First Song on the Shuffle

"How Can I Be Sure" /
Shelby Lynne

Complicated history here. Felix Cavaliere's the Young Rascals (or at this point had they conceded that they should just be called The Rascals?) released this song in 1967, as a teaser for their album Groovin'. I heard the single on the radio all right--WIFE Good Guys radio in Indianapolis--and I'm pretty sure my older brother Holt owned the album. (Even now it's probably mouldering away in a cardboard box in some ex-girlfriend's garage.) I preferred the lazy psychedelia of the title track, with its flower-child bird tweets and bursts of lush harmony, but the minor-key waltz of "How Can I Be Sure?" was a close second. Yes, it had corny strings and even a Parisian-cafe accordion, but there was a haunting sense of emotional limbo at the end of every verse. (And that plinking electric piano, like a neurotic tap on the shoulder . . . )

Dial things forward, and we get the next charting of this song, in the UK in September 1970 for my girl Dusty Springfield. It's a perfect song for Dusty, with her contralto throbbing with vulnerability. In her hands, Cavaliere's cry of adolescent uncertainty became a weary anthem of a heart that had been broken too many times already. Yeah, teen idol David Cassidy finally boosted this song to #1 in the charts with his cover version in 1972. (Disclaimer: I spent a good 6 months of my life in love with David Cassidy. Never you mind when that was.)  But Cassidy just copied Cavaliere's take. Dusty's was something richer, and deeper.

So it's no surprise that the gifted singer/songwriter Shelby Lynne would have included this on her 2008 homage to Dusty Springfield, Just a Little Lovin' . And hand it to Shelby -- her "How Can I Be Sure" is even more tortured than Dusty's take. Lynne goes Dusty one better -- she's not just about love anymore. When she punches out the phrase "In a world / That's constantly changing," it becomes a politically charged signal for a world gone off the rails.

This is the album that turned me on to Shelby Lynne, who I personally think is one of the great singer/songwriters of our time. Okay, anybody who'd dedicate an entire album to Dusty Springfield would already have my vote, but everything else I've heard from her, I've loved. She's got darkness, she's got sincerity, she's got brains. She started out country, where she never got the love she should have; she went more pop and the wider audience gave her at least some of the respect she deserves.

Her voice is twangier than Dusty's, but still in that same musky contralto range, and like Dusty she conveys an undertone of tragedy. (In Shelby's case, that's a no-brainer -- she and her sister Alison Moorer as teenagers saw their abusive father shoot their mother to death -- so, yeah, whiners, top that.) Like Dusty, she screens an ambiguous sexuality behind an intensely private persona.

Yeah, it's a song about unstable mental states. ("Whenever I--I am away / From you / I wanna die. . . ." Trust is in short supply -- "How do I know? / Maybe you're trying to use me / Flying too high can confuse me" -- and the singer is pleading for mercy ("Touch me / But don't bring me down.")  And like Dusty, Shelby flings her hearts into those phrases, opting for the downward curl of pessimism.

Back in 1967, "don't bring me down" was no doubt a drug reference. In 2008, it's all about not being disheartened for the brave fight ahead.

Either way, the song builds to that last wonderfully inarticulate verse: "How can I be sure? / I really really really wanna know / I really really really wanna know..." Felix Cavaliere and David Cassidy were asking a girlfriend to commit. Dusty was asking a lover to offer safe haven.

Shelby Lynne? She's throwing down a gauntlet. Account for yourself, people.

My Musical Advent Calendar

"Ain't Nothing Like Christmas" /
Shelby Lynne

I think I missed a day or two in there.  No better reason to post twice (c'mon, it's the solstice) if only to bring you this spot-on tune by Shelby Lynne.

It is funny, the roads we take to find an artist whose music resonates with us. I'd always thought of Shelby Lynne as a country artist and therefore -- mea culpa, but I grew up with Midwestern Hayride and it's a thing with me! -- not worth my time. But then she released this astonishing 2008 album Just a Little Lovin' dedicated to the music of my musical heroine Dusty Springfield, and I became -- like that! -- a Shelby Lynne fan forevs.

How could we not love the laid-back snap and groove of this holiday track?

And yes, I especially love that this video clip is from Live from Daryl's House, wherein one of my longtime musical crushes Daryl Hall hosts an astonishingly well-curated selection of artists.

There is indeed a bit of twang to this track. But it's all copasetic -- "I'll bring the nog / You put on the log" -- and it's a Christmas party.  Not much more to it than that, just folks getting together around the tree.

Whatever you yourself believe, tuck it outta sight, because we need to buy into the spirit of "carols and good cheer." Come on, folks. It don't come but once a year.  Go for it.

The Christmas Shuffle

Where have I been for the past two months? Long story, with more doctors involved than I'd like to admit. But I'm back, and now that Thanksgiving is in the rearview mirror, I'm happy to plunge into my favorite musical season of the year. I've got 73 tunes in my fastidiously curated Christmas playlist -- which ten tunes will show up next on the random shuffle?

1. Santa Bring My Baby Back -- Marshall Crenshaw
Sorry I can't give you a link for this retro charmer -- I only have it only a bootlegged disc called MC Rarities, wheedled out of a fellow Crenshaw fanatic. As you'd expect, Marshall swings beautifully on this cover of this oft-covered 1957 Elvis Presley Christmas tune. Where it came from, I don't know, but Marshall does it more than justice. Love this guy.

2. Remember (Christmas) -- Harry Nilsson
Oh, I was hoping this one would cycle up. Over the summer I had a rather intense -- dare I say transformational -- Harry Nilsson period, and if you're a Nilsson fan you'll know that never wears off. I'm not sure this is really a Christmas song, but I'll take it. The upward surging key changes, the yearning vocals -- "Remember, life is never as it seems / Dreams...." Well, it's all about heartbreak and longing and disappointment and hope, and if that isn't Christmas I don't know what is.

3. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) -- Death Cab for Cutie
I don't care if he did break up with Zooey Deschanel -- I still love Ben Gibbard, our alt-indie troubadour of depression and loss. Here he moons all over the 1963 Darlene Love classic -- "I remember when you were here / And all the fun we had last year" -- oooh, what can I do to make it better, Ben?

4. Run Run Rudolph -- Chuck Berry
Enough with the covers -- here's the original version of a rock & roll Christmas classic, in which Chuck Berry repurposes "Johnny B. Goode" for the holiday market.  Dig that snaky guitar solo, which was probably the whole reason for this track's existence.

5. Waking On Christmas -- The Smithereens
Gotta love these guys, with their psychedelic garage-y crunch. Why should I be surprised that they released a 2007 Christmas album, Christmas With the Smithereens? They've always been about defying expectations and doing what they damn well please.   "Watching the snowmelt into the ground /  While the sun shines..." That's a Christmas morning scenario well observed.

6. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) -- Darlene Love
Now here's the original that Ben Gibbard covered, a prime cut from Phil Spector's Christmas album, which under various titles has been a staple of my holiday listening since 1973. That famous Wall of Sound needed a brassy voice like Darlene's to cut through, and oh, how she sashays center stage to claim her due.

7. Ain't Nothing Like Christmas -- Shelby Lynne    
"I bring the nog, you put on the log / It's a Christmas party"-- Shelby's country-twanged paeon to the holidays gets me where I live. I love that Shelby released an entire album of Dusty Springfield covers; I love that she's Steve Earle's sister-in-law; but most of all I just love Shelby for bucking the Nashville norm and finding her own idiosyncratic C&W groove.

8. Christmas Time Is Here -- Diana Krall
Diana Krall -- who to me, I'm sorry I can't help it, will always be Mrs. Elvis Costello -- earns her stars by reimagining Vince Guaraldi's instant-classic theme song from A Charlie Brown Christmas. Breathy, evocative, and so on point. Sweet spot duly hit.

9. Lousiana Christmas Day -- Aaron Neville
Throw a little Cajun shuffle into the holiday cheer. I love it when Aaron Neville rocks out; even Jimmy Fallon parodies can't touch this exuberant celebration of the season.

10. Christmas at the Airport -- Nick Lowe
Seasonal serendipity indeed. A new holiday original from Nick Lowe, whom you all know I love to death. Check out the adorable animated video here. This year Nick actually released that most cliched of products, a Christmas album (Quality Street), and I was all prepared to cringe. Mea culpa, Nick. I should have known you'd pull it off with not one whiff of cheesy sleigh bells.

      

"How Can I Be Sure" / Shelby Lynne

My first thought, on hearing that country artist Shelby Lynne had released an album of Dusty Springfield covers, was knee-jerk furious. How dare she? Just because Dusty recorded one album in Memphis -- admittedly one of her greatest albums -- it still doesn't mean that she was anything like a country artist. And I just couldn't bear to hear my girl Dusty's songs all twanged-up.

Herewith, then, is my most sincere public apology to Ms. Lynne. Because that album, Just a Little Lovin', is a beautiful thing. Lynne reinterprets a handful of Dusty songs with grace and sensitivity. She has a simply gorgeous voice -- light and silky where Dusty's was powerful and passionate -- and she plays to her own strengths without ever trying to erase Dusty's magnificent versions. These acoustic versions of the Dusty songs are folky renditions that Dusty herself might have done if she were playing small clubs today. Of course they won't replace the originals, but they're a wonderful complement to them.

I was surprised to see this song on the album; I never realized Dusty had recorded it (obsessives like me will be glad to know that you can find it on Dusty in London, long available only as an import). Of course, being the AM radio baby that I was, I only know it through the Young Rascals'* 1967 hit single (it was written by their front man Felix Cavaliere), which one could also steal from one's older brother's bedroom on the album Groovin'.



One thing that always bugged me about this song was its pumped-up passion -- too fervid and sweaty for my taste -- that and the tootling organ, which turned its waltz tempo into a cheesy carousel ride. I am sad to report that Dusty herself carried on in this same spirit, except for course -- being Dusty -- she jacked the passion even higher.

Shelby Lynne, however -- God bless her -- strips all that away. She even goes for a different time signature, dropping the waltz in favor of a samba-like 4/4. Most of all, the lightness of her voice is perfect for a song that is, after all, all about being tentative. [Smacks self on forehead.] What a revelation!

Listen to this track. "How can I be sure?" she asks softly, wistfully, "In a world that's constantly changing / How can I be sure / Where I stand with you?" Doubt edges her voice, just the right degree of uncertainty. "How do I know, maybe you're trying to use me / Flying too high can confuse me" -- her phrasing makes her truly sound hesitant and confused. And the whole "whenever I am away from you" verse works like a dream -- she does sound a little frantic, like she's lost her moorings. When she insists, "I really, really, really want to know" -- well, you honestly believe it.

Twanged up? No way. If anything, this song is really a jazz track, with that delicate, syncopated guitar playing fast and loose with the beat. So much for genres. I see that Shelby Lynne wandered away from the mainstream country pack a while ago, refashioning herself as an alt-country artist with her 2000 album I Am Shelby Lynne. (In a stroke of serendipity, I also learn that her younger sister is Allison Moorer, whom I'm going to see singing with Steve Earle tomorrow night -- who knew?) And far from being a pampered country music queen, she's had more than her share of hardships, both personal and professional. Somehow I always got her mixed up with Shania Twain -- wow, was I off base!

Note to self: You really have to get over that old prejudice against country music, honey. . . .

*Known these days just as the Rascals, for obvious reasons.