Lyle Lovett is a lot of things – singer, songwriter, actor – but one thing he’s not is complicated. He keeps it simple and real and captures it with melody.
The best songwriters write from experience – Lovett is no exception. But he takes his muse from the ordinary and makes it something special. When you wrap a gorgeous melody around lyrics like “I like cream in my coffee…I hate to be alone on Sunday,” it doesn’t take much to tap the heart of the listener and keep them warm for several minutes.
Lovett is a charismatic storyteller with and without music. He delivers his dry wit with a shy boyish rhythm which makes you want to grab a cold beer and hang out with him. And that’s what a capacity crowd did Thursday night, Oct. 16, at the John S. and James L. Knight Center (sans the cold beer) launching the Adrienne Arsht Center’s 2014-2015 Live at Knight series.
“What a beautiful hall – it’s almost too nice to play in,” Lovett mused on being inside the Knight Center, recalling how he played the Metro Zoo last time he was in Miami in 1986. “You could go bowling right here,” he continued.
Lovett’s low key banter was the connective tissue between his tunes. When he took the stage, he told the audience, “I’m the guy who sits next to you and reads the newspaper over your shoulder,” breaking into the steamy “Here I Am” – a bluesy come-on tune. Lovett’s voice was raw and sexy, squeezing out the lyrics between blues loaded refrains.
The native Texan with four Grammys and 14 albums under his belt has country, swing, rock, jazz, folk, gospel, blues and bluegrass running through his veins and out his fingertips. He easily moves from hot and sassy to quiet introspection with ‘been there’ color and honesty.
His Acoustic Group more resembled a string quartet than a country-fied pop-slingin’ band. All decked out in black suits and ties, Lyle Lovett (vocals and guitar), Luke Bulla (vocals and fiddle), John Hagen (cello), Keith Sewell (vocals, mandolin and guitar), Viktor Krauss (upright bass), and Russ Kunkel (drums), displayed considerable chops in their solos and as a well-oiled ensemble.
Bulla and Sewell adeptly traded fiddle and mandolin licks on “Garfield’s Blackberry Blossom” and the group went full tilt with the crowd pleasing “She’s No Lady” (She’s my wife), each player enthusiastically tossing around the bluesy groove. Lovett mentioned that they recently performed in Alaska (though they “did not play any zoos there”) and launched into the swinging bebopping “That’s Right (You’re Not From Texas),” jacking up the crowd.
Russ Kunkel, handling the many paces so perfectly as he has done for decades for the likes of Bob Dylan, James Taylor, Neil Young, Stevie Nicks, Carole King, Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt, was classically hard driving on the rockin’ blues tune “My Baby Don’t Tolerate.”
Each time one of his band mates took a solo, Lovett watched them with respect.
Contrasting stylings were abundant throughout the evening. The soulful ballad “I Will Rise Up” with droning verses and punctuating harmonies was at the other end of the spectrum from the coordinated movements of the band with the funkified “Penguins.”
As you might expect from a boy from Texas, religion plays a part. What you won’t expect is how that boy spins it. Lovett moves from the irreverent waltz “God Will,” illuminating the difference between how God and Lyle forgive the bad stuff, to “Church,” mixing a raising-the-roof gospel tune with preaching and eating, the Acoustic Group again lighting up the room.
There were the boy meets girl story tunes – the chart topping “Cowboy Man” and the talking blues of “Give Back My Heart” – the spoken rhythms of the latter tune rolling into the contagious foot stomping melody.
As a balladeer, there’s hardly any better than Lovett. The specter of love embedded in the text of “North Dakota” turned hypnotic through Lovett’s haunting voice fringed with Kunkel’s subtle percussion.
One of my faves, “If I Had a Boat,” containing one of those lyrics that jump right out of the song and wrap around your brain — “But Tonto he was smarter and one day said Kemo sabe, ‘Kiss my ass, I bought a boat, and I'm going out to sea.’" – brought applause from the crowd as Lovett beautifully spun the mysterious tune of freedom and independence.
For my money, the best tune of show was “Nobody Knows Me,” Lovett convincingly moving from head to heart with this acoustic ballad. There seemed little doubt that Lovett was feeling it when he sang, “And I like eggs over easy - With flour tortillas…And nobody holds me - And nobody knows me - Nobody knows me like my baby,” Hagen’s cello sweetly underscoring Lovett’s acoustic guitar and heartbreaking vocals.
Lyle won the audience over easy.
