The record that won its namesake 2001’s Grammy for Best New Artist, I Am Shelby Lynne wasn’t actually her first album but her sixth.
Lynne had broken in as a country act a decade before teaming with producer Bill Bottrell to break out — at least somewhat — via this bluesy roots-rock gem. Much of it has a vibe broadly comparable to that of Sheryl Crow’s debut, Tuesday Night Music Club, also produced and co-written by Bottrell. “Your Lies” opens the set of ten tracks with a bombast that belies the often sparsely orchestrated melancholy to come, which hurts so good, be it the swampy, stompy “Life Is Bad” or the dreamy, almost Disney-ballad-like “Where I’m From” with its Pidgin French refrain. Going big or keeping it reined in, Lynne’s vocal harmonies are choice.
Despite airplay on stations that might not have been as attuned to her earlier work, Lynne hardly became a phenomenon at the level of Best New Artists on either side of her — Alicia Keys, Christina Aguilera, Norah Jones — but neither that fact nor her subsequent albums never quite replicating the kind of singular experience that I Am
is to me keep it from being one of my favorite things.
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