A Woman Like Me Read online

  In this same dizzy disco period, I was in New York, getting ready to take off with Bubbling again for two weeks of performances in Chicago, when I ran into a friend. Just like the movie says, it happened on Forty-second Street.

  I walked into Arnie Geller, who I knew from the world of Detroit TV when, for a short time, I had hosted a local show, Swingin’ Time.

  “Holy shit,” he said. “Bettye LaVette! This is providential. You’re the gal I need to see!”

  Arnie said he was working with Steve Buckingham in Atlanta.

  “Who’s he?”

  “Hottest producer in the country.”

  “Who’s he produced?”

  “Alicia Bridges. Steve and I are co-managing her. Her ‘I Love the Nightlife’ is the number-one record in the world. You’ve heard it, haven’t you?”

  “Sure, I’ve heard it.”

  “You like it?”

  “It’s catchy.”

  “Anyway, he mentioned you the other day. He has this writer, Buddy Buie, who wrote that famous song ‘Stormy’ that you recorded.”

  “I remember, but nothing happened with my version.”

  “Doesn’t matter. They played it for Steve and he flipped. Buie has some new songs for you. Steve wants to produce.”

  “Well, the thing is, I got this little contract with West End Records.”

  “Get out of it.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Don’t try, Bettye, do it. This is the big time, girl. No one’s hotter than Steve Buckingham. With Buie’s songs, you’re gonna be bigger than Donna Summer.”

  I should have known better, but how could I stop dreaming the impossible dream? How could I not believe this was the sure-enough break I’d been waiting for? How could I give up hope and fall into despair? I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

  I went to West End.

  “Release me,” I said.

  “Fine, but no royalties on anything you’ve recorded for us.”

  Stupidly, I agreed. I didn’t know that over the years “Doin’ the Best That I Can” would grow into a dance-floor staple and turn into a considerable seller. My eyes were on the prize in the sky, the writers of “Stormy,” the managers of Alicia Bridges, the hot producer in Atlanta.

  I went down to Atlanta and met Steve, who had a couple of songs for me. One was “Tell Me a Lie,” a nice, medium-tempo thing asking a married man to pretend he isn’t. We cut the songs. Steve loved the way they turned out. I did too. And then—you’ve heard this before, I’ve heard this before, everyone’s heard this before—the sugar turned to shit.

  Buzzard luck.

  Geller disappeared. Buddy Buie disappeared. The promises faded. The songs never came out.

  “Can you tell me why?” I asked Steve.

  “Wish I could,” he said.

  “Tell me a lie,” I said. “Ain’t that the name of the song?”

  “I guess so.”

  I knew so. Another heartbreak, yet not nearly as great as the heartbreak waiting for me back home in Detroit.

  Sister

  I adored my father. Mama got on my nerves, but she was a wonderful mother and a great supporter. She raised my daughter and let me live the life of an entertainer. It was sister Mattie, though, who was really my heart. I’ve never admired anyone more.

  Sister never had it easy. As a teenager, she married a dog. Her second man was a pig and a brute. He beat her constantly. I can’t explain why a woman as wonderful as Sister allowed men to mistreat her so often and for so long. I know she didn’t feel beautiful because she was skinny. In those days, skinny wasn’t sexy. For all her intelligence and grace, all her kindness and compassion, she felt inferior.

  I cherish the memories of taking Sister on the road. We once traveled with the Temptations and I was thrilled to see her flirting with Paul Williams. She was with me on another tour when we ran out of money and were put out of our hotel. I knew of an apartment building that was essentially a headquarters for whores and decided to take her there.

  “Don’t be shocked, Sister,” I said, knowing she’d lived a sheltered life. “But we’ll be staying with a group of working ladies.”

  By the end of that first week, all the prostitutes were coming to Sister with their problems. She’d become their official counselor, patiently listening to their tales of woe and soothing their hurt feelings. Sister was something else.

  In addition to helping our mother care for my daughter, Sister always worked. For years she had a job at a laundry. She taught me to iron and starch a white shirt with absolute perfection, a skill I still value. Sister did everything just so. She was a perfectionist. She always encouraged me to do what I wanted without, as she put it, “losing the semblance of being a mother.”

  Sister lived her life out of romance books. I hated how she never had the opportunity to be loved, adored, or even appreciated. She never had money or got to enjoy even the most minimal luxury.

  Because Sister had avoided the excessive lifestyle of show business, I expected her to outlive me. She suffered from high blood pressure but told me that the doctors had it under control. So when the call came, I fell into a state of shock.

  I was at the Paramus Theater in New Jersey. The Saturday matinee of Bubbling had just ended. Jim was on the phone.

  “I hate to tell you this, Bettye,” he said, “but Sister has passed.”

  Sister! That couldn’t be. I had talked to her the night before. We had talked for hours about my latest romance. As usual, she had been beautifully patient in letting me express my heart. We talked till the wee small hours of the morning. Finally, Sister said, “You better get your rest. You’ve got your matinee to do and I have my waitress job.”

  Those were her last words to me.

