Review: Shelby Lynne

Before she performed “Leavin’,” the first song she ever wrote, Shelby Lynne had a story to tell to her audience in the Folly Theater. 

She’d been living in Nashville for nearly a decade, trying to make a career out of singing other people’s songs. Five albums later, she decided she had things of her own to say and songs to write, so she bought a $40 12-string guitar, headed west and never looked back. “Leavin’” made it on to her career-defining “I Am Shelby Lynne” album, a Grammy-winning collection of country-soul songs embellished with strings, horns, keyboards, background vocals and all types of guitars.

Friday night, that song and the rest of her setlist took on a different context. Lynne is touring alone -- solo/acoustic -- accompanying herself on acoustic guitar. But instead of deflating her songs, the stripped-down versions laid bare her expressive, Southern-soulful voice and her lyrics, which can express as trenchantly as anyone’s the joys and sorrow that attend life and its pursuit of love and happiness.

Lynne is no stranger to doing things on her own. She is touring on her most recent album, “Revelation Road,” which she wrote, performed and produced entirely by herself. She would play 10 of its 11 tracks, all in a row, to open a show that would last 90 minutes and comprise nearly two dozen songs.

These solo/acoustic shows can be risky. Even the best songwriters and singers can have trouble holding a crowd’s attention for 90 minutes or more. That wasn’t the case at this show. All night the audience of 500 sat rapt and silent. During “Leavin’” and her stunning a cappella version of “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me,” the room was so still and hushed you could hear yourself breathe.

After each there was heavy applause and the occasional shouts of approval. None was longer or louder than the ovation she got for the haunting “Heaven’s Only Days Down the Road,” a song written from the perspective of her father, who murdered her mother and killed himself when she was a teenager. After she was done, Lynne  stepped back and took a deep breath as applause, cheers and whistles rained upon her.

Those were three of several highlights. “Killin’ Kind” was another; so was “Life is Bad.” Lynne isn’t exactly an extrovert, but she developed a rapport with her audience, sharing a story or an aside before or after several songs. Before “Johnny Met June” she talked about meeting Johnny and June Carter Cash at one of Willie Nelson’s picnics. Before “You Are My Sunshine,” her first encore, she told a story about her grandfather, who bought her first pair of cowboy boots at a rodeo in Jackson, Miss. 

She got the crowd to sing along to that one, after she restarted it because she was in the wrong key. They sang along also to a few rounds of the chorus to “Where I’m From,” a paean to her native Alabama.

She ended with “Your Lies,” one of her better songs about love in ruins, then “Iced Tea,” a warm gust of hope and love that expresses “bucketloads of gratitude”: “You feel like the only home I’ve ever known.” The crowd was still with her on that one, listening to all she had to say, down to the last lyric and her final good-bye.

Setlist: Lead Me Love; Woebegone; Revelation Road; I’ll Hold Your Head; I Don’t Need a Reason to Cry; Even Angels; I Want to Go Back; The Thief; Toss It All Aside; Heaven’s Only Days Down the Road; Killin’ Kind; Jesus on a Greyhound; Leavin’; Old Dog; Johnny Met June; 10 Rocks; Life Is Bad; Where I’m From; You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me. Encore: You Are My Sunshine; Your Lies; Iced Tea.

| Timothy Finn, The Star

Comments

[foo's]

Thank You Bill Shapiro. Every show I've seen in the Cyprus Avenue Live at the Folly series lineup has been, quite simply, outstanding. This one was no exception.

[Dale]

Thanks, Tim. You've convinced me to go and see her when she comes to McCabe's in Los Angeles.

[wadkc]

It's hard to say a show in January will already be the show of 2012 but I think I just saw it. We sat front row, a couple of seats down from Scott Pioli and his wife (at least he has good taste in music), so I really got to soak it all in.

She was to play at SXSW a couple of years ago but cancelled, an event she remembered when I asked her and actually said she was sorry for not being there. How refreshing. So this was my first time seeing her.

Tim nailed the review. It was great to be in a crowd of attentive listeners not socializers. The Folly is a perfect place for a show like that, since the bar is outside and not the focus of the patrons.

I thought I might not enjoy the acoustic thing as much as her albums. I love her production, horns and harmonies on her recorded stuff. I was wrong. Not being a lyric guy, I could actually concentrate on that piece of the music and listen to her strong yet subtle voice.

When meeting her after the show I was surprised to see how tiny she is. 4 foot something with a 90 lb. frame. She has hands of steel though from playing guitar, something she does quite well. It's always weird how big people look on a stage compared to off of it.

If you want to have this same experience, go see Allen Stone on Friday at the Beaumont. He's the real deal. Tim can you get a review pretty please?

Sorry to babble on but the concert will definitely be on my forever best of list.

[pellboy]

Damn, I'm pissed I missed this. Big fan, have most of her albums starting with "I Am...", but as you said wadkc, was a little hesitant due to the solo/acoustic format since I love the musical arrangements on her recorded work so much. Also still kind of beatdown from the Jason show so I just didn't have the motivation to drag myself downtown so soon after. I guess I'll just have to kick myself for missing out on this extremely RARE (ever?) opportunity to catch her play live in this area. My bad.

[J.G.]

"We sat front row, a couple of seats down from Scott Pioli and his wife"

I hope there weren't any candy wrappers on the floor inside the Folly.