A WOMAN LIKE ME

An inspiring, no-holds-barred, audacious memoir by Bettye LaVette, one of R&B's greatest legends--guaranteed to make news, and make hearts break, too. As a teenager in Detroit, Bettye LaVette had a hit single. By the time she was twenty, she survived in New York by turning tricks. And for the last four decades, no one else has been on the same sort of music world roller-coaster ride that has taken Bettye LaVette from the peaks to the pits and back. In this extraordinary memoir, LaVette unabashedly recounts her freewheeling childhood (her folks ran an illegal liquor club frequented by some of the top acts of the forties and fifties), her short-lived conquest of the R&B world, her decline into poverty and despair, and, finally, her recent comeback and career revival, with hit CDs, numerous appearances on the likes of Jay Leno’s and David Letterman’s shows, and unforgettable performances at the Kennedy Center Honors and for President Obama’s inauguration. Alternately poignant and outrageous, A Woman Like Me is a tour de force—and a force to be reckoned with.