Lavelle White - Into The Mystic (2003) [CD Rip]

Miss Lavelle White is the real deal: 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. 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. Now, with Into The Mystic, Miss Lavelle (as she is known) serves up a delicious buffet of R&B, gospel, funk and even country on which she matches the timeless hits she covers with songs of her own to create a definitive modern soul document. With considerable pop élan firmly planted in her deep roots, White fixes her signature to such classics as the Box Tops hit "Soul Deep," Van Morrison's" Into The Mystic" and Stevie Wonder's "Livin' For The City." She revives the spirit of Edwin Hawkins' "Oh Happy Day" and touches the divine on her own "Lord I Want To Thank You," and conversely defines the sound of country soul on Merle Haggard's "Today I Started Loving You." On an album that travels from her native Mississippi Delta on the sparse country-blues of "Love In Return" to contemporary travails on" Computer Blues," Lavelle White's exceptional voice and pen keep the soul sound alive and kicking in this new century. ~J.W. Entertainment