Betty Carter was an American jazz singer renowned for her improvisational technique and idiosyncratic vocal style. Carter was born as Lillie Mae Jones in Flint, Michigan and grew up in Detroit, where her father led a church choir. She studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory. She won a talent contest and became a regular on the local club circuit, singing and playing piano. When she was 16, she sang with Charlie Parker, and she later performed with Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Martin Scorsese (scor-SAY'-zee) will be telling Frank Sinatra's life story on film.
Uhm... I need to get on it. That's all.
Universal Pictures says the Academy Award-winning filmmaker will direct "Sinatra," the first feature film about Ol' Blue Eyes' life.
When she went to college, her mother encouraged her to pray every morning and gave her a new black Bible with gold lettering on the front. "I've had that Bible since way before Dreamgirls," she says. "But when we were doing auditions, I wrote in the back of the Bible, 'I will get the role in Dreamgirls and I will win an Academy Award for it, in Jesus name I pray. Amen.' Everything I wrote came to pass. Every single thing. It's God. I have the proof. Sometimes it even scares me. I'm like, Jesus, how close are you?"
"It's not empty space in front of you; that's your growing room."
- Kenneth Whalum, Jr.
LaVette is no fan of “American Idol,” the fast avenue to fame for new artists.Girl, I wish I knew who you were.. And I wish Fantasia OR Jen would take you up on that offer. thanks. Below is Miss LaVette singing a cover of The Who's classic "Love Reign".
“I think it’s the most awful thing ever,” she said. “I think for Jennifer Hudson to be on the front cover of Vogue and Gladys Knight still hasn’t been on there, I don’t like that at all,” she said. “Anyone of them who has won so far, I wish they would send one of them to one of my gigs. I want to come on first, then I want them to come on."
