If you aren't one of the few hundred folks who showed up to see Shelby Lynne at downtown Dallas' gleaming City Performance Hall on Friday night, you missed out on something special. The 46-year-old Grammy-winning songstress and her nimble 5-piece band performed not one, but two, complete albums in order.
I've seen bands offer setlists centered around a single classic work. I've seen artists play their new releases from front to back and throw older hits in after. But Lynne's approach both surprised and delighted me and the rest of the reverent audience on Friday. Lynne opened with her brand new album, I Can't Imagine, and closed with her most iconic work, 2000's I Am Shelby Lynne.
Both records, the older one amounting to a modern countrified-soul classic, brilliantly showcase Lynne's musical versatility and imagery-packed lyrics. They also bookend a 16-year period of the singer's career that's taken her far beyond the radio country that defined her earlier work.
Lynne and her band brought to City Performance Hall every instrument they needed to deliver the sounds of both albums, creating the vision of a fully-equipped rehearsal space. They also performed with the loose vibes and experimental attitude befitting such an environment.
The singer was handed several different guitars throughout, acoustic and electric, but her rightful focus was on her voice. She's one of those who can smolder or soar, depending on the needs of the song. Her co-bandleader Ben Peeler proved equally as strong a presence on stage as he offered crowd-pleasing guitar solos and mood enhancing lap steel textures.
The material from I Can't Imagine earned increasingly enthusiastic applause from song to song. The unraveling story in the ballad "Son of a Gun" captivated the audience, while the album's title track and "Sold the Devil (Sunshine)" evoked the sunny West Coast soul that likely inspired them.
After finishing the new album's 10 tracks, the Alabama-raised singer looked out at her fans and said, "Thank y'all for listening to a record y'all don't know very well yet."
Then: "Y'all feel good from here. Damn!"
With that, it was time for I Am Shelby Lynne, 10 Southern-gothic soul tunes that achieve their own distinctive moods. Lynne wailed nearly uncontrollably on "Your Lies" and then showed great control on the half spoken, half crooned "Leavin'." Later on the audience bopped along to "Gotta Get Back" and let out satisfied sighs after the decidedly country heartbreaker "Lookin' Up."
The finest musical moment of the night happened during "Life is Bad," when the band quieted down to just a beat during Lynne's verses and then went full blast during the choruses. It was the kind of live performance that shows an old song in an entirely new light, lets you really hear the lyrics for the first time.
Understandably, the end of the second half brought a standing ovation and a couple of de facto encores, one of which was a stripped down version of "She Knows Where She Goes" (originally written by Lynne and recorded by her sister, Allison Moorer). But by that point, we'd received everything we came for and more - two complete courses that will sustain us until Lynne comes back around.
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