Who is Odesza’s collaborator and vocalist Bettye LaVette?

Featured on Odesza’s ‘The Last Goodbye’ Album, Bettye Lavette is a jazz and Soul artist with a career spanning 5+ decades.

While on tour Odesza has brought out some of the biggest collaborators on their tracks from the last 10-plus years. Their three-night stay at Madison Square Garden included opening sets from Drama, Ben Bohmer, and Bob Moses.

Odesza also hosted Naomi Wild, Mansionair, Charlie Houston, Izzy Bizu, a live orchestra, and their iconic drumline on stage to sing. Bettye Lavette’s vocals were heavily featured however she was not in attendance.

Bettye Lavette started her music career at 16 years old in 1962. The namesake for Odesza’s most recent and potentially final album, ‘The Last Goodbye,’ features vocals from the American artist, Bettye Lavette. Bettye Lavette is a jazz and soul singer of the golden age of jazz in the 60s.

The vocals featured on the track, “The Last Goodbye” are from her original song, “Let Me Down Easy.” Lavette released “Let Me Down Easy” in 1965, near the inception of her career, beginning an over five-decade tenure as a musician. ‘The Last Goodbye,’ released in 2022 was the first single released off the album of the same name. This was Odesza’s first notion of a comeback after four years without any releases or major tours.

In 2022, Odesza launched the current tour in Seattle, Washington (their home state and where they began their careers in Bellingham). Bettye Lavette is credited with inspiring the entire album and their comeback tour – potentially to be the last of the project Odesza. Bettye Lavette is 78 years old currently and not touring, however, she released an album in 2018, and her collab with Odesza is the most current release of hers.

Odesza, a force to be reckoned with from their audio and visual experience of shows and performances tapped into the icon status of Lavette for one of their most popular tracks in their catalog. Together, these music legends created a timeless masterpiece with a soulful feel that is unique to the sound of Odesza and the timeless voice of Bettye Lavette. Odesza’s tour concludes this weekend at the Gorge with a 3-night stint at the outdoor venue.