  I came home to bury Sister, gone at forty-six. I was thirty-three and Terrye was eighteen. I believe it was tougher on Terrye than on anyone else. She had lost her surrogate mama, a woman far closer to her than I was.

  At our small memorial service, Rudy Robinson played two of Sister’s favorite songs—“Staying Alive” and “Giving Up.” Terrye prepared Sister’s makeup. I could never have done that. I couldn’t look. I never have and never will look into an open casket. I have no memories of anyone’s dead body. My memories are all of the living.

  Going back to work the next day was hard. I had already broken my vow to my understudy to never allow her to take my place—and I didn’t want to break the promise again. I left Detroit knowing that without Sister, my life would never be the same. I had lost my biggest supporter and my best friend.

  • • •

  Bubbling went on for years. I grew tired of touring, but the songs were good and the pay steady. It was, in fact, the only steady pay I’d ever known.

  I’d failed to make any money in the lucrative age of disco, and that was all right with me. Disco was not a friend to the true rhythm-and-blues artist. It thrived on superficiality and half-ass singing. Those last years of the seventies offered me next to nothing. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the music. Chaka Khan was coming on and Chaka could certainly sing. Teddy Pendergrass was a strong presence, and I was glad that my lifelong friends the O’Jays had a smash with “Use ta Be My Girl.” I would have loved to have had a deal from Gamble and Huff at Philly International. I knew many of the music moguls in charge, but none of them called. I wasn’t shy about calling Al Bell, for example, who had a big career at many labels. He used to chase after me when, as a teen, I was singing “My Man.” But, as an adult, when I asked to speak to him, his secretary put me on hold. I’m still holding. Muthafucka.

  So I went on from city to city, Bubbling my way through life. It was only when we checked into the Hyatt in Louisville, Kentucky, that something changed for me. And I know you won’t be surprised to learn that the change had to do with a man.

  �
�� • •

  I remember calling cousin Margaret back in Detroit.

  “What’s new, Betty Jo?” she asked.

  “Nothing much. Except that I’m getting married.”

  “WHAT!”

  “You heard me.”

  “Is it someone I know?”

  “No, I met him here in Louisville.”

  “You’ve only been in Louisville a week.”

  “How long does it take to know a man?”

  “A lot longer than a goddamn week,” said Margaret.

  “Well, it took me less than a week.”

  “Why in hell are you getting married?”

  “One of the reasons is that he’s gorgeous.”

  “What’s this gorgeous man’s name?”

  “Donnie Sadler.”

  “And what’s this gorgeous man’s age?”

  “Maybe twenty-six.”

  “So he’s seven years younger than you.”

  “Anything wrong with that?” I asked.

  “Not if he has a job. Is the man working?”

  “He sure is. He works for the Hyatt hotel.”

  “Parking cars?”

  “Please, Margaret. Give me a little credit. He’s the front desk manager. And he’s in their executive program. He’s on his way up.”

  “Oh, Lord,” my cousin said in exasperation. “You done lost your mind again.”

  “No, I found the man I’ve been looking for. And I can’t tell you how crazy he is about me.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Anyway, I want you to help me put the wedding together.”

  “Wedding! Y’all are already talking about an actual wedding? When?”

  “Before the show ends its run. I want to get married onstage.”

  “Oh, Lord.”

  • • •

  Donnie was wonderful. Beyond his fabulous looks, he was a gentleman from Philadelphia, a man with a plan for a bright future. Everyone in the Bubbling cast loved him. He had the kind of personality that wanted to please everyone. Determined to be successful, he had a good grasp of Hyatt’s corporate culture. He was also stable and, unlike me, not in the least bit crazy. I never really had gone with an ambitious, legitimate businessman with no connections to show business. The change was refreshing. The lovemaking was satisfying. The deal was sealed.

  The wedding itself happened onstage before one of the performances of Bubbling. Cab Calloway gave me away.

  “Your husband,” said Cab, “is nearly as handsome as I was when I was his age. What age is that, eighteen?”

  “No, he’s older than that, Cab.”

  “Whatever his age, you found a pretty one.”

  While we took the wedding vows, the company’s dancers did a ballet. It couldn’t have been more beautiful.

  Margaret was so undone by the idea of my marriage to a man I barely knew that she kept changing outfits in the dressing room. Fact is, she never made it out of the dressing room; she missed the wedding altogether. When she finally showed up at the party, I asked where she had been.

  “I guess I just couldn’t watch,” she said.

  “Margaret, I have every intention of living happily ever after.”

  “I give it a year,” she said.

  “You’re wrong.”

  She was, but, on the deepest level, she was right.

  • • •

  This was the start of the eighties, a new decade, a new life for me. I had a gorgeous young husband. I had a different lifestyle, following him to where his work took him. I had a man who could provide for me. I had a drama-free situation.

  And yet, looking back, I think I probably wanted out of the marriage a week after my wedding. I fought that feeling and for a long time hid it from Donnie. I tried to make a go of the marriage and, as you’ll see, spent time in cities I disliked, all to prove that Donnie was up to the task of being married to me when, in fact, he wasn’t. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to extricate myself from the situation without hurting him. But Donnie was fundamentally so decent a man that I couldn’t do anything that might undercut him. So I stayed, even when I knew I had made a mistake in making this lifelong commitment.

