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Country comforts
Lyle Lovett gets a little closer to Nashville
BY CHRISTOPHER BLAGG

Lyle Lovett fans have been waiting seven years for the idiosyncratic Texan to release an album of original songs. Which is not to say that Lovett’s been sitting idly by or suffering from writer’s block. His new My Baby Don’t Tolerate (Lost Highway) is his sixth release in seven years. Since 1996’s The Road to Ensenada, he’s delivered an all-covers album, a live album, a soundtrack, a collection of early material, and an anthology of movie songs. Still, it’s his distinctive songwriting that’s gained him a widespread cult audience. And that’s why the arrival of My Baby Don’t Tolerate and the supporting tour that hits the Orpheum this Sunday is a big deal among Lovett fans.

In the past, Lovett has always been a little too peculiar for Nashville. With My Baby Don’t Tolerate, he comes closer then ever before to the heart of Nashville’s country. Still, he denies aiming for a particular sound: "The songs that I picked for this record just sort of happened to shape up that way." What’s shaping up here is a lighthearted mood that adds to the CD’s contemporary country feel. The grave and mournful "You Were Always There" aside, the disc moves along to a buoyant beat. Lovett focuses on the simple pleasures of rural life, especially those involving cars and trucks, as in "Wallisville Road" and "Cute As a Bug." But don’t think the Texas troubadour has gotten lazy with all the road clichés — in the middle of his four-wheel-drive anthem "The Truck Song," he throws in a verse about meeting filmmaker Wim Wenders in London. It’s this kind of eccentricity that distinguishes him from the Alan Jacksons and Toby Keiths of Nashville, guys who’d be hard-pressed to identify the famed director, let alone name-check him in a song.

Lovett’s distinctive dark humor hasn’t gone underground entirely. The pill-popping, Coupe de Ville–driving family described in the old-time swing of "On Saturday Night" fit right in alongside the one-eyed Cajun queens and corpse-hiding nephews of previous albums. Lovett insists, "I don’t try to be quirky or offbeat. I just go out and try to be myself. Those are adjectives that have been applied to me. But to engage in thinking about what people write about you is a real waste of time, in my book."

And though country-music idioms dominate the new CD, the genre surfing that’s been Lovett’s trademark remains. The title track is a slow-cooking electric blues describing an Andy Capp domestic situation where Lovett sings, "When I puckered up, you know she puckered down." He visits Western swing on the dance-floor burner "San Antonio Girl" and R&B on the rolling "Big Dog," but it’s the two closing gospel tracks that offer the greatest stylistic foil. "I’m Going To Wait" and "I’m Going to the Place" are straight-up holy-rolling shouters complete with hand-smacking choir, boogie piano, and tongue-speaking fervor. Lovett may have grown up singing in a choir, but this, he explains, "is the kind of gospel music that we never got to sing in the Lutheran church, and I think that’s one of the reasons why I like it so much."

He also shines a light on obscure Austin songwriter Blaze Foley with a cover of "Election Day." The song is a cynical shuffle on corrupt politicians, but he says the decision to record it was not prompted by a fellow Texan’s blunderings in the Oval Office. "I would be horrified at the thought of trying to mix politics with music. I think music is far too virtuous a pursuit to dirty it with politics."

Lovett has never been comfortable with country or pop labels. His heroes are the relatively unsung ones: Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Blaze Foley. His mentors never toured with a large swing band or starred in Robert Altman movies, but, he explains, they do have one thing in common: "If you’re looking for a quality among the Texas singer-songwriters that unifies them as a group, it’s that people from Texas aren’t afraid to be who they are, and can’t help but be anything than who they are." So if My Baby Don’t Tolerate sounds more polished and accessible than anything he’s done in the past, it’s because Lyle Lovett wanted it that way.

Lyle Lovett performs this Sunday, November 9, at the Orpheum Theatre, 1 Hamilton Place; call (617) 931-2000.


Issue Date: November 7 - 13, 2003
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