A music stand stood directly in front of singer Shelby Lynne Wednesday night at the Dakota nightclub in downtown Minneapolis.
“Something tells me them pages [of lyrics] fell down and got out of order,” she said playfully because she had to ask her guitarist which song was next.
“I hadn’t done a show since 1956,” Lynne, 55, joked.
Indeed, it had been a while since her last gig. Moreover, she was doing a show focusing on her 2008 album, “Just a Little Lovin’,” a tribute to the great 1960s British pop singer Dusty Springfield, at the request of the Dakota. And she was playing with three new sidemen, save for the bassist with whom she’d worked back in 1995.
While Lynne was light-hearted between songs, she was downhearted in her music. The Springfield catalog was perfect for Lynne, who blended the sad and the sultry in a torchy minimalism.
Accompanied by a moody guitarist, a brushes-playing drummer and an understated bassist, Lynne wallowed in perpetual loneliness and longing. There was a deep ache in her voice, a seething intensity as she clenched her fist or clutched her chest or gripped the microphone stand — her eyes closed while she was pouring her heart out.
She didn’t mimic Springfield’s phrasing or borrow her tempos. Lynne made these painful pleas her own.
“Don’t… ever…go,” she seduced on the final lines of “The Look of Love,” pausing between words. Then in a deep, slow croon, she declared, “I love you so.”
That’s not the way the breathy Springfield sang it or the way Hal David and Burt Bacharach wrote it. It’s the way Lynne does it.
She dusted off Springfield hits like “I Only Want to Be with You” as well as lesser known numbers like “Willie & Lauramae Jones” — and made them her own. She’s a splendid interpreter, putting her languid Southern soul spin on the material, seasoned by her fittingly austere trio.
Between selections, Lynne was chatty, speaking of her love of Elvis Presley, working with her friend Tony Joe White and meeting Burt Bacharach who was “a sexy old feeble dude like he was during those Tanqueray commercials.” Her easy Southern charm belied her earlier reputation for having a tough exterior because she’s led a hard life.
When she was 17, Lynne and her younger sister witnessed their alcoholic father kill their mother and then take his own life at their Alabama home. Three years later, Lynne landed a recording deal in Nashville but had no control over the country material she recorded.
She found herself musically and spiritually on 1999′s “I Am Shelby Lynne,” her sixth album that led to her winning the Grammy for best new artist. She’s continued to release albums — including 2017′s “Not Dark Yet” with her sister, alt-country singer Allison Moorer — but has toured only sporadically.
In her first Twin Cities appearance since 2018, Lynne wrapped up Wednesday’s brief but profound 65-minute performance with the melodramatic meditation “Pretend,” the original she offered when producer Phil Ramone requested one for the Springfield tribute LP, and then the melancholy “Black Light Blue,” a dark and beautiful stunner from “I Am Shelby Lynne.”
“I don’t do encores,” she announced before playing the finale.
But she promised that she’ll perform again Thursday at the Dakota and will soon be releasing a 25th anniversary edition of “I Am Shelby Lynne” — with one brand new song on it.
By Jon Bream Star Tribune