The time I watched Lyle Lovett with Penn & Teller at a Letterman taping and I managed not to walk out with PTSD.
On Further Review: Lyle Lovett - 12th of June
As usual, the Texan master maintains his strong identification with home, but he appears to have reached a point where he’s looking back more than breaking new ground — read my review here.
When I sat down to write review the new Lyle Lovett album, I suddenly remembered that I saw Lovett in person once, at a taping of Late Night with David Letterman in June of 1993, during the last week of shows Letterman did for NBC before his move to CBS. I wasn’t familiar with Lovett’s music before the taping, though I did recognize him. For one, I’d seen him act opposite Whoopi Goldberg in Robert Altman’s film The Player a year earlier. And Lovett was already something of a household name (more like a household face) by then.
At the taping, which also featured Penn & Teller, I was immediately struck by Lovett’s gravitas. He had a reserve about him that felt heavy (magnetic, too) and yet it was undercut by a sharp, almost self-effacing sense of humor. I was similarly struck by the contrast between the exactitude/economy of the music and its casual demeanor. I don’t think I’ve come across another artist with such a dichotomous presence and sound. His music feels both completely natural and utterly precise, with an attention to detail that somehow doesn’t detract from its heart, soul or humor.
Lovett creates a warm, inviting mood that’s also very buttoned-up, not unlike being in the presence of someone who carries themselves as if they expect everyone to be on best behavior — maybe a pastor or teacher or grandparent who isn’t quite stern or unapproachable, but you don’t exactly feel inclined to go wild around them or test their boundaries either. Reflecting on his career, it hit me how unlikely it was for someone like him to become such a visible figure, both as a musician and a leading man.
Of course, his songwriting chops have gone a long way to propel his status, but we’re talking about a person who’s never hit mainstream paydirt in terms of sales. He also cultivated a persona by refusing to exaggerate himself onstage. Here he is talking last year about how Willis Alan Ramsey influenced him in that regard:
The steely, polite restraint might be something of an affection unto itself, but I could imagine record execs wondering “Does this quirky guy have the it-factor to be a star?” Evidently, he does. I mean, this is someone who on the one hand was married to superstar actress Julia Roberts and on the other hand still lives in the same house he grew up in — a house his grandfather built in 1911. He’s always stayed rooted to his homebase, far from Nashville or Hollywood, even though he’s done tons of work in both places.
I wasn’t able to wedge this into the review, but Lovett has always nurtured his roots when it comes to his sense of place in music as well, paying tribute to Texan forebears like Townes Van Zandt, Eric Taylor and Vince Bell on his 2009 album Natural Forces. Lovett holds Van Zandt and fellow Texan Guy Clark in such high esteem that he called them “a huge influence on anybody that picks up a guitar and tries to write a song” in this 2010 interview:
As much as he can say that he owes his predecessors a debt of gratitude, though, we’ve got to acknowledge that Lovett broke the mold. I mean, is there anybody quite like him?
Here’s one of the more whimsical tunes on the new album:
(Light bulb: I need to write a retrospective piece on The Player, since that film just turned 30 last month.)
At the Letterman taping, the iconic magician duo Penn & Teller performed a trick that was as OMG, how the f___ did they do that!-baffling as it was gross in a make-your-skin-crawl kind of way. The clip, which won’t embed here, is subtitled “(Don’t watch if you’re eating.)” It’s totally worth watching, even if you are squeamish — and I say that as someone who has an intense phobia of one of the props they used in the trick. I don’t remember being freaked out at the time, so I must’ve been at a safe enough distance for my awe to take precedence. Had I been as close as Letterman, there’s no doubt I would’ve walked out of there with PTSD.
But boy, watching Penn & Teller with Lyle Lovett was one hell of a one-two punch! Even it was just a few minutes apiece…
Here’s a clip of Penn Jillette telling the story behind their Letterman appearance before the one I saw. Priceless. (I’d recommend watching the clip linked above first.)
<3 SRK