Writing in 2012 and 2013, Shelby Lynne realized she was shifting. Having done it all on Road, she wanted different ideas. Lynne wanted to change the way she approached the songs and subject matter. “I wanted some male energy!” she declares. “I wanted to see what that did.” She wrote “Sold The Devil (Sunshine)” with longtime musical director Ben Peeler, who came out to the desert on a hot day to see what they could find. She collaborated on “I Can’t Imagine” and “Better” with Pete Donnelly, from the Figgs. “He’s like my soul brother. And his band’s XTC as shit!” she says. “But he knows I love Erykah Badu and D’Angelo, so he brings that.”
She enlisted Ron Sexsmith in a most modern way: they never sat down. He had reached out to her through Facebook, something Lynne seldom looks at. Interested, she decided to respond and see if he wanted to write. “I wasn’t even sure he knew who I was, then he says ‘Hell, yes!’” Lynne put an idea down via GarageBand and sent it off. “He sends me back a damned masterpiece! Then he sent me something else, and we were off,” Lynne says. “I read that Ira and George Gershwin wrote letters back and forth! We didn’t invent the wheel here. Sure, it feels good seeing [the writing] going down, but it’s about taking the song and being in its service. That’s the deal.”
Via Paste Magazine