  The commitment took me to New Orleans, where Donnie would be head of housekeeping for the Hyatt hotel just outside the French Quarter. In that same Hyatt, pianist Ellis Marsalis—father to the famous Marsalis sons and a patron saint of Crescent City jazz—had a big band that played the Sunday brunch. When I asked if I could sing “Moon River,” he agreed, and the next thing I knew I had a gig with Ellis. Not long after that, Phil Parnell, a great talent who had just graduated from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, came home to New Orleans. It was the return of the prodigal son. He came by the Hyatt, heard me, and recruited me to take the place of his recently divorced singer-wife.

  We formed a band and got a gig at the Absinthe Bar on Bourbon Street in the heart of the French Quarter. I played there for a while, as well as other spots, but was never really comfortable in New Orleans, where I was repulsed by the racial bigotry. I remember being asked to sing at a fancy event hosted by one of the city’s dowagers, a woman with an aristocratic bearing. I was interested in meeting her. She looked like a character out of a movie from the thirties.

  “Where are you from, my dear?” she asked.

  “Detroit,” I said.

  “Oh, well, my mistake. I presumed you were just another local coon.”

  I was too shocked to haul off and deck her. Instead, I just stood there, shaking my head in disbelief. “Fuck you, lady” would have been too mild a response. The I-wish-you-were-dead look in my eyes said more.

  After five or six months of gigging around New Orleans, I had one promoter say to me, “Bettye LaVette, the consensus of most of the club owners on Bourbon Street is that you are an uppity nigger.”

  “Tell those muthafuckas they are absolutely right. I’m glad they see me for who I am.”

  Who was I?

  Mrs. Donnie Sadler. Ms. Bettye LaVette. Freelance singer, able to render the finest jazz, rock, or rhythm-and-blues at the occasion of your choice. Big voice, big attitude, eclectic repertoire, emotional delivery. Striking stage appearance. Looks good in a gown or jeans and a sweater. In shape. Great stage banter. Funny, funky, and sophisticated. Recorded more than sixty songs with the biggest record labels in America.

  How many albums? you ask.

  None.

  Not one single goddamn album.

  Until now. Until 1981, the year that I was living with my beautiful Donnie in New Orleans, the year that, out of nowhere, I get a call from Steve Buckingham.

  “Bettye,” he said, “I’ve got good news.”

  “I love good news,” I said. “I love great news even better. And the best news of all concerns me getting money.”

  He laughed and said, “Then you’ll love this news. Diana Ross has left Motown for RCA.”

  “Why should I care?”

  “Because that leaves an open slot in their roster for a female singer.”

  “And I’m going to replace Diane Ross? I’m going to be signed by the label that for the past twenty years never wanted anything to do with me?”

  “That’s right.”

  “When was the last time you went to a psychiatrist to get your meds checked, Steve?”

  “My mental health is strong, Bettye, and so is your voice. And this is no joke. This is a done deal. Not a singles deal. An album deal.”

  “That Berry Gordy has approved?”

  “I didn’t need Berry for this. Lee Young is in charge, and he’s one of your biggest fans. He’s committed to a Bettye LaVette album.”

  “I need to hear it from the man himself. Have him call me.”

  A h
alf-hour later, Lee Young did just that.

  “We’d love to have you on Motown,” he said. “I’ve been listening to your records over the years and never thought you were given the chance you deserve.”

  “Mr. Young,” I said, “I think I have fallen deeply and permanently in love with you.”

  Lee laughed, and said, “Look, Bettye, Motown needs a mature female vocalist, and you’re it. There’s no one better. Steve wants you in Nashville next month. I’m sending you a first-class ticket and expecting a Grammy-winning album.”

  “And this is really, truly Motown?” I asked.

  “Berry’s office is right down the hall from me.”

  “And he knows about this?”

  “Knows and approves.”

  “And won’t kill it at the last minute?”

  “I’ll guarantee you that you’ll have a Motown album in your hands by the end of the year.”

  That’s all I needed to hear from a high-ranking Motown executive. I was in, I was ready, I was about to record my first album on my hometown label that had left my hometown for Hollywood only to reach out to me in New Orleans to send me to Nashville.

  Steve Buckingham had become one of Clive Davis’s go-to producers at Arista. He was coming off big successes with Melissa Manchester and Dionne Warwick. He demanded and got a good budget for our record. He sent me dozens of songs and let me pick the ones I could relate to. We decided to re-record “Tell Me a Lie”—the version we cut in Atlanta never came out—in addition to a Sam Dees tune, “Right in the Middle (Of Falling in Love),” which became the first single. Steve hired a string section for a ballad, “Before I Even Knew Your Name (I Needed You)” by Steve Dorff. I was excited to do Dorff’s song. He was a writer of TV and movie themes, and even more important, this tune required a soft and gentle voice. I wanted to prove to Jim Lewis I could sing with restraint and femininity—and did just that.