Shelby Lynne Love, Shelby
After a disastrous career in commercial country and a few years in exile, Shelby Lynne released the jaw-droppingly good I Am Shelby Lynne early last year. It was an emancipation project, done on a small budget sans record deal, that captured the raw energy of Stax/Volt R&B. The critics went ga-ga and Lynne won this year's Grammy for Best New Artist (even though she'd previously released six country-styled albums).
So the label, which probably put the first one out on a lark, now sees real sales potential. And who can blame anyone, including Shelby Lynne, for trying to turn Shelby Lynne into a star, or at least a bankable recording artist? That market push is clearly evident in Love, Shelby.
Truth of the matter is that there was very little chance that Love, Shelby could brim with the same sense of wonder and discovery of its predecessor, which the artist made with little notion of it being a product. For the new one, Lynne teamed with mega-producer/writer Glen Ballard, whose stock-in-trade is turning out hits.
At first blush, Love, Shelby is a disappointment. It's slick in the fashion of adult contemporary fare, but not cloyingly so. In fact, Ballard enlisted a studio band of ace players, including drummer Matt Chamberlain, keyboardist Bill Payne (Little Feat) and slide guitarist Sonny Landreth. Several of the tunes feature string arrangements that lend a vaguely antique air.
Over time, these songs insinuate themselves. Lynne's voice, although not as nakedly emotional as on I Am, is full of character. She has a canny sense of dynamics — world-weary, slurred and subtle in spots, bold and jaunty others. She's stingy with crescendos, so the listener never feels clobbered with vocal histrionics. Lynne has the kind of interpretive skills that simply can't be taught.
Love, Shelby's biggest success is forging a style of — we'll call it Southern pop — that plays to the artist's Alabama roots. The music include elements of Southern-fried rock, R&B, blues, folk, barroom torch — although very little country — that lends Lynne's sound a sense of place without tethering it to a genre.
The image-makers may have gone a little overboard with the packaging, which paints Lynne as a trailer park sexpot in Daisy Dukes. On the other hand, the music's pretty sexy stuff, so who's to complain too much. (Island)
—Eric Snider
Lenny Kravitz Lenny
Oh, Lenny. Lenny, Lenny, Lenny. Where are the hooks? We knew you were shamelessly derivative, but as long as you were churning out grabby guitar-funk ear-candy like Are You Gonna Go My Way or Mama Said, we were willing to overlook it. For a while there, we began to believe that you were learning a valuable lesson in songcraft with every riff you cannibalized. We whistled, we grooved, we shook our asses to your dated, guilty-pleasure nuggets. And now you choose to go it alone, on a collection of less-than-mediocre cuts with all of the larceny but none of the personality. We're very impressed that you played and sang every note, Lenny, but maybe you should've paid a little more attention to the material. (Virgin)
—Scott Harrell
Art Hodes Tribute to the Greats
One of the great, under-heralded early jazz artists, Art Hodes kept playing his intimate, bluesy piano until his death in 1993 at age 89. This living room-style session of solo piano pieces, cut in '76, oozes charm and grace. Hodes blended elements of stride, boogie-woogie, ragtime and barrelhouse, but didn't adhere strictly to any of those genres. Not a flashy player, he preferred instead to plumb subtleties from classic pre-bop songs. Each of these 15 selections is dedicated to a legend — Jackass Blues and Chimes Blues for King Oliver, The Mooch for Duke, Blue Turning Grey Over You for Fats Waller — although Hodes does not attempt to mug their styles as much as pay loving homage. He prefers slower tempos. St. James Infirmary (Cab Calloway), generally played as a rouser, is given the slow strut treatment. When Hodes does crank up the tempo, as on Struttin' with Some Barbecue, he does so with a sweet light-fingered touch. (Delmark, www.delmark.com)
—Eric Snider
The (International) Noise Conspiracy A New Morning, Changing Weather
Ass-shaking Swedish rock 'n' roll revolutionaries T(I)NC return with their best album to date, and that's saying something. Comparing substantial punk outfits to The Clash has become so much of a cliche that somebody should probably think up a new term for it, but in truth, not since the Proletariat Four have pogo and polemic meshed so organically. A New Morning makes good on the promise of T(I)NC's debut full-length, The First Conspiracy, something which the hit-or-miss sophomore disc Survival Sickness fell a bit short. Here, the band brings its fuzz/garage elements firmly into the present, driven by an earnest passion for change and some seriously infectious soul-rock. From the opening strains of A Northwest Passage through the closing title track, the grooves are relentless, the performances manic and the spirit all-consuming. The horn-inflected Bigger Cages, Longer Chains and barn-burning Dead Language of Love are standouts on an album packed to bursting with quality songs. A New Morning is so good, even the most jaded apolitical soul can become immersed, and the band's rabid anti-capitalist rhetoric becomes a moot point. (Epitaph/Burning Heart)
—Scott Harrell
Fruit Bats Echolocation
This Chicago collective — led by Califone's Eric Johnson and featuring members of Red Red Meat, Boxhead Ensemble, Rowboat, Pinetop 7, Orso and others — has concocted a thoroughly charming blend of alt-country and indie rock, replete with languid vocals, folksy melodies and quirky lyrics that present a weirdly skewed take on the outdoors. Echolocation has an airy feel, making it seem as if it were recorded on a front porch (it wasn't); sinewy acoustic guitars are decorated with squeaky fiddles, lonesome pedal steel, wafts of synth and subtle percussion. The disc is not as arty as it seems on paper. This eclectic bunch has a genuine, if unconventional, feel for country. And most of the tunes are truly grabby.
—Eric Snider
This article appears in Nov 22-28, 2001.