thing they needed was another vocalist.

  Don was a doll. He came up in Philly with Jimmy Smith, where they’d formed a trio. It was Don who had Jimmy switch from piano to organ, thus changing the course of jazz history. Jimmy would gain greater fame, but Don’s musicianship was just as stupendous. Like a true master, he floated effortlessly from genre to genre—bop, doo-wop, R&B, you name it. Don could write, arrange, sing, and play drums. It burns me up that most histories of American music make no mention of Don Gardner. In my book, he’s a giant. And beyond his crazy chops, he was a wonderful human being.

  Dee Dee was different. She was supertalented—a terrific writer, singer, and organist, but insecurities ruled her mind. She was long and lanky with skinny arms and oversize feet. Long and lanky would have been cool if Twiggy had been popular, but Twiggy hadn’t yet arrived. Dee Dee helped me out with music and I helped her out cosmetically. I tweezed her eyebrows and put her in a blond wig. She started looking good and gaining confidence. Unfortunately, she used her newfound sex appeal to go after our trumpet player, a gay brother. When the brother came out, Dee Dee was devastated. Dee Dee lived in a state of emotional high drama.

  I witnessed some high drama of my own the night an old lady came in the club wrapped in a blanket. She looked homeless. She was wearing hospital-issued paper shoes and a tattered hat with a feather sticking out. Patrons of the club knew who she was and coaxed her to get up and do a song. I had never seen her before and was not thrilled about her singing in my domain. But I had no choice. The people wanted to hear her, and the people were right. Tearing into the song “Candy,” she was so strong, so frighteningly soulful that the customers wouldn’t let me on for my second set. It was disgraceful, but it was exactly what should have happened to my eighteen-year-old arrogant self. Out of ignorance, I had not recognized Big Maybelle. If you’re Big Maybelle, you don’t get strung out on heroin, live in doorways, and get your career denied for twenty-five years so some little bitch with a big booty can come in and kick your ass. Maybelle kicked my ass—and with good reason.

  Not only was Small’s Paradise my longest-lasting New York performing home, it also became my school for life lessons. The first involved Esther Phillips, whom I’d been hearing since I was a little girl. Esther had an up-and-down career. She was a big R&B star in the fifties, but she was struggling in the sixties. When I saw her at Small’s, she was hanging out with Erma Franklin, Aretha’s big sister. Unlike her far more challenging sibling, Erma was a sweetheart.

  Esther had been drinking that night and getting high. She and Erma
were wearing their little mink coats. I hadn’t gotten mine yet, but I was eager to do so. New York is cold in the winter. I joined them at the bar, and men started buying us drinks. We were chitchatting up a storm when suddenly Esther falls into a junkie nod. Her eyeballs disappear, her head sinks down, and her big fat lower lip practically hangs on the bar. She looks like a derelict. Now, I’m all for drinking hard and getting high. I like wine, weed, and cocaine. But if this is what heroin does to you, I want no part of it. My need to look good is greater than my need for a drug with a bigger bang. No way am I gonna let myself go like that. Esther provided a compelling countermodel of what I did not want to be. And no matter how far out there I ventured, heroin was never part of my life.

  Image was. There was never a time, no matter how high or low I might have been, that I didn’t want to look good. When I got to New York, I found an apartment over a beauty salon and became friends with the owner, Wilbert, a sweet old queen. At the time, gay hadn’t exploded as a public thing. I thought all gays were young and was astounded to meet an older homosexual. Wilbert was the one who fashioned some wigs for me in a color he called LaVette Blond. It was perfectly blended to enhance my skin tone. Etta James was still lurking around as a blond, and because I loved everything Etta did, I had to go blond as well. Wilbert sculpted that wig with all the finesse of Michelangelo. When I looked in the mirror, I was thrilled. I couldn’t get over myself. I also couldn’t get over how Wilbert had been living with his sixty-five-year-old boyfriend for thirty years. His boyfriend looked like a high school principal. These were dignified gentlemen.

