« Robert Plant & Alison Krauss in Louisville, KY | Main | Bruce Springsteen in Greensboro, NC »

SHELBY LYNNE
ArtsCenter (Carrboro, NC)
March 13, 2008

(NODEPRESSION.NET) -- Waiting in line before the show, many recalled Shelby Lynne's performance eight years ago, at the neighboring Cat's Cradle, as a real barnburner. New location, but that barn burned again in 2008. Memories this time, however, may center on the heady indoor fireworks shared by a singer, a band and an audience.

From the beginning -- with songs from the recent Just A Little Lovin' -- Shelby Lynne purred, growled, soothed and teased with the casual assurance of an artist at her peak. With an ace band and an adoring crowd, the bar kept on rising. It is hard to imagine a singer with more ideal instrumental support, though at first they blended so perfectly with Shelby, in taut restraint on the Mann-Weill, Bacharach-David openers, that the band's gradual emergence as singular voices came as something of a jolt.

There was, "Hey, that's John Jackson!", as the guitarist spun out those jaggedly wicked yet carefully crafted solo lines, to even more concerted effect than he had once delivered for Bob Dylan and Lucinda Williams. Or, "That Randy Laegos can play anything," as the Nashville keyboard wiz brought light and shadow atmospherics crucial to match the ebb and flow of a sophisticated set list, at one point even employing a bass flute to widen the sonic horizon.

The rhythm pair of longtime Lynne associate Brian Harrison and Buddy Miller alum Bryan Owings was equally adept, tightening and loosening the pulse in each song's soulful heart. While their support was impeccable, they could steer the melodic or harmonic course too -- shades of Muscle Shoals.

Those initial shadow-takes on Dusty Springfield's Dusty In Memphis love-letters would be only one of the evening's tacks. From Lynne's own songbook, the back-porch meditation "Johnny Met June" and the defiant lament "Your Lies" underscored the confident versatility Shelby now commands.

Nowhere was this more evident than on "Black Light Blue". The singer seemed to savor each note, sensing its impact and then rolling with it, stirring an emotional stew both desperate and delicious. This is what a live performance can do (though all too rarely will). Nobody's tinkering with the sound, and nobody needs to, when all involved are this engaged at this level.

-- JERRY WITHROW
Copyright c. 2008 No Depression Inc. and/or Jerry Withrow.