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Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2008 > March > 15 > Entry
Review: Shelby Lynne
“I love these songs!”
Thus spoke Shelby Lynne onstage during her 9:30 p.m. show Friday at the Austin Music Hall. Her tone of voice sounded as though she were caught up in the revelatory moment for the first time. In point of fact, she has been living with the songs from her new album, “Just A Little Lovin’,” for some time now.
But the album’s music — songs, for the most part, made famous by Dusty Springfield — seems to still touch Lynne in ways that are as fresh, invigorating and unexpected to her as they are to the audience.
Lynne seems less to cover Springfield — her arrangements and vocal approach differ significantly from Springfield’s recordings — than to channel her. “I decided to make this record as a fun adventure, but I truly think she’s here with us,” Lynne said at one point.
If so, Springfield’s shade must surely have been applauding. Lynne’s rendition of “You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me,” “I Only Want To Be With You,” Randy Newman’s “I Don’t Want To Hear It Anymore” and other songs from the late singer’s canon were cool, smoky, sexy marvels.
Hiding mostly behind her mane of blonde hair, backlit through a scrim of artificial smoke until she almost seemed ghostlike herself, Lynne seemed to be singing from some inner landscape of emotion that many musicians never approach.
“I was terrified when I made this record. I thought it would be either the beginning or the end, because these songs were so amazing,” she said. Well, never mind. After voyaging across an ocean of uncertainty, Lynne has arrived on the distant shore safe and sound. Her stellar performance Friday night was proof of that.
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