Good Karma in Stereo

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“I’ve worked for music executives who don’t have one idea of how a record is made,” says Henry, whose latest album, Civilians, was released by Anti-. “Andy understands the mechanics of making a great record, and he also sticks to his original approach all the way through. Believe me, that’s a lot harder than anyone might think it is.”

In contrast to Burke, Bettye LaVette was virtually unknown when Kaulkin released her 2005 album I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise. Even Kaulkin didn’t know who LaVette was when he checked out a live date and offered her a deal on the spot. “I never thought I’d have another deal,” says LaVette. “It had taken 46 years for anyone to really listen to me.”

 For LaVette’s most recent album, The Scene of the Crime, Kaulkin hired the Drive-By Truckers from New West Records to provide accompaniment—a counterintuitive move, given the Truckers’ pedigree as neo-boogie rock band. “I didn’t know how it would work, and I was resistant to work with young people,” LaVette says. “But Andy encouraged them to listen to me, to my voice. It worked great.”

That’s the thing about Anti-. It just works very well, regardless of whether Kaulkin tells me so or not.

Marc Weingarten writes for the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times and is the author of The Gang That Wouldn’t Write Straight (Three Rivers, 2006), a history of New Journalism.

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