Few artists are able to cross musical boundaries as adroitly and seamless as Lyle Lovett. Rising above musical genre’s, he is one of the best deliverers of what used to be called “Americana”, rooted in blues, swing and American folk, pleasing and satisfying ears from both sides of the tracks.
His voice is perfectly suited for this rootsy swing, sounding like some guy you just picked up hitch-hiking on highway 10 (or maybe the trucker that’s picking you up!). The band is vintage VFW or Moose Lodge, consisting of Russell Kunkel/dr, Viktor Krauss/b, Jim Cox/p-org, Dean Parks-Ray Herndon/eg, Paul Franklin/stg, Stuart Duncan/fi, Sam Bush/mand and a horn section of Mace Hibbard/ts-cl, Brad Leali/as, Steve Herrman/tp and Charles Rose/tb with Lovett on the acoustic guitar.
The music ranges from bopping material with piano work by Cox and Rollings on a hip “Cookin’ At The Continental” with Rose sliding safely into second. Lovett sounds right at home at the juke jointing funky blues of “Pants Is Overrated” while swinging easy with Francine Reed on a mix of trio and big band on “Straighten Up and Fly Right” with the two slithering with Hibbard on “Gee, Baby, Ain’t I Good To You”. Going to the more rural side of town, Lovett waltzes on the folksy “Her Loving Man” is rural on the haunting “Pig Meat Man” with harrowing atmosphere supplied by Cox, and tells a nice story around the steel guitar on “The Mocking Ones”. A musical N.C. Wyeth painting.