Bettye LaVette and Ruthie Foster sing Lucinda covers

Lucinda has been gracious to mention other artists who cover her songs. I’ve been paying attention… so I made it a point to see these two incredible blues women at last weekend’s New Orleans JazzFest.

Bettye LaVette performed a killer version of “Joy”. It was a wholly different interpretation — deep, emotional, soulful — so powerful it made tears well up in my eyes. Lucinda’s live, rocking version of this song (with a nod to the doors) is one of my favorites at her shows, but Bettye’s version took it into an entirely new dimension. Everyone in the Blues Tent was on their feet with applause and cries of praise. I know “Joy” is recorded by Bettye on one of her albums, and I plan to buy it, but it’s hard to imagine a recorded version that compares to hearing her perform that song live.

Two days later Ruthie Foster had one of the most wonderful overall performances I’ve seen at the Blues Tent. I was enraptured. This is a venue with chairs — but nobody was sitting by the second half of the performance — it was so spiritual it felt like the Gospel Tent. She sang a soulful, sultry version of “Fruits of my Labor” (another original interpretation). For anyone interested, the song is on her disc “The Phenomenal Ruthie Foster.”

I was also lucky to catch Ruthie later at the small, intimate Lagniappe stage doing an interview and some lovely acoustic solos (along with Alejandro Escovedo — another story — great performance, great interview). She mentioned Lucinda during the interview about her songwriting.

Both singers were highlights for me. I had to make a big sacrifice to see Bettye — I was at the Gentilly stage soaking up Randy Newman and had to leave mid-set to catch Bettye. I missed Randy’s poignant finale — “Louisianna 1927”, with the crowd joining in (“…theyre trying to wash us away…”), but hey, that’s jazzfest — you just trade one incredible performance for another!

No Lucinda this year, but she was certainly there in spirit. 8)