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For years now, fans have been
asking Lyle Lovett the question: "When are you going to put out a
live album?" He always intended to do so eventually, but the time
was never quite right – until now, thirteen years and eight albums
into a career that has found him flourishing in a fertile, uncategorizable
and wholly original territory between rock and country and folk and blues.
Now, he figures, the time is right for Lyle Lovett Live in Texas,
the first document of one of the most exhilarating concert experiences
in pop music, "If somebody has never seen a Large Band show, I want
this album to give them an accurate sense of one," says Lovett. "And
if they have seen one, I want them to think, yeah that’s what it’s
like."
For more than a decade now,
Lyle Lovett and his Large Band have defied convention, resisted any kind
of pigeonholing and delighted both audiences and critics. They play country
songs about long-winded preachers, lullabies to penguins. The songs are
Lovett’s, but the band – more than a dozen musicians, including
a horn section and a vocal group – regularly push those songs past
their original versions. "No matter how happy you are with a studio
track, playing live always changes the song," says Lovett. "One
of the reasons this project was so gratifying to me is because these performances
feel more familiar to me than the studio versions of the songs. This is
a document of what we’ve been doing, and what has happened to these
songs."
Not every Lovett show has
included the Large Band: after first introducing the group in 1988, Lyle
has periodically assembled the musicians for special tours, in between
outings with smaller groups. For the 1995 Austin and San Antonio shows
compiled into Live in Texas, though, the Large Band was seventeen strong.
The musicians include keyboardist Matt Rollings, guitarist Ray Herndon,
percussionist James Gilmer and cellist John Hagen, all of who have been
playing with Lovett since his first album. Bassist Viktor Krauss, and
drummer Dan Tomlinson have been mainstays in Lovett’s band for years
as well. The horn section is made up of Harvey Thompson, Charles Rose,
Steve Marsh and Vinny Ciesileski; vocals are provided by the stellar quartet
of Willie Green, Sweet Pea Atkinson, Harry Bowens and Arnold McCuller,
along with special guest Francine Reed, with whom Lovett has performed
for fifteen years.
"There’s real continuity
with people in the band, and with the people I have around me in the studio," says Lovett, who has worked with producer Billy Williams on every one
of his albums. " These guys all have careers of their own, and I’m
just lucky that they’ve agreed to play with me for all this time.
It means a lot to me to have the continuity over the years."
The fourteen songs on Live
in Texas, chosen from more than sixty different songs taped during
the Texas shows, span and aptly summarize Lovett’s entire career.
That career began when Lyle was still in his teens, when he began playing
the songs of his favorite Texas singer-songwriters in clubs in Houston
and later Austin, where he studied journalism at Texas A&M University.
In Austin, Lovett began to hang out with other young songwriters, among
them Eric Taylor, Nanci Griffith and Vince Bell. He headed for Nashville
in 1984, armed with a demo tape. It included such songs as "Closing
Time" (performed on Live Texas). His plan was to drum up interests
from publishing companies and other singers; instead, with the help of
boosters like legendary Texas Songwriter Guy Clark he got a record deal
with Curb/MCA, and put out his first album, Lyle Lovett, in 1986.
On the heels of its follow-up,
Pontiac, Lovett first assembled a smaller version of his Large
Band. Their shows opened with what he terms "the nonsensical non
sequiturs" of "Here I Am," and included blues-based material
like "She’s No Lady" and "M-O-N-E-Y" alongside
the country influenced "If I Had A Boat", whose irrevent treatment
of such icons as the Lone Ranger won Lovett rare reviews and a few pieces
of hate mail. (One letter promised him "an old-fashioned Alabama
ass-whipping" if he showed his face in that state.) In 1989 Lovett
gave his new group top billing on this third album, Lyle Lovett and
His Large Band, whose songs included "Nobody Know Me" ("a
cheating song about Mexican food," he explains on Live in Texas)
and "What Do You Do," a "schizophrenic conversation" refashioned into a duet with singer Francine Reed. 1992’s Joshua
Judges Ruth contained such showstoppers as "I’ve Been to
Memphis." "Church" and the lovely "North Dakota," which included vocals by Richie Lee Jones. Lovett’s fifth album I Love Everybody (1994), was full of odd little songs he’d written
earlier in his career, among them the percussive "Penguins";
his sixth, 1996’s The Road to Ensenada, was one of his strongest
and most acclaimed collections, with a rousing Texas-swing number in "That’s
Right (You’re Not From Texas)," a song he tested on the road
for a couple of years before recording it. Step Inside This House was a two-disc set that paid tribute to the songwriters whose work inspired
his own.
Lyle Lovett and His Large
Band Live in Texas surveys his entire career, and throws in moments
that Lovett’s fans have only experienced if they’ve seen him
in concert, from John Hagen’s extended cello solo in "You Can’t
Resist It" to Francine Reed’s searing take on the blues song
"Wild Women Don’t Get the Blues." "Every time I stand
onstage with the Large Band, it feels new to me," Lyle says. "I
guess I still think of myself as a guy with his guitar – and getting
to be up there with all those musicians, with singers and the horn section,
it’s always a thrill to me. Every time I do it, it feels like a special
occasion."
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