Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Lyle Lovett

Transcript

Lyle Lovett · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, it's justin Richmond. Today on the show we
0:22
Speaker 1: have Grammy Award winning singer songwriter Lyle love It. Love
0:27
Speaker 1: It follows in the footsteps of Texas troubadours like Gary Clark,
0:31
Speaker 1: Walter Hyatt, and my personal favorite textan of all time,
0:34
Speaker 1: towns Van Zandt. In nineteen eighty six, he laid the
0:38
Speaker 1: foundation for alternative country in Americana movements with his debut
0:42
Speaker 1: self titled album. The album shot up to number fourteen
0:45
Speaker 1: on the Billboard Country Charts, and the rest, as they say,
0:48
Speaker 1: is history. Since that time, Love It has continued to
0:52
Speaker 1: light up country music with a rich blend of country,
0:55
Speaker 1: big band, blues, folk, and jazz. All of those sounds
0:59
Speaker 1: are on display in twelfth of June, his first new
1:02
Speaker 1: album in a decade. On today's episode, Lovett speaks to
1:07
Speaker 1: Bruce Headlam about his new album, a project rooted in
1:10
Speaker 1: home and family, which makes sense considering his role as
1:14
Speaker 1: a newly minted dad to twins at sixty four. Love
1:18
Speaker 1: It also shares stories of his early days playing gigs
1:20
Speaker 1: around Texas A and M University. This is broken record,
1:28
Speaker 1: Liner notes for the digital age. I'm just a mission.
1:31
Speaker 1: Here's Bruce Headlam with Lyle Love It. You have a
1:35
Speaker 1: new album. You're first in ten years. It would have
1:38
Speaker 1: been eight years had it not been for the pandemic,
1:41
Speaker 1: but that was the idea. We cut tracks in November
1:43
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen with the idea of finishing in March, maybe
1:48
Speaker 1: into April of twenty twenty. I did a tour from
1:51
Speaker 1: the end of January into the seventh of March. Seventh
1:53
Speaker 1: of March was the last live date I played on
1:57
Speaker 1: that tour. It was the last live date I played
1:59
Speaker 1: until after The Serious Isolation. You've always had a heavy
2:02
Speaker 1: tour schedule. I assume that means you like touring. What
2:06
Speaker 1: was it like to just be forced off the road.
2:09
Speaker 1: It was, you know, anxious, and it was fraught with
2:13
Speaker 1: worry and figuring things out constantly. But the flip side
2:17
Speaker 1: of that was being home. I hadn't been at home
2:20
Speaker 1: that much, you know, since since I started, and I
2:24
Speaker 1: really enjoyed that, you know. I like getting to be
2:28
Speaker 1: in the room with smart and talented people, and I've
2:32
Speaker 1: been fortunate to be blessed in that way my whole
2:35
Speaker 1: life and my career. And I get to work with
2:37
Speaker 1: some of the best and most known musicians in the world,
2:42
Speaker 1: and that's uplifting and inspiring. I missed my association with
2:48
Speaker 1: my friends, but I love being home. Now. Are you
2:51
Speaker 1: the kind of writer who needs to write every day?
2:54
Speaker 1: I wish I were the kind of writer that needed
2:57
Speaker 1: to write every day, or that could write every day.
2:59
Speaker 1: I lack the skills to approach it as a craft.
3:02
Speaker 1: I think my songs come more from feelings than they
3:08
Speaker 1: do from thought, and so that's something I think about,
3:12
Speaker 1: that's something I work towards still. But writing for me
3:15
Speaker 1: is not a thought about kind of thing. It's more
3:17
Speaker 1: of an emotional reaction. So are you the kind that
3:21
Speaker 1: do you have a notebook with you all the time
3:24
Speaker 1: right now? No. When I was a boy, my parents
3:27
Speaker 1: both worked and I come home from school and have
3:32
Speaker 1: three or four hours by myself at home, and I
3:34
Speaker 1: would watch afternoon TV. And one of the shows that
3:36
Speaker 1: I would watch the afternoon was the old Mike Douglas Show.
3:39
Speaker 1: One time I saw Buck Owens on the Mike Douglas Show,
3:42
Speaker 1: and you know, years later I got to meet Buck.
3:44
Speaker 1: He was really sweet to me, really kind and funny,
3:47
Speaker 1: and reminded me of my uncle's. You know, I kind
3:49
Speaker 1: of get tease you and give you a hard time.
3:51
Speaker 1: Mike Douglas asked him that do you, well, how do
3:53
Speaker 1: you write songs? How do you And Buck said no,
3:57
Speaker 1: he said, I figure if it's good enough, I'll remember it.