  “Sissies come in all flavors,” Wilbert said to me with a good-natured laugh.

  Yes, sir, I was learning all sorts of things in the big city.

  One of the first things I learned was the severity of my mistake in leaving Atlantic. I couldn’t interest another label. So when I spotted Luther Dixon walking down Broadway, I was excited. These were the days when all the girl singers were looking for a producer husband. And all of us were looking for Luther. He was a fantastic writer, a guy who’d composed for everyone from Perry Como to Bobby Darin to Elvis to Jimmy Reed. Luther was the creative power behind Florence Greenberg and Scepter Records, where the Shirelles had broken the bank. A little later, Luther would marry Inez Foxx, famous for “Mockingbird,” her duo with her brother, Charlie, but when I saw Luther walking down Broadway that day, he was a free man.

  “Bettye,” he said. “What are you doing in New York, baby?”

  “Working at Small’s Paradise.”

  “You recording right now?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You interested in going into the studio?”

  “You know I am.”

  “Got a track that might work for you. Come with me and let’s see if you pick up the melody. If it works out, I’ll take it to Florence. If she likes it, we’ll release it as a single. Cool?”

  “Cool.”

  Cutting it was strange. I had never sung over a track. I was used to live men playing their instruments behind me. I liked the excitement of their proximity. No matter, I did what I had to do. Luther liked it and said he’d get back to me with Florence’s reaction. He never did. I never saw him again, I never saw Florence. Twenty-five years passed before I heard another word about the song. It wasn’t until the nineties when a British label said they’d gone through the Scepter vaults and found this song by me.

  “What’s it called?” I asked.

  “‘Happiness Will Only Cost You One Thin Dime.’”

  The title didn’t immediately ring a bell, and when they played it, I wasn’t even sure that it was me singing.

  “If it’s not me,” I told the English guys, “we need to find this bitch.”

  After repeated listenings, I did recognize my voice and remembered the Luther Dixon episode.

  A far more memorable recording from the mid-sixties was something I was sure was a hit. Frank Kocian introduced me to Nate McCalla, whose underworld contacts bankrolled Calla Records. Frank convinced Nate to put me on his label. Musically, the pieces seemed to be coming together. Personally, though, things were not great.

  I was living with a barber who was a drug dealer and a hustler. My friend Dee Dee Ford was still in love with the gay trumpet player. This is the background to her writing “Let Me Down Easy,” a song that, for legal reasons, Dee Dee wrote under the name “Wreich-Holloway.” Don Gardner produced the session and we were lucky to get Dale Warren, a Detroit arranger who’d worked with the Supremes, to write the chart. It was a mournful thing. It was a soulful thing. I was nineteen when I recorded it, but people said I sounded thirty. It came out in 1965, the year Marvin had “Ain’t That Peculiar” and the Temps had “My Girl.” “Let Me Down Easy” did reach number 20 on the R&B chart but then vanished in a flash. Some of that fault might have been mine.

  McCalla and his cronies loved me. They gave me an unlimited budget to promote the song. They asked, “What TV show you want to go on?” With their muscle, I had many choices. I said Shindig! ’cause that was the only show I knew. If I had been smart like Berry Gordy, I would have said The Ed Sullivan Show. Sullivan was the big reason why the Motown acts crossed over in such spectacular fashion. But, still a teenager, I had my mind on teenage shows.

  My appearance on Shindig! no doubt helped “Let Me Down Easy” from going down too fast. I’d call it a minor hit, but I still think of it as a major song. Nearly a half-century later, I’m still singing the muthafucka and feeling the truth of the message.

  • • •

  I was singing the song at the Regal Theater in Chicago, on the same bill with the Dells, the Radiants, and Marvin Gaye. I saw this as my chance to finally catch Marvin. When it came to approaching women, Marvin always looked like a frightened lamb, but I vowed to be gentle enough to make him comfortable. After we had lunch one day, I invited him to my room, but he never came. After dinner the next day, I invited him again, and again he didn’t show. On the last night of the run, I gave up and decided to have a party. Chuck Barksdale of the Dells showed up as well as deejay Pervis Spann. A lot of people were squeezed into my room. We were raucous and loud and having a large time when I heard a knock on the door. When I opened it to see who was there, I could have fainted—Marvin!

