A Woman Like Me Read online

  “How can I turn down a friend?”

  Mary didn’t. She came through.

  Jerome Shavers was the hairstylist for the show. We adored each other. Had it not been for Jerome, I would have gone crazy. Johnny Brown from Good Times was the star. Mickey Stevenson, who had devoted his life to becoming Berry Gordy, was in control of everyone and everything. He resented my presence. He knew I was far more experienced than the other women in the cast. He could order them around, but not me. He could impress them, but not me. That bothered him.

  I knew I’d be working with true believers of the Baptist faith who’d never been in show business before. When I voiced my skepticism about religion, they said that everyone has to believe in something. So when I walked into the next rehearsal, I wore a T-shirt that expressed my solidarity. It read: “Everybody has to believe in something. I believe I’ll roll another joint.”

  No wonder I was treated coldly. But sweet Jerome took care of me. I also instructed him in the fine art of wig design. He infuriated the cast by getting me my own table in the corner of the dressing room. He also secured a huge mirror. With my experience and his natural talent, we fashioned a fabulous hairdo for me, even though I was just one of the parishioners. They wouldn’t give me a costume, so I created my own, a clingy gray silk dress. It was terribly sophisticated. That made the church ladies resent me even more.

  “You don’t look like you belong in church,” said Mickey. “You look like you own the church.”

  Rehearsals went on. Jerome drove me a little crazy by playing his Jennifer Holliday records night and day. We opened to a lackluster reception. The girl I was understudying was weak and unconvincing. The rest of the cast knew that I could sing rings around her and would help the show enormously. But they were too busy with their prayer circles to speak up on my behalf. Mary was right. I was a lousy understudy.

  Through Mary I learned that it was going to be a short run in Detroit. With my inside information, I gave the prayer-circle people a hard time.

  “Does Jesus speak to you personally?” I asked one especially devout lady.

  “Every day,” she answered.

  “Well, ask him how long this show’s gonna run.”

  The lady didn’t have the answer, but Mary did. A week before she gave the cast the word, she told me there would be only a few more performances.

  Next time I walked by one of the prayer circles, I heard the Bible thumpers praying for the show to continue.

  As I passed them, I whispered, “Pray all you like. The show’s still gonna close.”

  When Mary found new financing and got the show to open in L.A., they wanted to drop me. But Mary came to my rescue again—no per diem, but I was kept on salary. Jerome set me up in an apartment and became my lifelong friend. He’s still sending me gifts. When Jennifer Holliday joined the show, Jerome was especially excited. He adored her. I resented his fondness for Jennifer, and when I saw him accidentally drop her wig in a puddle of water, I couldn’t help but howl.

  • • •

  Back in Detroit, what remained for me?

  The good was very good. Back in 1985, Terrye had given birth to my first grandchild. I adored James and loved the role of Grandma. Marissa came along in 1991, making me even happier. Along with my daughter, they remain the lights of my life.

  But grandkids, no matter how adorable and brilliant—and mine are both—could not make up for my broken-down career. I needed to be Bettye LaVette, and no matter how many times I had failed to do so before, I was still determined to try again.

  Sometimes the afternoons were long. I kept myself sane by doing what Mama could no longer do—work in the yard. Trimming hedges can keep your arms fit. Smoking marijuana also added fuel to my already meticulous nature. I’d spend four, five hours cutting those bushes until they were so incredibly straight that folks driving by would stop, knock on my door, and ask for the name of my gardener.

  Others gave me their cards, thinking I was the gardener. Humiliated, I’d go inside and take another toke. Other times someone might stop and say, “Didn’t you used to be Bettye LaVette?” I’d nod, holding back the tears. In between drinks, I did a lot of crying. Other passersby were kinder. They simply complimented my garden and wanted to know where they could go to hear me sing. The answer was the same. I was singing around town.

