The singer was announced and the house band started. A 4/4 waltz time beveled about until the mood was just right. People expecting the first verse, though, found themselves harmonizing alone. There was still no singer.
The band flounced back over the intro; and, as they did, she descended to the fore from the upstage shadows. Svelte and steady in pointy black boots, she stepped into the burrow of the band’s new rhythm.
Deliberately, and with all the exacting of Chita Rivera or a very devious cat, like reappearing from the dream of some long Fosse fugue, she strode past the band with the mic already in hand, scatting:
Should you fall out of love, my fire in the light…
to chase a feather in the wind…
But instead of the familiar high-pitch of Robert Plant, her voice had the gravel of Eartha Kitt. So deeply serrated by R&B, she was almost conversational. And having grown up without Zeppelin’s influence, she worked it with a freedom others could not. The song wasn’t so much Led Zeppelin’s “All My Love,” it was clearly Bettye LaVette’s.
She added some syllables and changed the syncopation. She moved the melody to where she thought it should go. It was more melancholy that the original, but it purred away with desperate resolve. Her version was a plea.
And as the last chorus neared, she threw her arms wide open. To the the audience on her right, she turned:
All of my love…
All… of… my… love…
And then, more forcefully, to the one on her left:
All of my love…
All… of… my… love…
But it was seemingly no use.
As she passed from one side of the stage to the other, the band remained in the dark. Two spotlights tossed her shadow in opposite angles behind. She related the chorus again, but her gestures grew to such stifled desperation. She still couldn’t decide if her words were effective.
And as she reached the upstage shadows from which she came, she paused again:
All of my love…
A shriek.
All… of… my… love…
Another.
She vanished.
Did she ever get an answer?
The bland played on. A roar swept over the hall and began ripping people from off of their seats.
Ms. LaVette, however, never returned to hear them.
Michael Dorf presents “The Music of Led Zeppelin” at Carnegie Hall.
Photos by Rick Stachura. March 7, 2018.
Bettye LaVette performing “All My Love.” A revelation. She was one of 19 singers/bands interpreting a Zeppelin tune tonight, and should have been given another.
(This story was originally posted to my old Tumblr site on April 5, 2018.)