Vox Pop - Music and pop culture news and reviews by Rick DeYampert

You Must for Jan. 29

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Soul singer commits 'Crime'

Bettye LaVette is a favorite singer of Barack Obama and Foo Fighter Dave Grohl.

Bettye who?

Ms. LaVette is the torchy R&B singer who sang a duet with Jon Bon Jovi (above) on Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" at that star-cluttered pre-inaugural concert. LaVette also wowed Grohl and head Who Pete Townshend during the re­cent Kennedy Center Honors, where she sang "Love Reign O'er Me" as part of the Who trib­ute.

LaVette finally is getting her deserved place in the spotlight, which inexplicably eluded her during her late 1960s and early '70s work. Her latest album, "Scene of the Crime," is grit-in­side-my-heart R&B that features the Drive-By Truckers as her backing band.

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'Barcelona' is no movie for bad hair

Notice to Hollywood central casting: The two weirdest choic­es in the history of the universe for romantic leading men are A) Woody Allen and B) Javier Bar­dem -- if Javier were to keep that bad Beatle-meets-Blagoje­vich haircut he sported as the killer in "No Country for Old Men."

Fortunately, Woody decided not to cast himself in his latest romantic comedy, "Vicky Cris­tina Barcelona." And when the Woodman pegged Javier for the male lead, it was with a new 'do.

And so critics are salivating that "VCB" is one of Woody's best. It's a tale about two Ameri­cans, Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson), who visit Barcelona and get caught up in the boy-girl thing with artist Juan Antonio (Bar­dem) and his volatile ex-wife, María Elena (Penelope Cruz). It's out now on DVD.

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'Slumdog' soundtrack barks at Oscars

"Slumdog Millionaire" racked up 10 Oscar nomi­nations, including best picture and best director. The film's mu­sic racked up three of those Os­car nods -- two for best song and one for original score.

The British flick tells the story of a young, uneducated guy from the slums of Mumbai, India, who appears on an Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" The music by A.R. Rahman (with performers in­cluding M.I.A.) is a bombastic mash-up of trip-hop, Bollywood, hip-hop, world beat and mood music.

The soundtrack, in stores now, is one of those rarities -- a film score that stands on its own.

-- Rick de Yampert, Entertainment writer

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