4:00
Speaker 1: I just always thought of that, and so that's might
4:03
Speaker 1: see us anyway. I blame it on. But it surprises
4:06
Speaker 1: me when you say all your songs come out of feelings,
4:09
Speaker 1: because I think most people would think of you as
4:12
Speaker 1: a pretty cerebral song writer. There's a lot of wordplay,
4:16
Speaker 1: there's a lot of images. You know, if I had
4:18
Speaker 1: a boat, has that image of someone on a pony
4:22
Speaker 1: on a boat, which I think probably everybody who knows
4:25
Speaker 1: and loves that song keeps in their mind. It almost
4:27
Speaker 1: does a kind of Buster Keaton quality. I mean my
4:30
Speaker 1: songwriting process, yeah, it starts always with some sort of
4:34
Speaker 1: feeling and then thinking about how to express that and
4:37
Speaker 1: thinking about you know what am I trying to say here?
4:40
Speaker 1: I mean, it's always a puzzle and it's always a challenge.
4:43
Speaker 1: And I don't know how other writers approach writing any
4:45
Speaker 1: kind of writing, but I always feel as though I'm
4:50
Speaker 1: lost and just trying to find my way through the darkness.
4:54
Speaker 1: Having the complete idea is the hardest part, and then
4:59
Speaker 1: writing words to that idea is still hard for me,
5:03
Speaker 1: but it's easier once you have something to write too.
5:08
Speaker 1: And when you say right two, does that mean like
5:10
Speaker 1: an image or a turn of phrase, an image or
5:13
Speaker 1: just what you want the song to? Ultimately say? What
5:16
Speaker 1: am I trying to communicate? Music's impact on us as people,
5:21
Speaker 1: in my opinion, is an emotional impact. It makes you
5:24
Speaker 1: feel something. You can take in a work of music
5:29
Speaker 1: and not have to hit the pause button on your life.
5:32
Speaker 1: You know, to stand in front of a painting, you
5:34
Speaker 1: have to stand still and look at it. To go
5:37
Speaker 1: to a film, you sit in a dark theater and
5:40
Speaker 1: you watch a film. To read a book, you stay
5:43
Speaker 1: in one place and you read. You can fix supper,
5:48
Speaker 1: you can drive somewhere you know, you can carry on
5:51
Speaker 1: with your life and listen to music. And you can
5:54
Speaker 1: either listen to it intently as though it's a film,
5:58
Speaker 1: as though it's a play, as though it's a book,
6:01
Speaker 1: or you can have it be background music and it
6:03
Speaker 1: can still make you feel something. And the nicest compliment
6:09
Speaker 1: that I feel like I ever get paid it's when
6:13
Speaker 1: they say I remember exactly what I was doing the
6:16
Speaker 1: first time I heard that song for me. When my
6:20
Speaker 1: song reminds somebody of his own life, his or her
6:24
Speaker 1: own life, I feel like that's the most I can
6:29
Speaker 1: ask for. So, what were the feelings you're trying to
6:31
Speaker 1: capture going into this album? To answer your question the
6:35
Speaker 1: way you ask it would make it seem more deliberate
6:38
Speaker 1: than it is. I feel somehow compelled to write about
6:43
Speaker 1: my feelings just for myself, and I evaluate later if
6:49
Speaker 1: what I've made up could be a song in my
6:54
Speaker 1: show or a song I'm worth playing to somebody. And
6:57
Speaker 1: so in these last years, I mean, the thing that's
7:00
Speaker 1: been my life, the thing that's consumed my life gladly,
7:06
Speaker 1: has been wanting to have a family and then having
7:08
Speaker 1: a family. My original songs are about family, or are
7:14
Speaker 1: inspired by family and those kinds of close relationships that
7:21
Speaker 1: evolve over a person's life. These songs range from being
7:27
Speaker 1: in the moment, but also to looking back and talking
7:33
Speaker 1: about the shift in perspective, from being a eighteen year
7:37
Speaker 1: old kid trying to play a gig anywhere he could,
7:42
Speaker 1: to being a twenty eight year old recording act with
7:45
Speaker 1: his first album out, you know, to being sixty four
7:48
Speaker 1: years old and trying to be relevant in my own time,
7:54
Speaker 1: not trying to fit into what's going on currently, what's
7:59
Speaker 1: necessarily popular, but just trying to be accurate and trying
8:03
Speaker 1: to be where I am at this point in my life.
8:08
Speaker 1: You also look ahead in the song June the twelfth,
8:12
Speaker 1: which is your children's birthday. Is that right? It is? Yes, okay,
8:15
Speaker 1: looking ahead wondering how long you're going to be there.
