Bettye LaVette gives another note-Worthy performance at the Dakota

Two things were noticeably different about Bettye LaVette's return to her beloved Dakota Jazz Club on Thursday.

The veteran R&B stunner wore red instead of her usual black. And she sang her new album, "Worthy," in its entirety to open the show. Both proved to be canny moves.

Precious few artists -- regardless how long or little they've been around -- could get away with opening a show by playing a new album straight through. Neil Young has done it. He's a risk taker. So is Detroit's LaVette, who has enjoyed a critically acclaimed comeback since 2003 after 40 years in relative obscurity.

On first listen, "Worthy" seems a little slow, too many ballads with precious little relief in tempo or dynamics. But, in concert, that doesn't matter. Because the "Worthy" tunes were perfect live since they are really conversations. And LaVette, 69, is at her best when she's really talking to listeners in song. She can wring the deepest, goosebump-raising emotions out of a song without ever raising her raw but soulful voice.

LaVette proceeded through the songs of "Worthy," always acknowledging the songwriters, whether it was someone famous like Bob Dylan or more obscure like Over the Rhine's Linford Detwiler. The accompaniment was minimal but tasty, especially Brett Lucas' guitar and Alan Hill's keyboards.

For many of the songs, the usually animated LaVette was seated on a stool, carrying on these musical conversations with herself or the man who inspired them.

Randall Bramblett's "Where a Life Goes" was addressed to LaVette's late sister to whom she was very close, but you also could have interpreted it as being for an ex-lover for whom one still had some kind of affection. James Hooker's "Just Between You and Me and the Wall, You're a Fool" was haunting in sound, like "I Put a Spell on You" slowed to a dirge, with a slow-burn guitar solo and LaVette delivering those scolding, kiss-off lyrics in an extended, finger-pointing monologue.

The berating of her exes continued on the half-hour encore, which commenced with Lucinda Williams' "Joy," featuring a nasty guitar groove and a much-needed energetic release. LaVette filled "Nights in White Satin" with so much stark loneliness that a listener forget that it's more famous as an overbaked Moody Blues song.

Asking for requests, LaVette answered one for George Jones' country lament "Choices," about accepting the sometimes dubious decisions one has made in life, enveloped in slow honky-tonk piano and Southern-fried guitar. Then LaVette and her fine quartet ripped it up on her own "Before the Money Came," which eventually found her sashaying through the crowd singing with sass.