Shelby Lynne
"Identity Crisis"
Creative, Raw, Intense, Personal, Intimate, and Poetic are words that come to mind when I think of Shelby's literally homespun new album. When I say homespun, I mean that the base tracks for this album were literally recorded at her home. Shelby was set to take a year off after finishing touring promoting her last album. "I didn't sleep a lot," Shelby says. "Staying up at night writing songs. That's the way it was. Pretty simple." The time off had given Shelby a burst of inspiration and creativity. She got restless and started buying vintage analog recording equipment to turn into a home studio and learning how to use it. Then she started recording songs on the equipment. As the songs took shape, Lynne worked with veteran engineer Bruce Robb at Cherokee Studios in Hollywood. Larry Antonio added bass where needed and Little Feat's Bill Payne came in for a one-day session to put down keyboard parts for ten songs. Subtle strings were used for a few songs. Basically, this is all Ms. Lynne's work. She recorded all of the vocal tracks and overdubs except for some extra parts on two songs. What impressed me the most is that Shelby put down all of the guitar tracks, from a subtle acoustic strum on songs to some incredible electric rock lead guitar parts to some great fills.
Shelby is a very accomplished guitarist. I personally love the tone and emotion on her guitar break on "Telephone", but she is just an all around good player and I love the warm textured tones she gets on the tracks, though it is a sparse recording, it is a very full sounding recording. Why "Identity Crisis"?, just a guess, but maybe because all of the styles that she touches here on this record. She sings songs that range from a Patsy Cline type song to a Billie Holliday song to a Diana Krall type song to an early sounding Bonnie Raitt, to even an upbeat gospel sound on one song. Lynne wrote all twelve tunes and they are all over the place stylistically speaking and also her lyrics are like listening to a developing tapestry, yet simple. The album starts out with the nice acoustic, jazzy sounding "Telephone" (One of my many favorites) "10 Rocks" is an upbeat, swingy gospel sounding song that really works. My other two favorites are "If I Were Smart"- beautiful, haunting, sparse ballad with some moving lyrics and great acoustic guitar work and "I Don't Think So" - an emotive sad ballad with some great hooks and once again, some great guitar work.
Well, I can't tell you everything, but will mention a couple more songs. "I Will Stay" has images of a smoky nightclub with a retro sound and some great lead guitar and nice piano. "Lonesome" has the old style country sound of a Patsy Cline song with a bit more production and more backup vocals. The album ends with a simple beauty of an acoustic ballad "One With The Sun" which was inspired by Willie Nelson. In closing, I must say that the spontaneity and intimacy of this album really pulled me into it, also the emotion put into this simple yet powerful project.
copyright 2003
Visit Shelby at: www.ShelbyLynne.com
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