At an age when many think about retirement, Bettye LaVette is at the top of her game as a soul and R&B singer.

Although she’s had a career that has spanned over 60 years, it’s only been in the last 20 or so that many of her fans have discovered this legend. But all along, LaVette’s ability to interpret a song and fully make it her own has earned her praise from soul music aficionados and prominent fellow musicians of every genre.

Rock visionary Pete Townsend raves that LaVette “is reinventing and reclaiming a soul-singing tradition all at once. What she is doing is pure and authentic.” And Dave Grohl, of Nirvana and Foo Fighters, says LaVette’s voice is “what survival sounds like” and that she’s “probably the greatest living interpreter on this planet.”

Need another testimonial? Elvis Costello has called Lavette “one of R&B’s greatest under-acknowledged vocalists.”

But such high praise has been hard-won; she’s come a long way, and it’s been a long and winding road.

As a teenager in the 1960s, LaVette had a couple hits on the soul charts, including “My Man—He’s a Lovin’ Man” (recorded when she was just 16), and the simmering, lovelorn “Let Me Down Easy.”

It wasn’t long before she had a record contract and hit the road with Ben E. King, Barbara Lynn, and Otis Redding. But despite a respectable start and a loyal fan base in Europe, Bettye couldn’t find the kind of exposure her Detroit contemporaries — Martha Reeves, Diana Ross, and Aretha Franklin – were seeing.

In 1972, Bettye went into the renowned FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to record the album “Child of the Seventies.” The album — recorded in the same studio that produced hits for Aretha Franklin, Little Richard, Etta James, and countless others — was to be her comeback album for Atlantic Records. Then, at the last minute, Atlantic Records decided to shelve the project.

“It’s not so much anger, it’s hurt,” LaVette said about the decision, speculating it was made because “my voice sounded more like Wilson Pickett than Dionne Warwick. I don’t think they knew how they could package a young, attractive woman who sounded like that.”

As the Muscle Shoals tapes languished in the archives, LaVette eked out a living in Detroit’s intimate blues clubs. “I was working little bitty places for $50 a night, and people were drunk or busy talking or dancing… People are constantly asking me, ‘How were you able to hold on?’ and it was people telling me, ‘Do not quit. Do not quit.’”

Almost 30 years later, in 2000, French soul producer Gilles Petard heard the Muscle Shoals tapes. He immediately understood and respected Bettye’s musical vision in a way his 1970s predecessors could not. The recordings were re-released as an album called “Souvenirs” on Petard’s own label, Art and Soul… and LaVette was back.

Soon, she was performing across Europe. In 2003, LaVette signed a three-record deal with Anti Records, and released “I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise,” an album of music written entirely by women, featuring songs by Aimee Mann, Sinéad O’Connor, Lucinda Williams, Joan Armatrading, and Dolly Parton.

Since then, she has enjoyed a second wind of sorts, releasing ten albums and garnering seven Grammy nominations —including a Best Contemporary Blues Album nomination for her 2023 release, “LaVette!”

This past summer, LaVette was a guest performer on the Chicago leg of the Rolling Stones’ 2024 tour, performing for some 60,000 adoring fans packed into Soldier Field. Now, her career’s second wind has blown her to Vashon, where she’ll perform “An Intimate Evening with Bettye LaVette” at Vashon Center for the Arts.

Bettye LaVette will perform on Friday, Nov. 22, at 7:30 p.m. Get tickets and find out more at vashoncenterforthearts.org, or at the VCA box office.