MAY 2010 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM INDIE SCENE Randee St. Nicholas SHELBY LYNNE

“Hell, no” to record labels, hello to independence

SHELBY LYNNE DOESN’T MINCE introspective. “The songs come from what “Now I’m as happy as I can be,” she words when discussing the showdown I know, within my life,” she says. “It’s how I says. “I’m free. I can do my own thing and that ensued when she presented her new see it in my head and feel it in my heart.” make my fans happy because I’m not going album, Tears, Lies, and Alibis, to her record The sound is appropriately stripped to be held back by this ridiculous corporate company—only to see it rejected. “When down, which was part of the problem— thing. If I want to record seven records a Lost Highway said they didn’t want the she says that Lost Highway asked her to year, I can do it.” record, I said, ‘That’s fi ne, I’ll just do my re-record it with a big-name producer. “I Her new independence also means own thing. I’m tired of this shit,’” she says. had Phil Ramone produce my last album she’s fi nally able to participate in all parts Twenty-four hours later, once and for [2008’s Just a Little Lovin’] and you don’t of the process, musical and otherwise. “I all fed up after shuffl ing among fi ve different really get any bigger than that,” she says. know exactly what’s going on, who’s doing record companies over the course of her “But this is the answer I got: ‘Well, you just what, where the money’s going—and it 20-year career, she declared her intention set the standard so high …’ It was hard to feels great,” she says. “Hell, if I don’t know to leave the label and release the album on get a big-name producer when they cut the how to do a record company by now, I her own. “As soon as I knew they weren’t budget in half.” might as well go work at the Waffl e House. going to put out the record that I worked Lynne has never hesitated to follow Not that there’s anything wrong with the so hard on, that’s when I started digging in,” her muse in any direction. She initially found Waffl e House!” she says. “Record labels don’t want to put fame as a mainstream country singer, but That said, lots of artists say they don’t out records that are good. They want to put made her true breakthrough with 2000’s old- want a record label. What if some nice out records that will sell. Gone are the days school soul turn I Am Shelby Lynne—which, company came along tomorrow with an when a record label will say: ‘We believe in in a classic example of music-business especially tempting offer? you, you’re a great artist who makes great logic, helped her win the Best New Artist “No, no, no, hell no,” she declares. “I records and we just want to have you.’” Grammy a full decade into her career. Along don’t give a damn about that. When I make Buoyed by optimism, confi dence and the way she has also touched upon pop, up my mind, I can’t go back. It’s time for determination, the Alabama native elected Americana, jazz, swing and blues. Today, me to move on from that big machine. I’d to create her own label, Everso Records, as the captain of her recording destiny, rather have a smaller machine and actually to release Tears. The 10-song collection she can continue to pursue her artistic get what I’m doing out to the people.” is by turns sassy, soulful and unabashedly ambitions without commercial calculation. –Lee Zimmerman

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