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Tributes to Dusty Springfield, and a certain brand of glossy emotional pop songwriting that captured mainstream hearts and minds in the late 1960s and early 1970s, are scarcely new. Even boho murmurers like Chan Marshall of Cat Power have gotten into the act, evoking Southern swamp-soul and studio polish in the same breath.
Yet, it’s a natural for Shelby Lynne. The rockin’ country singer has always sounded a little too authentic for contemporary Nashville, après Garth and Faith, and her idiosyncratic albums consistently boast a Muscle Shoals pungency: like a midnight snack of polk salad and Jack Daniel’s.
The new Just a Little Lovin’ sounds like a dream: The title track establishes a certain sleepy, smoky allure that refrains from the most obvious gestures. There’s no “Son of a Preacher Man” in sight. Producer Phil Ramone (of all people) keeps everything stripped down to essentials, the better to give Lynne room to shape each lyric in an understated but deeply felt manner. The effect is intended to bring the listener closer in, though it’s sometimes an iffy proposition. “Anyone Who Had a Heart” begins with a stark piano backdrop that might suit Diamanda Galas—a welcome curveball—while “The Look of Love” strokes a cultural nostalgia for all things Bacharach without really adding much of Lynne’s defiant swerve.
The collection switches on and off like that, only occasionally rising to the kind of moment (the backwater shimmy of “Willie and Laura Mae Jones”) that Lynne has made her signature. Individually, these covers deserve a happy lifetime in your iPod, but they never add up to an album-length statement.
Shelby Lynne plays Park West Saturday 29.
Marcus
Fri, Mar 28, at 05:49pm
Love it. Her best CD to date, IMHO.
Marcus
Fri, Mar 28, at 05:48pm
Love this disk. Her best yet, if you ask me.
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