Talking about his life makes him uncomfortable, and even playing live doesn’t come easy, but that hasn’t stopped Lyle Lovett from becoming one of the most respected singers around
YOU’D WONDER about Lyle Lovett these days. Not in terms of the global recession – Lovett lives on an ancestral property located in the town of Klein, Harris County (outside Houston, Texas), that was founded by his great-great-grandfather, so we feel he knows where his next dinner is coming from and at precisely what time – but rather in the context of how someone so expressive and eloquent in song can be so, well, hesitant in person and in speech.
Imagine all the quotes from Lyle you will subsequently read in this article to be preceded by a series of himming, humming and borderline hemming, and you’ll get a hint of what it’s like to get from him a reasonable answer to a reasonable question. If he wasn’t such a reasonable guy – he’s decently apologetic about his stop-start demeanour – talking to him would be an exercise in frustration if not futility.
“I guess I’m not a naturally outgoing person – it’s as simple as that,” he states following yet another “I don’t know” to a question.
“I’m not good in front of people.”
For the moment, Lovett is nowhere close to an audience of strangers. Klein, Harris County, is a place to rest a head of unruly hair following three weeks on tour; the sole thing he dislikes about touring, he says, is the nightly trip back to the hotel.
“I wish I could get back home every night after the show – I’d love if there was some way to magically transport me from the venue to my bed at home.”
Born in Klein in 1957, Lovett was quick to gravitate towards the singer-songwriter scene coming out of various parts of Texas. In his teens, he would have been exposed to the likes of Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, the kind of singers and songwriters that would have been regular if not staple visitors to the state’s numerous folk clubs. Writing songs and performing them on stage came later – in his late teens and early 20s.
Following graduation from Texas AM University, he travelled to Phoenix to make a demo tape; playing the results to Guy Clark was the kick-start his career needed, yet it wasn’t until 1986 – when Lovett was approaching his 30s – that his self-titled debut album was released.
“I was 28 when that happened, it’s true, but I had been playing in clubs since I was 18 and, you know, it took me that long to find my way into learning about the business. I made my first trip to Nashville when I was about 26, and I had gotten to the point where I was playing the same circuit of, thankfully, really good singer-songwriter clubs in Texas. I’d make the rounds every few months, playing the same clubs, so in or around 1984 I realised that if I were to make something of myself – to figure out what I was going to do with my life – I needed to learn about the business.
“Nashville, as I’m sure most people know, is a place where the business is interested in songs, and by this stage I had a group of songs under my belt, so I went there with the idea of trying to learn how publishing worked, and to see if there was any interest in other people recording my songs. My thought was that if I can get a publishing deal and make singers interested in my songs, then I could press up my own albums and sell them at my shows, and to keep playing the singer-songwriter clubs.”
So far, so humble. What did not occur to Lyle Lovett was that the interest from Nashville would be so strong that record companies would offer him contracts, which in turn would mean touring and meeting audiences face-to-face. Cue big-time hesitation from Mr Will-I-Won’t-I.
“I never thought of myself as a real performer. I’m drawn to performers who are almost anti-performers, the type of people who don’t do the required showbiz stuff, who don’t engage in the usual stage-show moves – the type of people, I suppose, who look as if they’d rather be anywhere else than on stage, but who also have something to say in their music.
“That was always my focus – to try to write songs that would be worth listening to. So I never thought of myself as having the ability to be a performer, and I never thought that what I was doing as a performer would translate to a wider audience.”
That this has happened is something that has continually surprised Lovett. He bows gracefully to the whims of fate.
“It’s not as if a switch was flicked,” he remarks, perhaps keen to offset any accusations of career strategies. “The thing that is remarkable to me is that I never changed my approach to what I was doing.”
ASK HIM OF HIS songwriting process or how to define his characteristics as a songwriter, and he will once again respond with a blank stare or a silence lasting more than several seconds. The dry-humored, dark-witted songwriter who looks as if David Lynch dreamed him up doesn’t take the self-analytical route.
“When I say I don’t know, it’s that the answer is more for someone else to give. My points of view within songs are all mixed up – first person, third person, observer. All I ever try to do is to write something that makes sense and, as I’ve said, that I hope someone will want to listen to. Okay, so that has proven to be the case over the years, but one should never be over-confident. Any songwriter should just try to do good work and hope for the best.
“Any time that you can do something in your life that you love to do, and if you’re lucky enough to make a living from it, then it’s a privilege. Defining success for me is the ability to continue doing what I love to do, and so it’s always about the doing of it.”
We can’t take our leave of Lovett without mentioning movies, work in which he is quick to state is more sideline than integral. It all started, he relates, when the movie director Robert Altman asked him to appear in some of his movies after he saw one of Lovett’s shows.
“It’s something I’ve never really pursued in the manner that I have pursued music, but that said, it’s a very enjoyable thing every time I’ve done it. Music is what I’m supposed to do, though, and besides – I don’t know if I have any real potential as an actor, other than having a creative, adventurous streak.
“The films are so collaborative, and the people involved are all so accomplished and creative. Getting to act in a film is so much different than putting a recording project together or touring. Those areas I tend to be involved in quite a lot, but in movies I am, in effect, one of the guys in the band – I show up and do my part.”
Before you start to ponder upon such matters, no, Lovett has no idea what Altman saw in him that led to parts in four of Altman’s movies: 1992’s The Player (where he co-starred with Julia Roberts, whom he married and divorced within the space of two years), 1993’s Short Cuts, 1994’s Prêt-à-Porter and 1999’s Cookie’s Fortune. What Lovett is certain about is that he loved being part of Altman’s work.
“He was a generous, wonderful teacher,” he recalls. “After working with him, I worked with other directors, and it was a very different atmosphere. Altman created a family atmosphere, where everyone was encouraged to be involved.
“To me, that was a real lesson in how to be open as much as possible to everyone’s input.”
Lyle Lovett performs at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre on March 31st.