8:19
Speaker 1: I never considered my age really or didn't think about
8:22
Speaker 1: it in the same way until they were born. I
8:25
Speaker 1: started doing the math. I thought, you know, gosh, I
8:28
Speaker 1: hope I can make it until they start school. I
8:31
Speaker 1: hope I make it until they graduate from eighth grade
8:34
Speaker 1: or high school. You know, if I can see him
8:36
Speaker 1: go to college, wouldn't that be wonderful? If I see
8:38
Speaker 1: I'm getting married, if I see them have children, wouldn't
8:41
Speaker 1: that would be miraculous? And so I started, you know,
8:44
Speaker 1: thinking in those terms. I don't know if the best
8:47
Speaker 1: description is there's songs about knowing you're out of love
8:50
Speaker 1: or just incompatibility or fate. You've got some beautiful songs
8:57
Speaker 1: in that vein on this album i'd like you to
8:59
Speaker 1: talk about. Which is the first is the mocking Ones?
9:02
Speaker 1: Thank you? Once again. It's a kind of an age
9:04
Speaker 1: perspective and that when you're younger, you imagine being close
9:12
Speaker 1: always to people you're close to, and it doesn't necessarily
9:18
Speaker 1: work out that way. I mean, you just don't stay
9:21
Speaker 1: close to everyone you'd like to stay close to you.
9:24
Speaker 1: So it's really a song about friendship, and it's a
9:26
Speaker 1: song about lives growing apart, and how you know when
9:31
Speaker 1: you might run into somebody that you knew from who
9:35
Speaker 1: was important to you from before, it affects you, that
9:41
Speaker 1: doesn't affect you. It's mixed, isn't it. In a way,
9:44
Speaker 1: it's a wonderful bringing of that time back immediately, and
9:53
Speaker 1: it also brings up a feeling of loss, and ultimately
9:59
Speaker 1: in that song resolves in hey, it's great to see you.
10:05
Speaker 1: Before we pause for a break, let's hear Lyle Lovett
10:08
Speaker 1: plays new song mocking Ones from the album twelfth of June.
10:14
Speaker 1: My old friend, you know you're good to see. How
10:22
Speaker 1: have missed the way you look at me? You bring
10:29
Speaker 1: a man of many memory of how things were and
10:38
Speaker 1: how they couldn't be because we never did see id
10:47
Speaker 1: eye STEI loved each other. God knows why. Now it's
11:00
Speaker 1: light aids in the western sky, all that chances esteem
11:10
Speaker 1: to pass us by. Nor I've always wished for you
11:17
Speaker 1: good luck. But as I rummaged to the rest and
11:26
Speaker 1: us to save myself, I said it and did us
11:37
Speaker 1: and thought of you and me no more. Oh we
11:46
Speaker 1: never did see add eye stew We love each other.
11:55
Speaker 1: God knows why. Naw, it's light's in the residence sky.
12:08
Speaker 1: Oh my chances steamed the beast less by, I said before,
12:18
Speaker 1: and now the long times come to wait, to get
12:25
Speaker 1: and still remember some the whole my heads above laughing
12:35
Speaker 1: ungs bawling from faces of the mocking ones. So, my
12:47
Speaker 1: old friend, you know you could disease. You bring a
12:56
Speaker 1: man such lovely memories. Oh, I missed the way you
13:05
Speaker 1: look at me. We're back with Bruce Hellam's conversation with
13:35
Speaker 1: Lyle love It. You mentioned growing up coming home, your
13:40
Speaker 1: parents both working. Was their music in your house? Growing up?
13:43
Speaker 1: My parents subscribe to the Old Columbia Record Club and
13:47
Speaker 1: they get a new album every month, and they were
13:49
Speaker 1: really nice about letting me play their records when they
13:52
Speaker 1: were away from home, and I was very particular about
13:55
Speaker 1: them anyway, So I listened to their records a lot,
13:58
Speaker 1: and there was quite a variety of artists that the
14:01
Speaker 1: record club would send them, and they would buy records too.
14:04
Speaker 1: Their record collection had country records. I remember a great
14:09
Speaker 1: sampler record with Carl Smith and Lefty Frizelle. You know,
14:13
Speaker 1: they had Ray Charles Records, they had Ray Price Records,
14:16
Speaker 1: they had Nat King Cole Records, Perry Como Records, had
14:20
Speaker 1: Glenn Miller Records. And growing up in a city like
14:23
Speaker 1: Houston that Cosmo falls in a place radio was well
14:29
Speaker 1: represented pop radio, country radio. I would go from channel
14:33
Speaker 1: the channel and listen to all kinds of music. I
14:36
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you about Nat King Cole because you
14:38
Speaker 1: cover two songs of his two songs he made famous
14:43
Speaker 1: on this album, and in fact, two songs he recorded
14:46
Speaker 1: in the same session. I think I didn't know that. Yeah,
14:49
Speaker 1: in the same session he recorded Straighten Up and Fly Right,
14:54
Speaker 1: which he rode, and Gee Baby and I Good to You.
