Shelby Lynne
Shelby Lynne
St. David’s Episcopal Church
Austin, Texas
Shelby Lynne has made a career out of being a straightforward firebrand. Even when her sixth album, I am Shelby Lynne, earned a bout of recognition that helped her win a Grammy for best New Artist in 2000, she walked away from Nashville when the music hub seemed to betray her individuality. In a 2001 interview for the Guardian, she said, “I just don’t conform very well.” For an artist that has precariously lived outside the limelight since, she said in the same interview that “Sometimes you just have to walk away from it.”
Her latest album, Tears, Lies, and Alibis, is a milestone with a built-in story of emancipation. After 20 years as a recording artist, this is the first album in which she had complete creative control. She left her old record label, Lost Highway Records, to release her new album on her own label, Everso. Despite Lynne’s adamancy for independence, her intimate performance at St. David’s Episcopal Church was a relaxed affair with a view of Sixth Street and the night sky as her backdrop. Requesting to turn down the lights overhead, she explained matter-of-factly that “I already plucked my eyebrows today.” Mirroring the tone of her latest batch of songs, Lynne is backed by guitarist John Jackson, who carried the solos, and Brian Harrison on bass. Together, they created a subtle atmosphere and demonstrated restraint with the stripped-down arrangements.
Opener “Rains Came” jauntily rollicked as it thinly veiled Lynne’s tale of heartbreak. Despite her small stature, Lynne is an imposing vocalist, one unafraid to contort on stage as she wrestled with the emotional gravitas of a song. “Why Didn’t You Call Me” completed the one-two punch of pop that continued the opener’s out-of-love state. The set ran through Southern soul, blues and pop. For an artist that’s painstakingly honest in her songwriting, she whipped her blonde, short shock of hair, adding to the level of vulnerability she displayed on stage. “Like a Fool” was a naked ballad with Lynne strumming her guitar alone, singing, “I never knew. I never do how love controls me” before repeatedly sighing the song’s title as it ended.
A story with almost every song, Lynne’s broken-hearted lyrics didn’t detract from the humor that infused her show or her songs. Perhaps the standout was her ode to freedom in the form of an Airstream trailer. A slowburner, “Something to be Said” listlessly documents the restlessness that has defined Lynne’s career. Wanting to get away, she sang, “Guess it’s that time again, time to be free again.”
by Joshua Barajas
St. David’s Episcopal Church
Austin, Texas
Her latest album, Tears, Lies, and Alibis, is a milestone with a built-in story of emancipation. After 20 years as a recording artist, this is the first album in which she had complete creative control. She left her old record label, Lost Highway Records, to release her new album on her own label, Everso. Despite Lynne’s adamancy for independence, her intimate performance at St. David’s Episcopal Church was a relaxed affair with a view of Sixth Street and the night sky as her backdrop. Requesting to turn down the lights overhead, she explained matter-of-factly that “I already plucked my eyebrows today.” Mirroring the tone of her latest batch of songs, Lynne is backed by guitarist John Jackson, who carried the solos, and Brian Harrison on bass. Together, they created a subtle atmosphere and demonstrated restraint with the stripped-down arrangements.
Opener “Rains Came” jauntily rollicked as it thinly veiled Lynne’s tale of heartbreak. Despite her small stature, Lynne is an imposing vocalist, one unafraid to contort on stage as she wrestled with the emotional gravitas of a song. “Why Didn’t You Call Me” completed the one-two punch of pop that continued the opener’s out-of-love state. The set ran through Southern soul, blues and pop. For an artist that’s painstakingly honest in her songwriting, she whipped her blonde, short shock of hair, adding to the level of vulnerability she displayed on stage. “Like a Fool” was a naked ballad with Lynne strumming her guitar alone, singing, “I never knew. I never do how love controls me” before repeatedly sighing the song’s title as it ended.
A story with almost every song, Lynne’s broken-hearted lyrics didn’t detract from the humor that infused her show or her songs. Perhaps the standout was her ode to freedom in the form of an Airstream trailer. A slowburner, “Something to be Said” listlessly documents the restlessness that has defined Lynne’s career. Wanting to get away, she sang, “Guess it’s that time again, time to be free again.”
by Joshua Barajas
