When Shelby Lynne titled her 2003 full-length Identity Crisis, Border Radio knew just how she felt. Because putting a simple tag—like country, folk, or soul—on the music Lynne makes is almost as tricky as figuring out what artists fall under the broad banner "Roots & Americana" on a weekly basis.
Lynne got her start in the late '80s as a straight-up country artist, teaming with producer Billy Sherrill (who oversaw Tammy Wynette's classic period) for her 1989 debut, Sunrise. Yet it wasn't until she abandoned Nashville's hit factory at the turn of the century, and released the brooding, confessional I Am Shelby Lynne—a defiant declaration of artistic integrity as soulful as Dusty in Memphis or Carole King's Tapestry—that critics took notice. When she won the Best New Artist Grammy, it was for her sixth album.
She astonished fans, old and new alike, when her next disc, Love, Shelby, turned out to be a mediocre pop-rock outing, seemingly aimed more at fans of matchbox twenty than the Old 97s. But her gigs in support of that record were spellbinding; at the Paramount in late 2001, she blew away her tourmate, wannabe rock-star Ryan Adams, by simply plunking down and accompanying herself on acoustic guitar for the most captivating portion of her set.
This Tuesday, July 26, Lynne comes to the Triple Door to promote her latest offering, Suit Yourself. Like Identity Crisis, her ninth album is all-over-the-map... in a good way. The opening track, "Go With It," points out Lynne's fondness for Steely Dan (and the way she slurs the lyrics together suggests she knows her Rickie Lee Jones, too) and sophisticated harmonies. But later, she serves up the stark voice-and-guitar selection "Johnny Met June," an original about her reaction to the death of the Man in Black. Lynne may not be "country" by the chart-friendly standards of Music Row any more, but any artist who can sing so movingly about the iconic Johnny Cash merits inclusion in this column.
Lynne is just one of several artists in town this week that may confound folks who get hung up on particulars of nomenclature. Boston septet Reverend Glasseye, who play the Crocodile on Thursday, July 21, open their recent EP Happy End and Begin, with a tune ("Last Standing Man") that's more spaghetti Western than country and western, yet their rollicking carnival vibe is as uniquely American in its depravity as Tennessee Williams. Then there's singer-songwriter Nicolai Dunger, who headlines the Tractor on Saturday, July 23. Dunger has worked with alt-country groundbreakers including Will Oldham and Calexico. But can a Swede be labeled "Americana"? Especially when his new album, Here's My Song..., finds him collaborating with contemporary psychedelia peddlers Mercury Rev?
Perhaps composer Kurt Weill, who probably would have found something to recommend in all three of the aforementioned acts, put it best when he refused to delineate between genres: "There is only good music and bad music." Roots, Americana, scruffy Swedish troubadours, whatever... it's all good. ■
