portrait of this blog's author - by Stephen Blackman 2008

Saturday, March 02, 2019

LYLE LOVETT


To make my weekend the wondrous Midnight Cafe has posted an early Lyle Lovett set from the intimate setting of Anderson Fair out in Houston Texas back in 1986. Now I LOVE Lyle Lovett and think his extraordinary story telling has a kind of magic realism that you don't expect from Country music. Who else could write a song about riding a pony on a yacht? Wearing a Cowboy hat so big a couple might dance around the brim and fall in!? No, me neither . . . . . . I bought his debut album when it came out in 1986 and he has been a joy to follow ever since. I first came across him on a recording (VHS - ask your grandparents) of a concert set of the equally wonderful John Prine and his electric full band who took a break to introduce a 'new singer' songwriter and let him have some nine songs mid set. Who does THAT? It was Lyle and his cellist who he has used, or collaborated with rather, for years, John Hagen, the both of whom took my breath away!  This is some months after his first album release 



There is some dispute over song titles and I have done my best to correct the queries thought to be honest they are p[retty clear by now (maybe they weren't so much at the time?)


If I Had a Boat
Cowboy Man
If I Were the Man You Wanted
She's No Lady
God Will
This Old Porch
Why I Don't Know
Farther Down the Line
What Do You Do / The Glory of Love
An Acceptable Level of Ecstasy (The Wedding Song)
Once Is Enough
Give Back My Heart

Black and Blue
White Boy Lost in the Blues
I've Been to Memphis
Memphis Midnight/Memphis Morning
Brown Eyed Handsome Man (Chuck Berry cover)
Cryin' Shame
Dress of Laces
Walk Through the Bottomland
Isn't That So (Jesse Winchester cover)

Encore:
Closing Time


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