A Song Moves
Through Us, If We're Lucky
Shelby Lynne and Joan Osborne talk about the art of making music, past and present.
Joan Osborne: You were talking about writing.
Shelby Lynne: Yes, I like to write with someone else because you get a different perspective on the same idea. That’s fun for me. And it's educational. I want to be good at everything. Really good at it. And songwriting's new for me. It just happened that these particular songs, [from "I am Shelby Lynne"], it was time for them to write themselves. I think that we're just bodies and a song moves through us, if we're lucky.
JO: I read in an interview with Van Morrison years and years ago that he felt like he was just a radio receiver, and the things that he wrote were really from someplace else. He was just tuned into the right frequency and was able to pick up on it.
SL: I believe it. If you can be free with that, and open to it, something good's bound to happen.
JO: This is something that happens to me, and I wonder if it’s common with other performers and singers: Do you ever have performance anxiety, or nightmares about being on stage and you can't remember the words, or you look down and you realize you're naked in front of thousands of people. Does that ever happen to you?
SL: Every time.
JO: Really?
SL: Oh, yeah. I get so nervous. I mean once I get out there, I'm okay. But, oh-h-h, I used to drink a lot before a gig. But then I realized I was really better when I didn't, so I cut that out. But you learn things. It's a terrifying experience, because you really are naked when you put your songs out there. You’ve got to bare it all and have nothing to hide in order to be believable. I think that we, as singers, have a responsibility to be emotional. We're kind of nuts, you know? So I'm learning to appreciate being a little crazy, too.
JO: A lot of singers who are successful now go out on tour and sing along to backing tracks, or they'll be lip-synching. It's more about putting on a big production and less about giving the kind of raw emotional performance you're talking about. Do you feel like that kind of performance is becoming a lost art?
SL: I do think that we're losing it. I feel so old sometimes because we really do go out and just rock and let it be what it is. We hit the bad notes, and we hit the good ones, and we change the show around. I refuse to go out and do a concert to please the lighting guy, who’s saying, "you have to do these songs in this order because that’s the way the lights are set up and they're electronic and if you don’t, the computer won’t like it... " The performance is for the audience, not the lighting man. It’s about doing what feels good at the moment, because every audience, every bar, every arena, whatever the situation, is different.
I have a regular rock 'n' roll band, just like you do. And we play through amps. We play out of tune. We have cords on our microphones; they don't sit on our heads. (Laughs) I mean you and I go out there and we sing. And that's all we know how to do. We dance at home in private. (Laughs) I admire those little young gals that can do all that choreographed stuff. But I don't know if I feel a lot from them, and it’s not for me.
JO: I spent some time with my nieces who love those choreographed performances. They get very excited, and they get a lot out of it, and I would never want to take that experience away from them. To me it's just a testament to how elastic and how infinite music is. It can work in a huge stadium with the lights and the dancers and all that. And it can also work in a raw situation, where you're just sitting down in front of a bunch of people in a bar, and you're allowing yourself to be spontaneous. I think the key is to find out, as an artist, where your territory is and try to work there.
SL: Of course, it's hard to go out there and play the kind of music you and I like to a fourteen-year-old. I opened for Matchbox Twenty a couple of months ago, and we're playing big arenas, and I'm singing to these little babies! I said, "Oh, I'm gonna do an R&B tune," and they're like, "Huh? R and who?"
JO: They think it's some group they haven't heard of.
SL: Exactly. (Laughs) So we do have to find our audience. And they're not going to be babies. I mean, some babies like our music because they probably have parents that dig it. But, let's face it, girl, we're gonna play to the people that like Bonnie Raitt.
JO: I definitely think that the younger people who are into bands like the Back Street Boys and Britney Spears now are going to be a very interesting audience for music of greater depth when they get older. I think they're going to be good for music in general.
Anyway, speaking of different audiences, rapper Jay-Z is reportedly a big fan of yours. Have you two ever met?
SL: Yeah, we met. He came to a show I did in New York. I saw him before the show, but I didn’t talk to him after. He seemed to like it, from what I heard. I don't know him that well.
JO: Was there any talk of possibly collaborating?
SL: No, but I have thought about it, because I think music marries the different. It can be really bad or it can be really good. And the way to make it really good is to ... unite and make something from two worlds into one world. I want to do that. Rap is so different from what I do that it might be interesting. Of course, I love D'Angelo more than anything. He's my favorite.
JO: I love him too. He's just great.
SL: And he's so fine. And he's real. I'd like to try collaborating with him. It’s a little closer to home anyway.