  I was basically back to playing local bars. It was just me and my pianist, Rudy Robinson. We were booked into a little place on the Wayne State campus known as the Library. It didn’t hold more than fifty customers. I liked the gig ’cause it was intimate and Rudy and I got to play whatever we liked. We might do a Beatles medley, or a Ray Charles medley, or even “St. James Infirmary.” My repertoire was more eclectic than ever.

  The Shadow Box, a nearby club, had closed down and their steady customers, looking for another perch, came to the Library. They were mainly a group of professional men in their fifties who liked to drink and listen to music. Most of them were married. They were engineers and supervisors, managerial types who had secure jobs with health insurance and pension plans. In this group was a distinguished gentleman named Robert Hodge, a tall and soft-spoken fan, who began to show up at the Library nearly every night.

  I was friendly with all the customers, but especially with Robert, who asked about my history as a performer.

  “I’ve been here and there,” I said. “It’s a long history.”

  “I don’t mind listening,” he said, “if you don’t mind talking.”

  I never mind talking and I talked Robert’s head off.

  “Everyone calls me Bob,” he said.

  “You’re too tall and impressive to be a Bob. You’re a Robert. I’m calling you Robert.”

  Following my lead, all his friends started calling him Robert.

  Robert had enjoyed a long, successful career in the high-level tech industry in Detroit. He was not especially warm and certainly not inclined to express his emotions. That was fine with me. I had enough emotional expressiveness for the both of us. Like me, he loved to drink. He was as good a drinking partner as I could ask for. Robert Hodge proved to be one of the best friends I’d ever had.

  “Seems like you need to be playing bigger places than this,” he said.

  “The reality is I’m lucky to have this gig.”

  “Reality is a fluid thing. I see you upgrading.”

  “I’ve been trying to do just that for the past thirty years.”

  “You need help.”

  “I do,” I said. “You willing?”

  “I am.”

  “What kind of help you have in mind?” I asked.

  “You tell me what kind you need.”

  “Money,” I said. “Money is always appreciated.”

  “I can help you with that.”

  And he did. Robert Hodge, bless his heart, was the man who basically got me through the nineties.

  • • •

  Another man helped, though to a far lesser degree. His name was Ian Levine, and he showed up in Detroit sometime in the late eighties. He was an Englishman, an important fact because without the support of English fans, I might have disappeared entirely. Ian appeared as something of a savior, even if the savior happened to be a chubby groupie who was semi-famous for being the house deejay at Heaven, one of London’s more glittery gay discos.

  When I first met him, he said that he had come to Detroit to take up where Berry Gordy had left off.

  “Berry closed down the party,” he said. “Well, I’m starting it up all over again. And I’m calling it Motorcity Records.”

  He told me the story about how, when he was a young kid back in the sixties, he and his mom were on the same transatlantic flight as Berry Gordy and Diane Ross. He went up, introduced himself to them both, and was never the same. He went back to his seat and told Mom, “I�
�m going to be that man. I’m going to produce artists like Diane Ross.”

  Ian’s dad, an owner of casinos in Great Britain, died, and with his inheritance from his father and his mother’s permission, Ian took it upon himself to pick up the pieces of Motown and reclaim Gordy’s empire. The problem, though, was plain: What was left of the empire—at least in Detroit—was in ruins.

  Twenty years after Berry Gordy left his hometown, Ian Levine came from London to undo the damage. How can you not love a guy who has hatched this kind of crazy scheme? To understand where he was coming from, I had to understand the strange culture of the British movement called Northern Soul.

  The Northern Soul nuts are hard-core R&B fans who respond to the funkier side of Motown. They pride themselves on loving the Detroit music and singers from the sixties who have gone unnoticed. The more obscure, the better. Since no one was more obscure than I was, I became a Northern Soul sweetheart. Among my early champions was David Godin, a writer who ran the record store Soul City in London and edited the magazine Blues & Soul. Godin discovered me before I discovered myself. He and other British writers like David Nathan never tired of singing my praises, even when the rest of the world didn’t give a fuck.

