TONIGHT
E-mail a friendShelby Lynne
airdate January 29, 2008
In '00, Shelby Lynne won the Best New Artist Grammy, even though she was 12 years into her career. Country music fans have known her since the late '80s. Raised in Alabama, the outspoken artist was forced into independence at a young age because of family tragedy. She moved to Nashville, sang in local clubs and made demos. Lynne's albums received critical acclaim yet inconsistent radio play, but her Grammy changed that. "Just a Little Lovin'"—a tribute to the late Dusty Springfield—is her latest project.
Shelby Lynne
Tavis: I am so pleased to welcome Shelby Lynne back to this program. The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter is back with an acclaimed new CD that serves as a tribute to the late British singer Dusty Springfield. The new disc is called "Just a Little Lovin'" and it's in stores today. From the CD, here is some of the video for the single "Anyone Who Had a Heart."
[Clip]
Tavis: First of all, you are always gorgeous just to look at.
Shelby Lynne: Oh, don't start.
Tavis: Am I flirting with you already? Put that back up, Jonathan. That album cover, though. Good lord.
Lynne: (Unintelligible) thank you.
Tavis: Come back here, Jonathan. I got the CD in this hand, but you actually did -
Lynne: Vinyl.
Tavis: The old school vinyl.
Lynne: That's right.
Tavis: Wow. What made you do that?
Lynne: Well I got a great record company, first of all. They do that instantly. But that's the way I listen to records, I'm not lying. That's the way I listen to records at home.
Tavis: Even now, that old LP stuff.
Lynne: Yeah.
Tavis: Wow. With all the little (unintelligible).
Lynne: I like all that. I like all that. It's a good reason to have a party. You invite your friends over and you got a big pile of records and everybody can take their turn. It's a lot more fun than iPods. (Laughter) And that's okay, I don't mind iPod, I have one of those too.
Tavis: iPods are good for the bus, for the tour bus.
Lynne: That's right. If you have to travel and you can't take your record players. But at home, it's -
Tavis: Kind of hard to play an LP on the tour bus.
Lynne: Right, yeah.
Tavis: Yeah, that wouldn't quite work. See, I love LPs now that I'm an adult. When I was a kid, though, I didn't like them so much because my dad did not abide scratching his records.
Lynne: Oh, he wouldn't let you (unintelligible).
Tavis: Who scratched my records?
Lynne: Right, right. (Laughter) Well, I'm kind of that way about mine but I think it's kind of a reason to get together and hear music. It gives you something to do. You have to get up and change it.
Tavis: Speaking of records, inspired by Dusty Springfield. Why Dusty Springfield?
Lynne: Well I'm, number one, a big fan of Dusty's. One of the great singers, one of the great pop singers. Made a lot of great records, had a long career - not long enough. And I just thought that those of us who are already fans and those of us out there who aren't yet might need an opportunity to be reminded of her again.
Tavis: What for you was so impactful about her music?
Lynne: Well there's a lot of singers but when you can really believe what they're saying it makes a lot of difference for me. I like to interpret songs, I like to sing great songs, and she was definitely that for me. I believe every word she said.
Tavis: I assume then, given that you are so serious about that, that you want your fans to have the same association with you, so musicically, stylistically, where the substance of your lyrics are concerned, take all that together, how do you impart that to your listeners, that what they hear they can in fact believe?
Lynne: Well pretty much by now anybody that likes what I've been doing for almost 20 years now, they know already that I'm serious about the song first. And if I don't believe it I can't sell you on it. So these songs are as good as you get. We got a couple of Burt Bacharach-Hal David tunes on there.
Tavis: And one original that you did.
Lynne: One I wrote on there which - Phil Ramone produced the record, and -
Tavis: Can't get much better than Phil Ramone.
Lynne: Well, no, you can't.
Tavis: Can't do much better than Phil Ramone.
Lynne: Can't. And he suggested that maybe I think about putting one of my tunes on there, and this particular song I had for a while but I didn't know what to do with it. And then after cutting these songs and singing these songs - we all think we know songs until you get ready to start singing them. You go oh, ok. (Laughter) But "Pretend" was a song I had that I thought could, might, stand next to these tunes, and it worked out okay.
Tavis: How do you think it fits in to the rest of the Dusty stuff on the LP?
Lynne: On the LP? Well there's a lot of longing in Dusty's songs, and the (unintelligible) -
Tavis: I just like how you said that. Say that word again?
Lynne: Longing?
Tavis: Longing. (Laughter) You make the word longing even longer. It's like longing, longing.
Lynne: Okay.
Tavis: I love it. Go ahead, I'm sorry.
Lynne: Now you got me all red. (Laughter)
Tavis: There's a lot of longing.
Lynne: Well you know what I mean.
Tavis: Yeah, I know what you mean.
Lynne: The needful things in a song. (Laughter) The things that make you really pay attention when you hear it or sing the lyric. And now I forgot the question. (Laughter)
Tavis: I was just asking - you answered it. I was asking how it stacked up with the rest of the stuff on the record.
