On Lyle Lovett at City Winery
Lyle Lovett & His Large Band play City Winery through August 5th. Tickets here.
BY JOEY SWEENEY | Lyle Lovett is on the stage for the first of four nights here in Philly at City Winery, and about halfway through a whole set piece of banter, asking all 14 bandmates if they ever had a nickname, he casually drops this little story: Upon the release of his first album, Waylon Jennings called up Lyle Lovett, and invited him to his office.
It’s wild to think that Waylon had an office. What was Lyle’s visit like? Did Waylon see in Lyle what he saw in Willie, that here would be a Cole Porter of country? Did Lyle learn the secret of all songs? Evidence tonight, with Lyle and the broad membership of His Large Band, suggests that he did, and in the process, also unlocked American music as a whole and then made it open source, the way it was meant to be.
That’s what’s on display here; this is music for anyone. I’m talking about general music appreciation-level music, like Louis Armstrong or Sam Cooke — if you can’t love this, you must be some kind of monster.
A lot of what the Large Band does is all about allowing the refrain to create a comfort. It’s a Kirtan, the ancient thing that George Harrison shares with “The Doo-Ron-Ron” that they both share with “Brick by brick, wall by wall, free Mumia Abu-Jamal.” It’s the public refrain that’s also therapy. Add into this mix the fact that half of the set centers around pieces that are arranged in a call and response style. In a band this big, you can have one solo answer another unto infinity.
The range of the band is incredible — a bluegrass fiddler, three gospel singers, a horn section of classical caliber who also happen to be the Muscle Shoals Horns, a legendary Nashville pedal steel player, and by the way, the rhythm section is Leland Sklar and Russ Kunkel, the California bass and drum duo who’ve powered more records than you have in your whole collection. (Look at this Wikipedia page. Look at it.)
This is the sum of the parts, but also it is, of course, more. This group of men of a certain age are having a real good time. And the vehicle is 40-plus years of Lyle Lovett material, and voice — his wry embrace around the lyric. He holds bitterness and humor in the same hand, and tonight he performed a few songs that do this handily, “My Baby Don’t Tolerate” being one of the crucial ones. He also performed “Straighten Up and Fly Right,” the The Nat King Cole Trio cover he did for Frank Marshall’s Dear God. The spell he’s casting is a kind of classically comforting rom-com America, and tonight, he made City Winery feel like Hilton bar in an everlasting remake of When Harry Met Sally, and every night, it’s starring you.
How can you accept this at face value in these times?, you might rightly ask. Because it was beautiful. It was incredible. Our faces hurt from smiling. It was like walking into an Applebee’s and seeing a bona fide naked American miracle.