  “Oh,” he said, “I thought you’d be alone.” And with that he turned and walked away.

  Marvin had finally come for me, and I blew it. I’d lost a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I’m still kicking myself.

  The deepest truth, though, was that New York, for all its thrills, hadn’t given me what I’d sought. In my mind, I had come to the city as a star. Before I got there, I was being billed above Otis Redding. Now, with “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” and “Respect,” Otis was a much bigger star. I had had so much respect for myself that I told a big shot like Jerry Wexler I didn’t need Atlantic. Now the song I was singing was called “Let Me Down Easy,” and believe me, I was singing to myself.

  At the same time, I can’t look back and cast myself as a depressive. It’s one thing to have the blues. I think I’ve had the blues—musically and otherwise—most of my life. But having the blues is different from depression. To me, depression connotes despair. Living in New York during the mid-sixties, I was not in despair. I always thought the big break was around the corner. I always knew I could sing. And besides, the city was a wondrous place, filled with characters who never ceased to excite my imagination. The city was hard-edged, but it also had some soft corners. And if survival meant finding a way to take off the edge by finding those corners, I was determined to do so. I was sure I could survive in New York.

  And I was sure wrong.

  Groupies Who Sang

  Tammi Montgomery and Yvonne Fair had much in common. They were singers who had both been with James Brown, onstage and in bed. Like me, they loved being around singing stars and pimp-producers t
o whom they gave up their love easily and often. We were essentially groupies who sang.

  I first met Yvonne when I opened for James Brown. She had a single, “I Found You,” that James recut himself. It came out as “I Got You (I Feel Good)” and turned into one of his biggest hits. Yvonne had a strong voice and carefree attitude. In contrast, Tammi had a coy voice and a hard-core attitude. I met her before she changed her name to Tammi Terrell and left James for David Ruffin and Motown.

  I was in my dressing room, angry that I’d been told that James Brown didn’t want me to close my set with “Let Me Down Easy,” because I was getting too much applause. Compared with James’s more outrageous dictatorial tirades, this was nothing. Everyone around James was afraid of him. I wasn’t. I was ready to challenge him, but I was barred from seeing him. I never got to register my complaint. I respected James’s music, but on a personal level, I saw him as an especially ignorant man.

  I was feeling especially disrespected when my dressing room door burst open and Tammi Montgomery was standing there.

  “All right, bitch,” she said, “I know you been looking for me.”

  She pulled up her skirt and grabbed a handgun wedged against her garter belt.

  I laughed.

  “I ain’t been looking for you, bitch,” I said. “I don’t even know why you’re here.”

  She told me she’d been hearing my records and wanted me to know she could outsing me any day of the week. I didn’t argue. Only a fool argues with a gun.

  Seeing I was as sassy as she was, she put the gun away and declared peace. We wound up liking each other. Tammi was a free spirit, and in that sense we were sisters. A couple of years later as Tammi Terrell, she wound her voice around Marvin’s on those beautiful duets. I appreciated the subtlety of her singing. Of all Marvin’s duet partners—Mary Wells, Kim Weston, Diane Ross—Tammi was the most engaging. When she died of a brain tumor in 1970, she was only twenty-four.

  The notion of the groupie/singer helps explain why Tammi, Yvonne, and I did the things we did. Diane Ross undoubtedly also fits into that category. Even though we were semi-stars ourselves, we were so enamored of the stars that we’d use every feminine charm at our command to win our way into their world. Beyond the sheer delight of being in the company of magnificent artists like Marvin Gaye or David Ruffin, we knew that we needed to be more than good singers. We needed men to sponsor our cause. We knew that they liked hearing us sing. But we also knew that if they enjoyed sex with us, they’d help our careers.