Shelby Lynne gets naked on Revelation Road

The two little girls in the song are Lynne and her sister Allison Moorer, who watched their alcoholic father kill their mother and himself in the driveway of their Jackson, Ala., house when Lynne was 17. It marked the beginning of her career, in a way, as she supported her sister and herself playing clubs, eventually moving to Nashville where a hit recording ("If I Could Bottle This Up") with George Jones helped launch her career. It might seem daunting to revisit that place in your life each night before hundreds of strangers, but she reckons that's just her job.

"I'm not an overly emotional person, but I get what it is. In order to put on a good show you have to get into the song. And I wrote the song and I'm in the song. I'm in that moment," she says. "It's just what I do, man. And I love that song."

Though she might've started out as a country-pop star, she's grown into a self-possessed artist, with a maverick streak and the confidence to explore western swing, torch jazz, adult contemporary pop, soul, blues, and roots rock. It made her hard to market, but she's grown less concerned about that over the years. In the end, being on stage connecting with an audience is what it's about, not being a star.

"The glamour thing, that's exhausting. It's something I did 10 years ago, and I enjoyed that too, but I really don't think it's me. I'm about singing the songs," she says. "Getting out there and working the grind, driving from show to show in a van, that's what I love doing, and to me that's as glamorous as it can get. I'm making a living singing folk songs. How lucky am I?" •

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