Although she’d been around for years, Shelby Lynne’s self-titled “Shelby Lynne” won Best New Artist at the Grammys the year after it came out. It was recorded mostly in her living room, with a Casio keyboard and a bunch of musicians sitting in. It’s held up very well:
Gotta Get Back
I love this album, but I think you give the DIY aspect a little too much credit. For one thing, several of the songs on this album have a string section on them — and I don’t think that when you have a few people over to play music in your living room, you’re likely to have 20 violin/viola/cello players. For another, this album was produced by Bill Bottrell — the guy who gave us “Tuesday Night Music Club” by Sheryl Crow, and who presumably had the clout to pick and choose his clients after that album went platinum. You may be conflating the album “Identity Crisis,” in which Shelby wrote, sang, produced and played most of the instruments, with this one.
Maybe it was just the one song. And of course you can always add the strings later… I swear, I didn’t imagine this.