Despite all the proof to the contrary, it’s a commonly held belief that rock & roll is a young man’s game. Generally speaking, the mainstream market favors youth while older artists either inter icon status or work the oldies circuit. R&B doesn’t have the same constraints, so it’s possible for stars of the past to make a comeback. One such artist is singer Bettye LaVette. LaVette was a singles artist, starting when she was 16 in 1962, and didn’t have a proper album release until 20 years into her career. She did record an album in the early ‘70s that was shelved, so it was the singles and a stint on Broadway that sustained her. She seemed destined to be a footnote until the serendipitous simultaneous release of Souvenirs, the aborted record from 1972, and Let Me Down Easy: In Concert in 2000 renewed interest in LaVette. Riding the momentum, she released A Women Like Me in 2003, and that officially kickstarted her comeback. Since then she’s maintained a steady stream of releases, which brings us to her most recent, Worthy (Cherry Red Records).

Worthy reunites LaVette with Joe Henry, who produced 2005’s I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise, as well as many of the same studio musicians from that record, including Doyle Bramhall II on guitar. For those unfamiliar with LaVette, one of the most important things to know going in is that she’s doesn’t try to tap a nostalgic vein and generally doesn’t have time for being a throwback. She often melds rock and blues with her personal style of R&B with little to no regard for what’s currently on the charts. Also, LaVette isn’t a songwriter so her forte is in the interpretation. She’s often delved into the classic rock catalog, including an entire album titled Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook. Here, she tackles The Beatles’ “Wait,” Bob Dylan’s “Unbelievable” and the Rolling Stones’ “Complicated,” among others. But even with such familiar songs, she exudes such a lived-in quality, it’s hard to imagine that she didn’t write them. And there’s a power and rawness to her performances that draws you closer.

One of the best things about Worthy is the collaboration between Henry and LaVette. The performances are so well executed it’s hard to believe that this hasn’t be an on-going collaboration for the past decade. The playing is tasteful, but with some underlying tension and energy on the slower numbers and the right amount of push on the up-tempo numbers. This is the type of record where you can tell the musicians actually listened to one another rather than just banged it out. If LaVette weren’t knocking it out of the park so consistently in the past, Worthy would be a revelation. Still, it’s an extremely excellent album by someone who has the good sense not to listen to conventional wisdom.