  Ian Levine was a product of this Northern Soul phenomenon. In addition to salvaging unheralded singers like me, Northern Soul celebrated both pre- and post-disco grooves, giving them a highly synthesized electronic buzz. Beyond its nostalgia for hard-to-find, tough-minded R&B, Northern Soul was also about dance music. Deejays like Levine and others used a combination of old soul sounds and new frantic beats to keep the groove moving in certain London clubs.

  When Levine arrived in Detroit, he had this kind of combination in mind. I’m hardly a purist, so it didn’t bother me that he was using disco dance beats. Unlike most bullshit producers, Ian also came with cash in hand. He paid up front. He probably paid many of the old-time Motowners more than Berry Gordy ever had. He rounded up everyone, all the leftovers: Bobby Taylor, Marv Johnson, Kim Weston, Dennis Edwards, Eddie Kendricks, Brenda Holloway, the Contours, the Four Tops, the Marvelettes, the Velvelettes, even the Supremes (minus, of course, Miss Ross).

  Some of the Motowners complained to Ian that I should not be included in his project. I was not an original Motowner. But Ian had championed me, as had many of the Northern Soul guys, and argued that Tell Me a Lie, my lone Motown album, legitimized me. Since Ian was paying, Ian got his way.

  He had us gather on the lawn of the original Motown headquarters on West Grand and, standing right in front and waving his hands like a slightly crazed Cub Scout leader, posed as a photographer snapped the portrait. Motown rediscovered, Motown recaptured. It was all very surreal.

  Ian found everyone, even the original Motown janitor, to participate in the project. Since most of us had little money, Ian gave us advances for clothes, makeup, and whatever else was needed. One of the singers was a lady from one of the original Motown female groups. Poor thing was strung out on crack. Beyond that, she had put on at least two hundred pounds since her glory days. On her way to the photography shoot, she stopped to get high with a couple of guys in a narrow alley wedged between two brick buildings. She squeezed into the alley okay, but after her hit of crack, she couldn’t get out. Ian had to call an emergency unit to pry her loose. By the time the photographer took her picture, her wig was back on her head, and her lipstick straight, and her girdle in place.

  The recordings—and there were dozens of them—were done at Sylvia Moy’s studio in the huge home she bought with her royalties from “I Was Made to Love Her.” You’ll remember that, after Clarence Paul, Sylvia was a key creative force in Stevie Wonder’s career. Ian gave Sylvia thousands of dollars to produce and engineer this enterprise. The records made no commercial or critical impact. In fact, most Motown fans hated Ian’s productions. But I took the minority view. I liked the album he cut with me. I liked my version of “Jimmy Mack,” and “I’m Ready for Love.” I did them because Martha Reeves, who had sung with the Vandellas, refused to participate. She thought the Motorcity project was beneath her. I didn’t. I liked the money. I liked redoing “Let Me Down Easy,” Northern Soul style. I thought my cover of “Danger, Heartbreak Dead Ahead” was one of the funkiest things I’d ever done. Some people complained that the techno sound was synthesized and too slick. But to me, synthesizers are like vibrators. They may not be the real thing, but if you put them in the right place, they can do wonders.

  I never expected or got royalties from Ian. But his upfront check didn’t bounce and the record, issued and reissued under names like Have a Heart and The Very Best of the Motorcity Recordings, hardly hurt my career—especially since, at that time, my career didn’t exist.

  The hustle never stops. When it does, you’re either comatose or dead. Ian Levine helped my hustle. He was someone who had enough faith in me to let me record a whole album. No matter how bizarre or unsuccessful his efforts to revitalize the Detroit music scene were, his intentions were noble. He loved us and wanted to help us. Even more, it turned out that this Northern Soul passion for my singing style was real.

