Track Listing

1. Your Lies
2. Leavin'
3. Life Is Bad
4. Thought It Would Be Easier
5. Gotta Get Back
6. Why Can't You Be?
7. Lookin' Up
8. Dream Some
9. Where I'm From
10. Black Light Blue

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #919 in Music
• Released on: 2000-01-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

From Amazon.co.uk
One of the new breed of US crossover country stars, 30-year-old Shelby Lynne has a lived-in voice and the offhand grace of a southern steel magnolia. Although she recorded some albums in Nashville, it wasn't until she returned to her native Alabama that she made this, her debut for Mercury, and the one she is most proud of. Mixing lilting Southern soul with slide guitar country on tracks like "Leavin" and "Why Can't You Be", she has the same down-home, dead-sharp style of 1970s deep-soul sisters like Ann Peebles or Shirley Brown. There's also a touch of girl-group pop purity in songs like "Your Lies" and languid nostalgia on "Where I'm From", a wry tribute to a hometown that "ain't no Margaret Mitchell". Most powerful, though, is the acoustic reverie "Lookin' Up". When she was 17, Lynne's father killed her mother before shooting himself and that sense of personal tragedy seeps into this song, especially in the classic line: "I'm lookin' up for the next thing that brings me down". --Lucy O'Brien

Customer Reviews

Buried Treasure
I'm one of those people that has an infinite number of cd's and it's still not enough ..... I love music!! So I'm forever digging through the archives and that's when I found this buried treasure. I love the songs, the emotion it evokes from her powerful and heartfelt delivery. It is easliy one of my 10 all time favorites.

near-perfect pop-country-soul-blues classic
I love this unique melding of styles. Leavin` is as glorious as Al Green. Beautiful production, good strong songs, leaves you wanting more. In the days of vinyl, this would have been hailed as a perfect album and sold huge quantities.

Shelby at her most expressive !
Shelby Lynne is country muisic's ever changing template chameleon. She backs down from no one and quite possibly doesn't give a damn where her music takes her. A raunchy title alike "I Am Shelby Lynne" sounds more like a name for a late night infomercial then the work of a musical experimentation. Don't be fooled , listen !

Lynne's frustration and hostility in these songs could be as autobiographical as any musician attempts to portray with their music. I also find it convincing that Lynne is one extremly rare artist where no matter what genre she is expressing in her music it never sounds artificial. Everytime I hear the somber "Life Is Bad", I often wonder if Mick Jagger forgot to add it to the set list of "Exile On Main St.". Many artists will claim to be expressive with musical individuality but only the good one's actually have an identity.

Lynne's songwriting, along with help from Producer Bill Bottrell strongly emphases its collaboration. At no point do I feel distraught with this record. Lynne has an ear for music, something that should never be taken for granted in an era where musicians are bombs and the importance sometimes lacks control. Serious art should't be denied but sometimes you can't always get what you want. Lynne tries, she deeply ventures into areas unknown. That's all I can say about any attained artist.