Bundle of bold contradictions

Shelby Lynne, hiding behind vintage sunglasses and a casual sneer, slumped back against a bus-stop bench on Sunset Boulevard.

Lynne's manager was still fighting cross-town traffic and the singer was overdue for a lunchtime appointment with a pitcher of margaritas.

“You'll like me better after a couple of drinks,'' the country singer said to the journalist sharing the bench. “After a few, I'll say anything.''

Lynne likes to have fun with her reputation. Back in the 1990s, when she was a newcomer in Nashville, Tennessee, she was labelled a problem child.

Then she picked up some other labels — commercial disappointment, studio hard case, party girl — and there were whispers about her past, especially the lurid death of her parents back in Alabama when she was 17.

Lynne's talent, however, was never in doubt, which is why there was always another record label ready to take a chance on her.

Billy Sherrill, the producer who crafted Stand By Your Man for Tammy Wynette, had come out of semi-retirement the first time he heard Lynne sing.

She proved Sherrill's instincts right in 2001 when she won the prestigious Grammy for the best new artiste for her album I Am ... Shelby Lynne, a masterpiece of torch songs and tortured stories.

Now the people surrounding Lynne are pulsing with excitement. On January 29, Lost Highway Records released her tenth studio album, Just a Little Lovin'.

The collection is a mesmerising tribute to the late Dusty Springfield, another singer with a haunting voice and a haunted past. “This,'' Lynne said, “is sacred ground to me.''

Different beats

Lynne is most comfortable in the studio and on stage, where she is a self-described “belter''.

Through the years, her music has taken her in different directions — into soulful zones as well as her alt-country base sound — but in November, during a five-city club tour, the Springfield songs took her to a new place of quiet restraint and won strong reviews.

Lynne's Alabama drawl is easy to hear and the things that make her angriest are flimsy talents, pretension and the modern obsession with technology.

Her new album was recorded on 2-inch tape, not with Pro Tools. She has a MySpace page but has never seen it. She had a computer once but, well, it broke.

“I am a dinosaur,'' the 39-year-old said while wandering through Amoeba. “I had an iPod but I am so over that. I believe in vinyl. When you put a record on, you have to get up to turn it over. You can't get up and walk around the yard.''

Lynne is enthralled by music history and feels an evangelical power coming off those secondhand LPs, too. Walking around Amoeba with her is like touring a cathedral with a true believer — “Oh, look, Faron Young!'' “Have you heard Sister Rosetta Tharp?''

You could call Lynne petite at 5-foot-1 and “a size zero'' but there is something in her bar-fight glare that makes you think twice. She enjoys the rowdy reputation but says she spends more time gardening, recording in her garage studio and doting on Junior, her Italian greyhound.

The dog can flat out fly if it wants to but usually, it just lolls around the house. “I love that,'' Lynne said. “It's the same as me.''

Not one to despair

The idea of the Springfield album really took hold when she presented it to Phil Ramone, the producer who has won 14 Grammys for work with artistes such as Ray Charles, Barbra Streisand and Paul Simon.

Ramone brought in Al Schmitt, the esteemed recording engineer, and last January, took Lynne into the historic Studio A at Capitol Records. All songs were recorded in live takes with no overdubs.

“You had to feel it to do this music and I could feel it there,'' Lynne said. “Phil and Al let me pretend I was in control. That was nice of them. We cut the record the week Capitol Records busted up.''

Some artistes would have panicked but after stops at more than half a dozen labels, Lynne shrugged and looked for the next stop. She and her manager took the album to Lost Highway founder Luke Lewis, who eagerly took it off Capitol's hands.

Ramone said she does have “a whiff of danger about her'' but that her musical focus and talent are amazing. “I think this album shows the audience who she is and what she can do.''

The album finds Lynne channelling familiar Springfield songs such as The Look of Love and Anyone Who Had a Heart. The slow and airy arrangements manage to be aching and burnished.

Lynne immersed herself in all things Springfield while preparing for the album. But she declined to analyse the singer beyond the vinyl. “I read every book but how true could a book be?'' she said.

Over Mexican food and margaritas, as promised, she loosens up. Just before a delicious description of the backstage melodrama, Lynne, defying her own claim that she is not adept at the media game, leans over and clicks the tape recorder off. “This is just between us, mister.''

After a few hours, Lynne was back at her hotel. She was eager to listen to her LPs.