  Twenty-five years after the Motown acts went to England to be greeted as heroes and heroines, I was invited over for a Northern Soul Weekender—three days of concerts—in far-north Cleethorpes. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t heard of the city. It didn’t matter that I was sharing the bill with Richard “Popcorn” Wylie whose early Motown group, Popcorn and the Mohawks, was even less known than I was. It didn’t matter that Martha Reeves, a helluva lot more known than I was, was the star of the show. I was happy—on any terms, in any way—to get to Great Britain and see if I actually had fans over there. It turned out I did.

  My entourage was small—me, Robert Hodge (by then my lover and manager), cousin Margaret, and Rudy Robinson. As long as Rudy was there, I could manage any music they might request. In those happy days before 9/11 when you could bring anything on the plane, Margaret brought a suitcase of mini bottles of Long Island iced tea. We partied all the way over. When we landed, I was so glad to be there I knelt down and kissed the ground. I looked up and saw people holding my 45s, wanting an autograph. That had never happened to me before. God bless England!

  England was the first place I went where, in soul-music circles, everyone actually knew who I was. I didn’t have to go through my usual explanation of “Well, I was first on Atlantic, and this happened and that happened . . .” The fans knew my history better than I did. My marginal status in America increased my status in England. The Brits considered themselves connoisseurs. They prided themselves in appreciating what Americans had neglected. In America, everyone knew about Etta James and Aretha Franklin, but most people had not heard of Bettye LaVette. That made Bettye LaVette even more attractive to the English, who were determined to lavish on her the attention she had so sorely missed.

  I liked being lavished on. The more attention, the merrier. I was interviewed by writers who flattered me with intelligent questions. They had carefully studied my work. Not only were they sympathetic to my buzzard-luck career, they were loving. So were the crowds at the show. I felt like a star.

  And then it was time to go back home.

  Back to High School

  It sounds ridiculous. It was ridiculous. But I was in Detroit—trapped in Detroit, jobless in Detroit, homebound in Detroit—and I needed to do something to stave off boredom, not to mention insanity.

  I had gone to Northern High School for a brief time. It was not far from my house and I passed by it practically every day. I’d see the Northern High girls walk down the street, sloppily dressed, combs in their hair, looking like boys, and I’d think, Lord, what have these children come to!

  For all my wild days and nights, I never let my appearance deteriorate, not for a minute. I hated to see this next generation of young girls be so indifferent about their looks. When I stepped out into the world, I did so with confidence because my speech, d
ress, posture, and whole demeanor were those of a proud woman.

  I knew that Northern High had a summer program. I also knew some of the people who ran it. They remembered me from my days at the Graystone Ballroom and the 20 Grand. I spoke to one about letting me run a mentoring program for young girls. Just like that, I was hired. That meant a weekly paycheck from the city as well as a chance to teach something I felt strongly about—good grooming. On the first day of class, I was filled with enthusiasm and righteous purpose.

  I arrived in the gym where a dozen girls were waiting for me. One of them was seated on a stool. She was slouched down over her boyfriend, who had his head between her legs. She was braiding his hair, scratching off his dandruff, and acting like this was the most natural thing in the world.

  “I came here today,” I said, “to talk about what it means to be demure. Do you have any idea what that means?”

  The girl doing the braiding didn’t even look up.

  “I’m talking to you,” I said. “What does ‘demure’ mean?”

  “Got no idea.”

  “Well, it’s certainly not what you’re doing now. Do you have any idea how awful you look? You’re braiding his hair while your own hair looks like it got caught in a blender.”

  Still no answer.

  Finally, I walked over, looked her in the eye, and said, “You look like a slovenly bitch.”

  Next day her mother came to school and said, “Did you call my daughter a slovenly bitch?”

  “Those were my exact words.”

  “You got no right to say that.”

  I looked at her mother and was about to say, You’re even more of a slovenly bitch than she is, but I held my tongue. Instead, I said, “We all have the right to tell the truth.”

  “You hurt her feelings.”

  “If that’s what it takes to get her to face reality, I’m glad.”

  “With that mouth of yours,” said the mother, “you shouldn’t be teaching here.”