Touring Lovett strikes balance between familiar and new
New albums are a blessing and a curse for the touring musician and his fans.
In the case of Lyle Lovett and His Large Band, his most recent release is 4 years old and represents the end of a decades-spanning record contract. Which is to say he had nothing to plug Wednesday night at the Hobby Center except for Lyle Lovett and His Large Band. That doesn’t mean stakes were low. With the recorded music business having cratered, an artist like Lovett has to make a particular case for the converted to stay that way — which means finding that delicate balance between familiar and new.
Having seen Lovett and his not-big band numerous times over the 30 years since he released “Lyle Lovett,” I hadn’t seen a show comparable to the one he’s doing now. The between-song patter was frequently funny with a decidedly Houstoncentric bent, thanks to his youth in Klein and early years performing here. That looseness balanced a haunting and beautiful cycle-of-life thing, too. Lovett’s voice and his accompanists — particularly cellist John Hagan and pianist Matt Rollings — are well suited for somber. So the spare “North Dakota” was a standout as always, and it worked beautifully in close proximity to a twosong tribute to his friend and mentor Guy Clark, who died in May. “Step Inside This House” was the first song Clark wrote, but he never recorded it. Nearly 20 years ago, Lovett made an album of his favorite songs by other writers and built it around that song.
Lovett is quick to cite Clark’s influence on him, but hearing the song live just underscored how dutiful the student was: Clark often referenced old friends by name in songs (including “Step Inside”), a little trick Lovett would later use in his own songs. And the mix Clark could strike between poignancy and punchline is perfectly delicate:
Here’s a book of poems I got
From a girl I used to know
I guess I read it front to back Fifty times or so It’s all about the good life And staying at ease with the world
It’s funny how I love that book
But I never loved that girl.
Lovett also worked up “Anyhow, I Love You,” one of Clark’s sweetest songs, even if it comes by its sweetness through bad times. And he recalled Clark at one of the first shows in the Hobby Center’s Sarofim Hall, smoking on stage despite copious signs urging him not to. The band also touched on Clark when fiddler Luke Bulla took the lead on “Temperence Reel,” an old fiddle tune with lyrics Bulla worked up in collaboration with Clark.
If Clark’s spirit represented the end of something, Lovett’s choice to include a local choir at each tour stop has been more about rebirth. Gospel influence has been in his music since go, but never before has Lovett unfolded it with such dedicated commitment as on this tour with his funny original, “Church,” of course, but also the rousing “I’m a Soldier in the Army of the Lord” and “Pass Me Not, O Savior.” A version of the timeless “I’ll Fly Away” that he originally worked up for his high school principal’s funeral was breathtaking.
The simple statement would be that Lovett has a gospel album in him, as so many country singers do. That said, Lovett has never done what many country singers do, so maybe he’ll go forth with the next phase of his career — a fairly blank slate right now — as he’s done before, mixing country and jazz and folk and blues with gospel. He proved mixing the proportions in the live show is a way to keep it large.