Shelby Lynne, I Am Shelby Lynne (Island) 9
Shelby Lynne teaches a good lesson in how "selling out" does not always result in success. After playing by Nashville's rules through five albums, few knew know who Shelby Lynne is. To Hell with Nashville, she packed up and went back home to Alabama, and teamed up with producer Bill Bottrell (Sheryl Crow) and stormed the studio with aggressive eclecticism and therapeutic soul-baring. Lynne is still essentially a country artist, but colors her music with Memphis soul in the spirit of Dusty Springfield's "Son Of A Preacher Man" and Al Green's cover of Hank William's "I'm So Lonely I Could Cry." "Leavin'" is a break-up song that is as intensely personal as anything by Aretha Franklin, complete with Lynne doing her own soulful background vocals. Not everything is completely successful. The Phil Spector wall of sound of "Your Lies" and the alt-country pandering "Life Is Bad" come off as contrived enough to send less mainstream fans running. But they'll miss out on gems like "Gotta Get Back," complete with Stevie Wonder harmonica, and "Why Can't You Be?" which approaches the naked directness of Lucinda Williams, with a forceful Memphis horn section. The album peaks with Lynne's most intimate moment, "Where I'm From." Accompanied by a subdued guitar and faint strings, her voice whispers in your ear the melody of the heart-stopping chorus -- "Élégamment les batos passant/ ben on la flota vec du van/ all I'm trying to say is I'm/ never far away from/ Alabama frame of mind." Shelby Lynne has found herself, and thankfully, so have we.
