CD Choice:Country

SHELBY LYNNE
Just a Little Lovin' Lost Highway *****

When a singer defines her material as emphatically and as colourfully as the late Dusty Springfield did, only fool, a masochist or both would attempt to reread the songs synonymous with her name. Shelby Lynne is neither. Many believe that Springfield was the greatest white soul singer, but Lynne's recent steamy and intense albums show her to be a worthy successor, albeit one who doesn't quite have the hit-maker's touch.

Lynne has travelled a long and difficult path in her life and career. She is the sister of highly regarded singer and recent Dublin visitor Alisson Moorer (lately married to and now performing with Steve Earle), and her early life was marked by the traumatic death of her parents when her father killed himself after killing her mother. This has cast a shadow over Lynne's career, with a sense of darkness never far away even as she has remodelled herself as a white soul singer of gritty honesty and sultry tone.

Springfield was likewise an outsider, after an initial flirtation with celebrity. Moving to the US from Britain, where she had been a family favourite, Springfield became a camp hero and a critics' darling for her startling ability to carve memorable intensity from songs that became lighthouses for love in the grey 1960s and 1970s.

Lynne is very different in style. Where Springfield was drama personified with a voice of rough velvet, Lynne is cooler, southern- style, but her phrasing, timing and intuitive understanding of the dynamics of songs such as Anyone Who Had a Heart and The Look of Love show her to be a singer of supreme class. By subtlly rereading them in the company of quality musicians such as Dean Parks (guitar), and under the skilful direction of producer Phil Ramone, Lynne makes these old songs new, while adding a few new ones herself. I figure Dusty would have approved. www.shelbylynne.com

Download tracks: Anyone Who Had a Heart, I Don't Want to Hear It Anymore, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me