“From In The Shadows”, an album I first heard nearly a decade ago is still as frequently played today as it was when I first got sent it by my friend Nikki, who is based in New York. Having initially sent me “Don’t Let Them”, the only single I believe Shelby ever released, I fell in love instantly with Shelby’s voice and so I wrote back asking her to send the album should she ever find it. Soon enough the album came tumbling through my door. I was completely captivated by Shelby and moved me immensely by the emotional display, most notably on ‘You’m a song to which my own personal would further grow as I matured. Having co-penned ‘Poppyock!’, a play about an odd couple, my co-writer Lynsey Mellor and I needed to find a song whose lyrics summarised our characters inner frustration. I didn not hesitate in my suggestion. “You don’t belong here. You are so different from me” cries Shelby. Her inner torment at the relationhip between her father Ray J. and his new wife expressed explicitly, As a pair of twentry year olds we could not find the words ourselves, as Shelby had said them all so much better.
“I never thought that I was speciial, but I hear I used to be” sighs Shelby Starner on the heartwrenching ‘Empty Mind. Her direct approach to lyricism exemplary of a girl wise wise beyond her years. With her evident elooquence, it is little surprise that “You” ended up on the soundtrack of the eloquent teenage drama Dawson’s Creek, yet even this did not convert the critical acclaim to sales.
“Shelby could sing all the songs from “The Wizard of Oz” by the time she was three.”
Destined for a career in music, Ray J. assures me “Shelby could sing all the songs from ‘The Wizard of Oz’ by the time she was three.” When Alanis’ first record came out, I would play guitar and she would sing all the lyrics.”` As a young teenager Shelby was “constantly writing in her journal, be it poems or lyrics” and it was these musings that translated into her debut record. With her parents divorced and a dislike of her one step-parent, Shelby used her songs to express her emotions. The sheer honesty of her lyrics is doubled with a heartfelt vocal delivery Therefore comes as a big surprise when five that transcends genre and send shivers down the minutes into a conversation with Ray J. Starner, spine. A unexpected development of her twelfth father of the late Shelby, when he reveals that birthday present, a session at a recording studio, “Shelby was never really happy with “From In Shelby’s original recordings a world away from The Shadows”. She envisioned herself as more the album that was released. of a rocker. Craig Street (Norah Jones, k. d. lang, Cassandra Wilson, Charlie Sexton) produced Add into the equation that “From In The Shadows” the album, he’s a jazz producer and he pulled would be the only release from the tragic child her away from her rock sound. She liked it but singer and the album’s merits are multiplied. Her two years later she wasn’t happy.” unreleased second record was to be produced by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and would have Launched at the peak of bubblegum reflected her maturing rock tastes. Yet unhappy pop, her contemporaries were too busy with the control her record company had cancer in schoolgirl uniforms and demanding the discovery that her mother was suffering with cancer, Shelby retreated from the industry. Shel“Hit Me Baby One More Time”. by descended into a battle with bulimia which Critically acclaimed at the time of it’s 1999 re- would cost her her life at the tender age of 19, as lease, “From In The Shadows” was a relative she was about to start college. commercial failure. Launched at the peak of bubblegum pop, her contemporaries were too Upon listening to the record and re-examining busy in schoolgirl uniforms and demanding “Hit the album’s artwork, it is strangely haunting to Me Baby One More Time” or talking about their find a ghostly presence and an ethereal quality “Genie In A Bottle” to be taken seriously. But to Shelby’s vocal performance. Shelby appears Shelby was “was a kid who was 14 turning 15. to be consistently evaluating life through her lyrWho would believe that the lyrics would come ics, and this externalisation of emotional expresout of this girl’s mind?” Her emotional honesty sion is uniquely moving. proving that she was “wise beyond her years”. “From In The Shadows” is out now. www.theshelbyproject.org
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