Bettye LaVette (born Betty Jo Haskins, January 29, 1946) is an American soul singer-songwriter who made her first record at sixteen, but achieved only intermittent fame until 2005, when her album I've Got My Own Hell to Raise was released to widespread critical acclaim, and was named on many critics' "Best of 2005" lists. Her next album, The Scene of the Crime, debuted at number one on Billboard's Top Blues Albums chart and was nominated for Best Contemporary Blues Album at the 2008 Grammy Awards.
LaVette's eclectic musical style combines elements of soul, blues, rock and roll, funk, gospel, and country music. In 2020, she was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.
LaVette was born in Muskegon, Michigan, and raised in Detroit. Unlike many of her contemporaries, she did not begin singing in the church, but in her parents' living room, singing R&B and country and western music. She was signed by Johnnie Mae Matthews, a local record producer. In 1962, aged sixteen, she recorded a single, "My Man — He's a Lovin' Man", with Matthews: the disc was credited to Betty LaVett, the surname being "borrowed" from Sherma Lavette Anderson, the singer's friend who had introduced her to Matthews. Picked up by Atlantic Records, LaVette's disc became a major R&B hit over the fall and winter of 1963–64 – eventually reaching the R&B Top Ten – resulting in LaVette touring with such Atlantic Records R&B hitmakers as Clyde McPhatter, Ben E. King, Barbara Lynn, and rising star Otis Redding.

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