“I ain’t got no plan B / Rhythm and blues in the back of my mind / Champagne and a joint will do me just fine,” rasps Bettye LaVette on “Plan B”, from her latest album LaVette! For all the struggles she’s persevered – alcoholism, her albums being shelved, her career stalling while her contemporaries in Detroit reached the heady heights of superstardom – LaVette’s toil has paid off. Her thrilling interpretation of The Who’s “Love Reign O’er Me” at the Kennedy Centre Honours back in 2008 triggered a career renaissance allowing LaVette to establish herself as one of the 21st century’s finest song interpreters. On this selection of rootsy blues-soul compositions, written entirely by Richard Bramblett, LaVette’s fiery croak of a voice gives an earthiness and world-weariness to the material. Indeed, opening track “See Through Me” suggests LaVette’s fatigue and ennui with the continued hustle (“Live my life like a Rolling stone / I keep on running but the thrill is gone“), but then again there is nothing else she’d rather do. On “Lazy (And I Know It)” she reminisces on her first office jobs, a mere stopgap on her journey to becoming a performer. She blends nicely with Anthony Hamilton (alongside Ray Parker Jr, and organist Charles Hodges) on message song “Sooner or Later,” while delivering some impassioned balladeering on “Concrete Mind.” She doesn’t have a “Plan B.” And she doesn’t need one.