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Interview Podcast Audio Shelby Lynne
"Just a Little Lovin'"

Shelby Lynne has lived the sort of life about which songs are written, and she's written plenty throughout her 20-year-career.

When she was just 17 years old, Lynne's father Franklin Moorer, a bandleader in their hometown of Jackson, Alabama, shot her mother Lynn and then turned the gun on himself. The tragedy forced early independence upon Lynne and her sister, the country singer Alison Moorer.

Plenty of trials and tribulations followed, as did success, including an oddly timed Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 2001 on the heels of her sixth studio album.

But while her turbulent life has given the 39-year-old Lynne plenty to write about over the years, she turned to another songstress for inspiration for her 10th studio album, reimagining the songbook of British singer Dusty Springfield for Just a Little Lovin'.

Working with acclaimed producer Phil Ramone and a batch of top-shelf session musicians, Lynne did right by the late British singer and even added an original song to the mix.

Lynne spoke to MP3.com about finding inspiration in Springfield, her pride in the new album, and her comfort at her new label, Lost Highway.

MP3: Hey, Shelby? Shelby Lynne: Yeah. Hey, Jim Welte at MP3.com. Yeah, how you doing man? I'm good, how are you? I'm all right. You got a second? Mm-hmm. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me, I appreciate it. Sure. I wanted to ask you about the first time you discovered Dusty Springfield. Was it in childhood or was it more recently than that? Oh, it was about 10 years ago really. OK, how so? Somebody gave me the record, the Dusty record and the same week I discovered Al Green and Plastic Ono Band. So it was about the time that I was deciding that I didn't want to do the Nashville thing anymore, and I was looking to make a move. So I started exploring other things, you know, and really trying to broaden my musical horizons. Sure. So I discovered a lot of music during that time. I was kind of a little bit sheltered in my growing-up years. It was mainly country and old, old early kind of pop music from the '40s, I guess. Sure, yeah, interesting. I think Plastic Ono Band, Al Green, and Dusty Springfield definitely qualifies as expanding your musical horizons outside of the world of Nashville. Not bad. For sure. It was right after that that I made the I Am [Shelby Lynne] record. So you can hear a lot of those influences. Absolutely, the horn stabs especially, yeah. So it's not as though Dusty was someone that you grew up with all your life. So it sounds like she must have made something of a pretty major impact on you. Maybe not the first time you heard her, but over the years. Yeah, well, I'm a lover of great singers and great interpreters and I think she's up there as one of the best. You know, I believe what she was singing. So I'm always struck by the great singers. I guess if you look at it at its most basic level, that couldn't matter more. It's just that you believe that they believe what they're saying. That's right. As a singer, that's the goal, you know. You got to be the messenger. That's it, exactly. Now how and why did you decide to do this record? It's one thing to be a fan and appreciate someone as a great singer, like yourself. But it's a whole other thing to decide to jump headfirst into her catalog. It wasn't something that I just decided to do one day. When you take on such a legend and such a huge body of work, you have to be careful.

So I thought about it long and hard, and I sought out a lot of advice, from my team of musicians and just really thought about it awhile. But, in the end, I thought well, I'm a huge Dusty fan, I really don't know anybody who isn't--unless they've been under a rock somewhere and we don't care what they think anyway. Sure, exactly. So I thought, why not? People need to be reminded of Dusty. They absolutely do. It's almost 10 years now since I did I Am, and her name came up a lot after that and I'm not much on comparisons. But I thought maybe I could pull it off as a fan and remind people of how great Dusty was and what an incredible song she sang. These songs stand alone as far as great compositions and it was a joy to sing it. It sounds like, for you, the most important thing was that if you were going to do this, you were going to do it right. This wasn't going to be some sort of Pro Tools operation. I'm curious how you got connected to [producer] Phil Ramone and why you decided to go with him. I mean, he obviously seems, in hindsight, like a perfect fit. But what attracted you to him? Well, I knew I needed somebody who could understand that I didn't want to just make a tribute record. It had to be mine. I had to make these my songs, and I needed a guy who would allow me the freedom to express myself as a musician. Phil is just a jewel of a guy.

We met several years ago at a MusiCares event, which he does every year for the Grammys. He invited me to participate in that and we hit it off. And so, I had to have the right guy. I mean, you just couldn't go in there and make a mistake. And Phil's just a calm, great leader--the whole thing. Absolutely. It gave you the room that you needed. That's right, and didn't mind my input. There was one specific song that I wanted to ask you about--"Pretend," the one original song you wrote for the album. You obviously had to make sure that you were in a good space to add one song to an album full of songs of someone to whom you are paying tribute. But you need to make sure that it fits. Oh, yeah, it had to fit. It was the only song I had that would possibly even come close, and it was Phil's idea to put one of my own on there. It certainly wasn't mine. I thought, "No way, there's no way I can put anything of mine." But, you know, I wrote that song five or six years ago for another record, and it just didn't cut the mustard.