Lynne: Oh, well.
Tavis: It fits in nicely, that's the answer. It fits in nicely.
Lynne: I can't wait for you to - after you get through politicking and all that stuff you go home and relax and hear it. But it's - I don't know, I think it stands up. It's a pretty good song. Oh yeah, I know what I was going to say. With the longing, it's more of a needing. Dusty had a real kind of vulnerability about her that I'm always attracted to people who can be naked when they do their art. And I thought that this song of mine could hold a candle.
Tavis: That's a beautiful phrase, people who - I know exactly what you mean by that - an appreciation for people who can be naked when they do their art. That's a powerful phrase. That's important. I think it's important if you really want the stuff to connect.
Lynne: Yeah, I don't think there's any other need in doing it. If you want to just skid on by you can cut regular skid-on-by-type things. But I really like to be moved by music and so many people move me, and Dusty was one of them.
Tavis: When you look at her corpus, look at the work that she did, and there are a number of tracks on here, of course, are there two or three that you remember that when you were younger that just really stood out for you?
Lynne: It's a funny thing. I'd been making record several years before I discovered Dusty. I was telling a friend of mine that I discovered Dusty Springfield, John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band, and Al Green in the same week. (Laughter)
Tavis: I'm about to fall out my chair.
Lynne: I know.
Tavis: That's a heck of a week.
Lynne: It was a big week.
Tavis: You found Dusty, Lennon, and Al Green in the same week.
Lynne: And Al in the same week. And I had already been making records for a while. So when I dedicated myself to finding out about cool music, I really dove in there.
Tavis: I see. Since you went there, now I'm just curious. So unpack for me right quick what you discovered when you discovered the Lennon project. What'd that do for you?
Lynne: Well, how to make a record. How to make a record that's not - we were talking about political things earlier that's going on in our world but in the record business, this can be a pretty saucy detail, dealing with individuals that want to play games and such.
Tavis: Are you saying there's politics in the music business?
Lynne: Oh, well, yeah. (Laughter)
Tavis: Yeah. (Laughs)
Lynne: So just being a John Lennon fan but having not heard his records, his solo record, when I discovered that I really got a taste of what it's like to be kind of a renegade, even though I spent a lot of my childhood listening to Waylon and Willie, and Willie's my friend and I met Waylon and understanding that whole outlaw thing.
John Lennon was a different kind of an outlaw and it just kind of made it clear to me that there is no fear in music if it comes from the right place, which is something that you don't have any control of, really.
Tavis: You don't have any control over it, which means that you have to surrender to it.
Lynne: That's right.
Tavis: How do you do that, though?
Lynne: Well, it means that your heart just guides you and you do the soulful thing.
Tavis: I love it. Your answers are so beautiful all the time. So insightful.
Lynne: You inspire me, man. You really do.
Tavis: No, you're surrendering to it, and I feel it. Al Green. I love Al Green. What did you discover when you discovered Al Green?
Lynne: Well that kind of record was so simple. You got drums and bass, a bad singer.
Tavis: And his foot stomping the ground.
Lynne: And the songs - he did a recording of "Funny How Time Slips Away," which is Willie Nelson's song. I've heard that song a million times since I've been this big. When I heard Al Green do it, I bet I played it 50 times in a row. It was just properly done. (Laughter) I got it. It was clear.
Tavis: I didn't ask you this question last time you came to see us, and I can't imagine what the answer might be, but I'm going to ask it anyway.
Lynne: Okay.
Tavis: If you weren't doing music, because you seem to be doing exactly what God put you here to do. But if you weren't doing music, can you imagine what else you might be doing, other than philosophizing? Because you do that so well.
Lynne: Probably being an undertaker or something. (Laughter) That ain't what I was looking for. I didn't know where that question was going to take us, but I didn't know that it was to the graveyard.
Lynne: Yeah, well, I can't imagine living without music. You might as well put me there.
Tavis: You see what I mean? That's why you got a little country music right there. Every answer she gives sounds to a lyric to a new song, and that's why you've got to love country music. Shelby Lynne has a new CD, a new LP. Bam, there's both of them. "Just a Little Lovin'," inspired, of course, by the music of the late, great Dusty Springfield. You're on the road as always, I guess.
Lynne: Yeah, I'm going to hit it hard in March real hard.
Tavis: Yeah.
Lynne: Yeah, I look forward to that.
Tavis: You still love it after all these years?
Lynne: Shoot, yeah. I like being out there.
Tavis: Shoot, yeah.
Lynne: I like being out there with the boys and we have good times. It's good to be out with the people.
Tavis: Yeah, that's always a good thing.
Lynne: Absolutely.
Tavis: Especially when they give you that love back the way they do for you and your stuff.
Lynne: The world goes around.
Tavis: I love Shelby Lynne, I'm glad she came to see me. Shelby, good to see you.
Lynne: Well, good to see you.
Tavis: Have fun on the road.
Back to January 29, 2008