Obama’s Importance: Through The Eyes Of A Soul Queen

One of the many artists to announce club shows on the side of their Bluesfest commitment this morning was the great Bettye LaVette, the just recently unearthed 66-year-old soul singer who blew audiences away upon her first Australian tour earlier this year.

In a soon-to-be-published interview with theMusic.com.au's Dan Condon, LaVette spoke about the importance of recently re-elected US president Barack Obama, for whom she performed at the January 2009 inauguration ceremony. She said that, her own personal involvement aside, the fact that her country was celebrating the election of a black president meant it was a great moment in her life.

“It was a lot of different things, there were a lot of different things going on for me when I sang at the inauguration celebration,” she says. “It was the biggest audience I had ever had in my life. My career is the same age as the president. He was the first black president.  We were standing at the feet of Abraham Lincoln. There were a whole gang of things going on for me, a lot of things were happening to me for the first time.

“I was the only person on that particular show who was born into segregation, besides Pete Seeger, who was born under different circumstances than I. So there was a lot going on in my head, it was a great moment in my life just because I was born into segregation and there was a black president, even if I hadn't been there it would have been a great moment in my life. There was a lot going on for me there.”

LaVette's new album Thankful N' Thoughtful is out now through Anti-/Warner. She plays the following dates.

Saturday 30 March – Bluesfest, Tyagarah
Sunday 31 March – Bluesfest, Tyagarah
Monday 1 April – Bluesfest, Tyagarah
Thursday 4 April – The Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Friday 5 April – The Factory Theatre, Sydney