Bettye LaVette sang in January at the inaugural celebration at the Lincoln Memorial for Barack Obama.

VOA: special.2009.06.08

Performers this year include the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Bettye LaVette.

VOA: special.2009.06.08

Bettye LaVette has a favor to ask: "Somebody Pick Up My Pieces, " she pleads in a heartbreaking Willie Nelson song on her new album, Scene of the Crime.

NPR: Bettye LaVette Picks Up the Pieces of a Lost Career

She eventually returned to the studio with producer Joe Henry, a singer-songwriter known for his earthy stamp on records by veterans such as Solomon Burke and Bettye LaVette.

WSJ: Bonnie Raitt's 'Slipstream': Back in the Studio, Seven Years Later