Shelby Lynne on Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Landmark ‘I Am…’ Record, and Plotting a New Album With Karen Fairchild: ‘It’s Coming Full Circle’
variety.comChris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic She is still Shelby Lynne. That may sound like it’s saying it’s a little, but it’s really saying a lot, for anyone who holds a special place for the landmark album “I Am Shelby Lynne,” a turn-of-the-millennium masterpiece that put its bearer on the artistic map for good.
That record is now having its silver anniversary celebrated with re-released vinyl and digital edition. Perhaps the even greater cause for celebration is that Lynne has new music due this year, letting us further into who she is and who she will be, with a little help from some friends in the Nashville community she’s moved back to for the first time since the 1990s.
Now, as then, heartache will be in the grooves, which can only be a good thing for listeners. The Bill Bottrell-produced “I Am Shelby Lynne” was the force of nature that propelled Lynne toward the best new artist Grammy in 2001 — a source of some controversy, or perhaps amusement, among Grammy-watchers, who still recall that her newbie honor came as she was releasing her sixth album, about a decade into a recording career.
But spiritually, if not statistically, it felt right: “I Am…” was the album with which she became born again, after a promising career in mainstream country music that wasn’t nearly encompassing all she was capable of as someone who straddled pop, rock and old-school R&B as well as Americana.
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