Lyle Lovett tries to make each concert 'work as a live thing'; he plays Humphrey's Tuesday, big ensemble in tow

By George Varga

Lyle Lovett tries to make each concert 'work as a live thing'; he plays Humphrey's Tuesday, big ensemble in tow

By George Varga
UNION-TRIBUNE POP MUSIC CRITIC
July 31, 2008

At the age of 50, Lyle Lovett is still too young to spend much time thinking about his legacy, or his mortality. That's precisely why this Texas singer-songwriter with the large Stetson and the even larger band declined to offer any specifics when asked how he'd like to be remembered.

"I don't know - and I don't want to jinx anything!" he said with a boisterous laugh, speaking from a concert stop last week in Oregon. "It feels a little premature to answer that question."

Five minutes later, Lovett phoned back.

"I thought of how I'd like to be remembered," he said. "Actually, I thought of it while we were talking before, but I thought maybe it was inappropriate. Now, I think I should go with it.

"After I die, I'd like people to say something like: 'He was really old. He was really old!' "

Lovett was still in his 20s when his self-titled debut album came out in 1987. It quickly established him as one of the most gifted young singer-songwriters of his generation, in or out of country music.

Already an accomplished musician, he could play blues, rock, folk, swing, gospel and country with equal skill, while his lyrics were by turns sly and heartbreaking, earthy and surreal. His best songs suggested what might happen if such classic Texas troubadours as Townes Van Zandt and Willis Alan Ramsey were genetically fused with the acerbic wit of Randy Newman.

There was little indication in Lovett's couplets, however, that he had earned college degrees in journalism and German. Would he be able to discuss the current state of journalism, not in English, but entirely in German?

"Well, I wouldn't want to show off," Lovett said. "There's always room for improvement."

Asked about the devious challenges of mastering German grammar, he offered a response that could have come straight from the stream-of-consciousness monologue that punctuates "Here I Am" (a standout song from 1989's "Lyle Lovett and His Large Band," his superb third album).

"Don't you find that when people come here from another country and speak English, or attempt to, that we as Americans find it charming, even if it's not very good? But whenever I start laying my German on German people, I start getting corrected almost immediately."

He credits his interest in German to his mother's side of his family.

"My mom learned German at home as a girl and my grandparents spoke German," he said. "My grandfather was second-generation Texan. His grandfather migrated to Texas from Germany back in the 1880s ... and those traditions have been preserved. That was my interest in it."

Lovett has often said that he learned to play guitar by strumming along to the first album by fellow Texas tunesmith Guy Clark (with whom he performed an all-acoustic show here early this year at Viejas Casino's DreamCatcher on a bill with Joe Ely and John Hiatt).

His initial interest in music as a boy can be attributed to a source few of his fans would guess: the second album by the pioneering Latin-rock band Santana.

"It's really true, kind of sad, but true," he said. "Santana came first. My Baptist aunt and uncle, who I love dearly, gave me 'Abraxas' for a confirmation present. I'm convinced they really didn't study the album cover too closely!"

Lovett's latest album, last year's "It's Not Big It's Large," does not include his versions of "Samba Pa Ti" or other early Santana favorites.

But the dozen-song release does feature some lovely ballads and a typically enticing array of blues, jazz, gospel and the other vintage American styles Lovett and his band have vibrantly made their own. The album also contains the swing-infused "No Big Deal," which sounds like a kissing cousin of "She's No Lady" from his 1988 album, "Pontiac."

"It was an attempt to draw parallels between 'She's No Lady' and this record," he said. "The fun I had with this one was to touch on all of my (previous) records. That was something I was conscious of and I haven't talked much about - that one of my thoughts was to touch on a sort of overall recap, in a way. Stylistically, the way the songs feel together, I thought they were representative of my whole career.

"It has a lot to do with the people I work with and my desire to showcase (them). The way we put our stuff together, the song selections, I try to feature the guys I have on stage. That's the first priority for me, to make it work as a live thing, so that they are not just there to recreate a preconceived idea."

The "It's Not Big" album deftly explores themes of mortality, as well as chronicling matters of the heart and the resilience of the human spirit. Lovett first addressed these subjects in depth on his fourth album, 1992's "Joshua Judges Ruth."

Now that's he's 50, does he feel more relaxed, or more in a hurry to accomplish good work?

"It does change a little bit - doesn't it? - the older you get," he said. "I feel a little more secure (that) this is what I really do. There's still that bit of insecurity that makes me, well, if I don't have a gig booked somewhere I start to wonder if I'm really doing it. I've always felt that way. ...

"Each (concert) experience is unique. The people who come to see us in different places are different folks. That's actually the real fun of it, for me, to experience the differences between the people who come to our shows and the different things they say and ask for. It gets to be a true interaction and it's like a conversation."

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