Killer Instincts

When Lynne made Just a Little Lovin’—nine songs from Dusty Springfield’s songbook and one original—she definitely just went with it, walking into Hollywood’s Capitol Studios with only the faintest trace of a plan, and diving right in with legendary producer Phil Ramone. “I’m such an in-the-moment, spontaneous, crazy fucker that I couldn’t sit down and arrange anything,” Lynne says.

Those unscripted sessions yielded renditions of well-loved pop songs—like “I Don’t Want to Hear It Anymore” (a Randy Newman composition included on Springfield’s 1969 landmark Dusty in Memphis)—framed in generous amounts of space and reverb and caressed ever so lightly by an intuitive combo. Touring with that material involves more than just going with the impetuous flow.

It’s the less-is-more approach that makes the songs work and keeps Just a Little Lovin’ from Springfield rehashing. The ’60s pop chanteuse already had cornered the market on magnificent, string-swathed production; Lynne’s arrangements have a delicate equilibrium that’s best left untouched.

“I always tell the boys [in the band], ‘Alright, let’s stay true to the record, but if you’ve got something better, play it,’ ” Lynne says. “With this record, I’ve been more, ‘Hey, play it like the record and we’ll have fun with the other tunes, because this thing is just right.’ ”

Such an intimate musical experience wouldn’t make sense just anywhere. “As much as I love beer joints, it’s not really beer joint material,” Lynne says. And it calls for more graceful stage banter (“After you sing a couple of tunes like this, it’s hard to go, ‘Hey, how ya’ll doin’?’ ”). Then there’s the challenge of making the setlist long enough without lurching back and forth between elegance and swamp. “I can’t really do ‘You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me’ and then turn around and do ‘Polk Salad Annie,’ ” Lynne says.

When the 39-year old stands onstage and hangs her sultry, rounded voice out there during the title track’s bare interlude, it’s not just her who’s exposed—it’s everyone within hearing range. Lynne’s seldom attempted anything more vulnerable, not that she’s cowed in the least.

“It’s got to have a little fear factor in there for it to have some appeal, for me anyway,” says Lynne. “It’s one thing to sit around with a glass of wine and smoke a big fatty listening to the record at home and hear all those pauses. It’s another thing to be onstage and you got those pauses, and all that air in the room and all of those human beings with you. It’s like everybody’s holding their breath at the same time. It’s intense, but I like that shit. I like it to be a little squirmy.”

In a way, Lynne’s come full circle by focusing on song interpretation. Her first three albums—all on Epic—had no songs from her pen. “It never even occurred to me to write songs until well into my career,” she says. “It’s different when you interpret songs. But with these songs there’s such a responsibility in doing it really right, whatever ‘right’ is. It’s different than singing your own songs, put it to you that way. When I sing mine, I probably won’t take it as seriously as singing these.”

As hard as it is for Lynne to say what will capture her imagination next, she can make one prediction with damn-near certainty—there’ll be no more cover albums anytime soon. “I’m not going to do this shit again for a long time. I don’t want to turn into a karaoke machine.”