Miss Lavelle White
Miss Lavelle White is a living legend and queen of soul and blues whose rich history as a singer and songwriter is matched by the music she makes today. Born in Amite, Louisiana, she grew up in the cotton fields and churches of Louisiana and Mississippi, the daughter of a gospel piano playing single mother. In her mid-teen years, White relocated to Houston, where she sneaked out of the house at night to feast on the city's vibrant and influential Gulf Coast mix of blues, soul and pop. Taken under wing by Clarence Hollimon and Johnny Copeland and mixing with such musical giants as Albert Collins and Guitar Slim, she began singing in clubs and won a deal with Don Robey's Duke label in1958.
Emerging in the late 1950s on Houston's legendary Duke Records, White has worked and toured with many of the great names of black music and spent a decade as the house singer at Chicago's renowned Kingston Mines blues mecca. Since (finally) releasing her first album on Antone's Records in 1994, she has proven to be a dynamic exemplar of the continuing allure and vitality of the African American musical tradition. In 1978, White picked up a gig at Kingston Mines while visiting family in the Windy City and was asked to be the club's house singer. There she worked with legends like Lonnie Brooks, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells while also touring Europe with Larry Davis. In 1987, she moved back to Texas.
Soon after her return to the Lone Star State, Clifford Antone booked White into his Antone's nightclub in Austin, where she found herself amidst a community of younger admirers. Lou Ann Barton cut White's "Stop These Teardrops" on her 1982 Elektra Records debut, "Old Enough" and Barton, Angela Strehli and Marcia Ball later recorded her "Gonna Make It" on their collaboration "Dreams Come True." In 1994, White finally released her first-ever album, Miss Lavelle, to considerable praise. Jazz & Blues Report hailed it as "one of the tastiest R&B finds of the year," while the Haight Ashbury Free Press noted it as "one of the strongest and most honest blues CDs to come through my door." She followed it in 1996 with another triumph "It Haven't Been Easy", which CMJ/New Music Report crowned as "a classic album indeed" and Houston's Public News trumpeted as "one of the finest soul music albums ever heard."
The albums earned White long overdue recognition as what one critic calls "much more than a lady of soul." She received four W.C. Handy Award nominations, and was honored in France with three prestigious honors: The Otis Redding Award from the Academy of Jazz, the Big Bill Broonzy Award, and the Charles Cross Award, presented by the French President. She was also inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame in 1996 and named Houston's 1995 Blues Artist of the Year, and has been featured on "Austin City Limits."
