Shelby Lynne (7/20/05)



Ah, Shelby. I fell for Shelby Lynne on her 2000 I Am Shelby Lynne album, just like everyone else (including the critics), which culminated into her winning a Best New Artist Grammy. Little did many know that Shelby, this fiery diverse chanteuse, had a prior country past (note "Soft Talk"). It is definitely quite a surprise to see what production can do for an artist, as it nearly made Shelby a household name. But it's that production that can also tear a career apart, just as her Glen Ballard produced "Love, Shelby" album nearly showed. To supposedly "take her to the next level," they turned her into a trailer-trash whore (no offense to trailer-trash whores reading this). There were a couple decent tracks on the album, but most could be easily forgotten.

Shelby had kind of dropped off the map for me for a while. I had since been enjoying the likes of her sister Alison Moorer (opening for Steve Earle on 10/21/04) and her album The Duel, which I had signed by a very pleasant Ms. Moorer after her set at the Steve Earle show.

When her new album Suit Yourself came out, I picked up a used copy and liked what I heard. Still, nothing that really blew me away, but enough to keep me interested. Shortly after, I saw she was coming to the House of Blues. My friend Leo is also a fan, so we made plans to see her. Thankfully I waited to buy tix because they got promoted on House of Blues "Two for Tuesday" promotion (buy 2 for the price of 1). I guess it wasn't selling so well, and when we arrived I saw that I was right. Unfortunately, being at the House of Blues, I wasn't able to bring my camera (so much for the Flickr idea) so these are the photos from my crappy Treo 600 (no offense to the Treo 600 users).

Opening is Raul Midon. A great guitarist with some long fuckin' nails, but we missed most of his show. Then with so few people in the crowd, Shelby opened her set with an intro worthy of rock greats. She stepped out on stage, with her fried blonde hair, showing her age and weathered attitude. She had a great presence. It would be difficult for her to miss how few people were there, but she played with full emotion and effort. When she was up there, she was all-business but was enjoying the hell out of it.

Everything about the show blew me away. The only thing that could have been better was if she was playing at the Beachland Ballroom, someplace that matched the energy that she was putting out. After the show, experiencing her new album, after just seeing her live, ratcheted "Suit Yourself" a couple notches on my respect list.

And since Apple has increased the web space on my .Mac account, I'll keep posting the tunes (2 this time!). These are two of my favorites from Shelby's new album:

I Won't Die Alone:


Iced Tea:


Posted: Sat - October 1, 2005 at 09:15 PM           |

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