So I had it. I didn't write it for this record. It was something I had and I didn't know what to do with it. But this was perfect. Lyrically, I felt like if Dusty was still around making records, she might cut it herself. The biggest piece of praise one could give to it is that it fits on this record. One could have fit into the other's catalog very easily. Well, thank you. It seems to fit in there nicely and that was another decision I had to make during the week of making the record. I really took a vote. Everybody that played on the record, everybody who was involved, I asked them, "Does this cut it?" And they agreed it did, so I put it on there. This whole record was a collective effort of some great folks. Yeah, the session musicians and obviously Phil, yeah. Yeah, it was just a good experience. We all worked together as a band. We didn't have any arrangements or anything. We just found the key and a groove. And went with it. That's right. It was really a four-boy band and a girl singer. OK, right. And it worked that way and was really, really cool. You mentioned the I Am Shelby Lynne record in 2000. You won the best new artist Grammy. Since then, I wouldn't say that country music has changed a lot. But it seems like with this record and the things you've done between those, you're obviously continuing to move in a very singular path. You're doing your own thing, and I wanted to ask you about country music in general. Would you ever return to the sound, if not just the place? I mean, I think you obviously moved away from Nashville for a lot of good reasons. But do you ever feel like you might want to return to that sound again? Uh uh. OK, it's as simple as that? Yeah. Uh uh. Over the years, you've had different levels of success with dealing with the business side of the industry and the labels and all that. Do you have any faith, personally, that the major label system can still support artists and not just manufacture them? Well, I mean, I know I'm certainly happy where I am now. I wish I had been there my entire career. At Lost Highway, yeah. Yeah, I love them. I love everybody over there. They get it. It's musical. It's a musical venture for everybody involved, not just me. Everything they do is kind of in the artistic, musical way, and I like that. I think that's the way music... Is supposed to be. Yeah, that's right. And they nurture it and it's important. Hold on, I'm looking at my dog and he's got some kind of critter in his mouth. Hold on. OK. Get out of here, go, go, go! Sorry, but I can't let him eat this--whatever it is. That's OK, he caught dinner. My gosh. The sense I've gotten is that this is the place that you need to be now--at Lost Highway--and between the time that you got the Grammy and now, for one reason or another, the business hasn't done you right. Well, I don't know. I feel right. I don't feel like I've been done wrong. I mean, I've been making records for 20 years, and I'm still doing it. That's an accomplishment. Absolutely. But do you feel that you've been supported a lot and that kind of thing? Oh, yeah, I have. I've always been supported. But sometimes the music business gets to be about, you know, money and things that aren't really artistic, and that's just the way of the world. It's like any business.

But, I've always had the support of my labels. It's just that maybe it wasn't necessarily an easy sell. So, you know, I'll give them that. I mean, it's really hard now. Absolutely. It's such a saturated market and everything. It's a difficult world with music and I guess you're lucky to be doing it at all. I feel lucky anyway. The last thing I wanted to ask was your short- and long-term plans. I know that you previewed this record in a live setting in a handful of cities. But do you plan on and hope to take this record on tour at some point? Yeah, we're going out the end of March, and we'll be out for a year. Are you going to be taking out the folks that played on the record? Or a different band? Oh, no, I don't think anybody could afford those dudes. No, I've got my boys and my band and it'll be the same configuration as the record is. We're excited, we're going to Europe in the summer and then we'll be doing cities in the States and hell, we might even hit some towns a couple of times. So I'm excited. And how about longer term? You mentioned that the "Pretend" song was something you'd been sitting on for a while. Do you have a batch of songs that you've written that you would like to turn into a record at some point very soon? Oh, yeah. Well, I don't know about very soon. I'm not going to do anything after this very soon. I can promise you that. That's probably a good idea. I'm going to take a real, real long hard look before I make another record and really let this one run its course, you know. Absolutely. But yeah, I write all the time--the songs, too many songs. Probably too many bad songs. There are a couple of jewels in there that I'm keeping on the back burner, you know. So, yeah. Well, I wish you luck. You should be very happy with this record, and we look forward to seeing it live sometime soon. Well, come on out and see us. Absolutely. Thanks again Shelby, have a good one. OK, sure.