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Volume 114, Number 351 - Thursday, November 12, 1998
"Step Inside This House" superb warmup for local Lovett concert
by John Friedlander
Texas 39, Memphis 5, Arkansas and Los Angeles 1 each, Connecticut 0.
That's right, our nutmeg state gets no mentions on Lyle Lovett's September MCA CD release "Step Inside This House."
My advice: get over it.
In the words of Sigmund Freud, "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." But in the works of Lyle Lovett, Texas is never just Texas, and rodeo isn't just a horsey story.
Grammy award-winner Lovett's masterful new double-disc collection of twenty one songs by the Texas-based songwriters Lovett grew up listening to is full of the wide-open spaces and stark poetry of real life in the great dusty bottomland of the American soul. But calling this a work about Texas would fall wide of the mark. More than half of the songs reference only a state of mind, heartfelt landscapes more situation than location.
Lovett's usual broad range of song stylings is held together by his own spare acoustic guitar fingerpicking, and a rich but plaintive voice you wouldn't expect from a man as craggy as he. Longtime collaborator Billy Williams helps to orchestrate each tune in their characteristically understated, yet devastatingly powerful style. Lovett is also joined by many of his longtime bandmates and a few hired guns, notably Dobro and Weissenborn guitar master Jerry Douglas, whose ornamentation adds graceful atmosphere and pathos to many cuts. Listen also for contributions from pianist Matt Rollings, cellist John Hagen, and harmony vocals by Alison Krauss.
But even stronger than the performances are the songs themselves. With a who's who corral of writers that showcases an eclectic history of the last thirty-something years of American folks music, Lovett has chosen the songs he might sing if a guitar landed in his hands at a party. And what a party Lyle has cooked up: a never-before recorded title track by Guy Clark, four songs each by Townes Van Zandt, Steven Fromholz and Walter Hyatt, songs by Robert Earl Keen, David Rodriguez, Eric Taylor, Willis Alan Ramsey, Vince Bell with Craig Calvert, and Michael Martin Murphey with Boomer Castleman plus two traditional songs to round out the authentic down-home ambiance.
If you've pigeon-holed Lovett as a country performer, don't let an aversion to corn keep you from his music, especially this disc. From the near bluegrass swing of Hyatt's "Teach Me About Love," to the dark and dangerous desperation of Van Zandt's "Lungs," through the sweetness of Clark's title track to the ethereal power of Taylor's "Memphis Midnight/Memphis Morning," there's non-stop real music for serious appreciation here.
As a state, Texas is far more arrogant than size alone can justify, but the quality of songwriting, performance and production in this release is reason enough to politely ignore this hubris. "Step Inside This House" will stay in my CD bag for a long ride on any range.
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Though I wrote this column, the Middletown Press owns it now, including the copyright associated with it. The column appears here by permission, and no other publication is allowed without express permission from the publisher.