Monday, August 11, 2008

Shelby Lynne

Nearly all of my new music recommendations come from my friend, Ken. He always knows what's new and understands my taste in music exactly. A few months ago, he introduced me to Shelby Lynne and I've been listening to her recent album that is a tribute to Dusty Springfield. Lynne was on CBS Sunday Morning this morning, and showed a much different personality than her sultry voice lets on. 

She describes herself as a Hell Cat, someone who doesn't like rules and doesn't like people who like rules. Now, I like her music even more. She turned away from a big deal music career in Nashville to build her own road on her own terms. When I was a kid, my mom described me as "hell on wheels". I'm not exactly sure what that means - maybe that I used to raise hell and then run away really fast. It seems that Shelby Lynne and I both have spicy personalities, and neither of us would have it any other way.

As  general rule, I like risk takers who bet on themselves more than they bet on someone else. There's a certain independence and confidence in those people that I greatly admire. A friend recently told me about her fear that she has no ability to take a risk - twice she has turned down professional moves to companies that eventually went public providing the partners with million of dollars each and the opportunity to do ground-breaking work. Now she's worried those chances have passed her by. I hope that's not true and it was a good lesson for me. 

Life waits for no one so if you have something you want to do and something you want to say, it would be wise to do and say it now. There's no rewind or pause button on the world. And if you need some inspiration or a soundtrack for your journey, I'd recommend that Shelby Lynne album.      

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You don't get good music from anywhere - or anyone - else?

Christa said...

Hi Dan,
I said all my "new" music, not "good" music. You of course are my source of fun recordings of those oldies but goodies that I love so much. :)

-C