Bettye LaVette - Heart of Gold - Non-Album Tracks (1969-1978)

A day ago, I posted an album of Bettye LaVette's stray tracks from most of the 1960s. This continues that, from 1968 to the end of the 1970s.

As I mentioned with that previous post, LaVette essentially has had two music careers. She was a struggling soul singer in the 1960s, with only a couple of minor hits, in 1962 and 1965. Then, after a couple of decades with very little interest or new recordings, she had a surprising career revival in the 2000s and she's been going strong ever since.

The time period covered here is a frustrating one, because she recorded a lot of great music, but hardly anyone heard it at the time. In addition to the music presented here, she recorded two albums that weren't released until decades later. One is now called "Take Another Little Piece of My Heart," and was recorded in 1969. The other has been released with the names "Souvenirs" and "Child of the Seventies," and was recorded in 1972. I highly recommend both of them, if you like her music at all.

What we have here is everything else she recorded in that time period. The vast majority of these songs were actually released at the time as singles, but they had very little impact. The problem was, record companies and producers and such knew LaVette had tons of musical talent, so they kept giving her chances with new singles, even though she hadn't had a hit in ages. But due to poor promotion or whatever, nothing caught on. 

Things more or less petered out as the 1970s went on. The last song here, "Doin' the Best I Can," is disco from those few years when everyone and their brother felt obliged to do disco. Personally, I don't like it and I think it doesn't fit with the rest, but I'm including it for completeness's sake. You can remove that and still have a very nice album.

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 With a Little Help from My Friends (Bettye LaVette)
02 Hey Love (Bettye LaVette)
03 Ticket to the Moon (Bettye LaVette)
04 Never My Love (Bettye LaVette)
05 Stormy (Bettye LaVette)
06 Heart of Gold (Bettye LaVette)
07 You'll Wake Up Wiser (Bettye LaVette)
08 Waiting for Tomorrow (Bettye LaVette)
09 Livin' Life on a Shoestring (Bettye LaVette)
10 Behind Closed Doors (Bettye LaVette)
11 You're a Man of Words, I'm a Woman of Action (Bettye LaVette)
12 You Made a Believer Out of Me (Bettye LaVette)
13 Thank You for Loving Me (Bettye LaVette)
14 Feelings (Bettye LaVette)
15 Doin' the Best I Can (Bettye LaVette)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16373067/BETTYLVTTE1969-1978HeartofGld_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is said to date from 1970. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it.