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

LaVette sounds as if she means every word of Nelson's sad song, but the reality is that she herself has picked up the pieces of a career full of heartbreak.

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