14:59
Speaker 1: I was just a boy when his television show was
15:01
Speaker 1: on the air, and I used to love watching him.
15:04
Speaker 1: He was such an elegant host and so gracious with
15:07
Speaker 1: his guests. Both of the songs I wouldn't have thought
15:11
Speaker 1: to approach, But in nineteen ninety three, Matt Rawlings, who
15:17
Speaker 1: has played piano and keyboards with me from the very beginning.
15:22
Speaker 1: Matt was doing a solo, his first solo record for
15:26
Speaker 1: the MCA Master Series, which was an instrumental label that
15:29
Speaker 1: MCA Nashville was doing, and Matt asked me if I
15:33
Speaker 1: would sing g Babiana Good to You with him, and
15:36
Speaker 1: it was more about the piano, and there were extended
15:40
Speaker 1: piano breaks, and it was his playing was brilliant as always,
15:44
Speaker 1: you know, it was a really fun session. David Hungate
15:47
Speaker 1: played guitar. A few years later, Gary Marshall asked me
15:53
Speaker 1: to record Straighten Up and Flywright for his film Dear God,
15:57
Speaker 1: and so I got the guys together when we recorded that.
16:00
Speaker 1: Getting a specific request from someone else always felt gave
16:05
Speaker 1: me permission to do a song that I would otherwise
16:09
Speaker 1: maybe have just learned and played the edge of my
16:12
Speaker 1: bed in my bedroom for the fun of it. Approaching
16:14
Speaker 1: a classic where there's absolutely no reason for my version
16:19
Speaker 1: of it to exist except that someone like Gary Marshall
16:23
Speaker 1: or like Matt Rawlings has asked me to do it.
16:27
Speaker 1: That's reason enough to say yes. And it's great fun
16:30
Speaker 1: to sing a great song, to sing a standard, sing
16:32
Speaker 1: a classic beautifully written song like that, it's like being
16:36
Speaker 1: in the greatest garage band in the world. So we
16:40
Speaker 1: recorded those songs then and would occasionally play them. They
16:44
Speaker 1: became part of the set list, and in the last
16:47
Speaker 1: few years, as a way to feature Francine Reid, who
16:51
Speaker 1: I've started with since nineteen eighty four, we made duets
16:55
Speaker 1: out of g Baby, Annaga, do You and Straighten Up
16:58
Speaker 1: and Fly Right, And so we've the last few tours
17:02
Speaker 1: we've done those live. Our versions of the songs developed
17:05
Speaker 1: into something that seemed unique to the large band after
17:10
Speaker 1: you know, an eight or ten year break. I wanted
17:13
Speaker 1: this album to in a way be an overview. I
17:17
Speaker 1: wanted it to represent the different styles that I've worked
17:22
Speaker 1: in over the years and kind of represent the spectrum
17:26
Speaker 1: of things that somebody might expect to hear if they
17:30
Speaker 1: come to see me live. I thought those arrangements would
17:34
Speaker 1: represent the large band. That's why I picked those to
17:37
Speaker 1: be on the record. If those songs hadn't become part
17:41
Speaker 1: of my work over the years, I probably wouldn't have
17:44
Speaker 1: just selected the mattathin air. We're talking about your large
17:48
Speaker 1: band songs, which is, you know, one of the buckets
17:51
Speaker 1: of the kind of wild love it repertoire. Do you
17:55
Speaker 1: put any of your own songs up with those songs
17:58
Speaker 1: like Straighten Up and fly Right and G Baby? In
18:01
Speaker 1: terms of arrangement, yes, you know. We arranged one of
18:04
Speaker 1: my songs, pants is Overrated with the horn section and
18:07
Speaker 1: the vocal group, So I think of that as a
18:10
Speaker 1: large band arrangement on this album. But I didn't have
18:14
Speaker 1: other songs that I felt would represent the band as
18:19
Speaker 1: well to record on this record. And because we'd been
18:23
Speaker 1: playing G Baby, Annaga do You and straight Up and
18:26
Speaker 1: Flywright live the last couple of tours, I wanted to
18:29
Speaker 1: be on the record so people who had heard them
18:31
Speaker 1: live would have recordings of them. I guess I'm looking
18:35
Speaker 1: back over your career. I'm thinking there are songs of
18:39
Speaker 1: yours She's an a Lady, That's right, that have kind
18:44
Speaker 1: of entered the consciousness that sort of American songbook River. Well,
18:49
Speaker 1: that's nice to say. The idea of the large band
18:52
Speaker 1: really came about because of one generous, supportive, consistently involved person,
19:02
Speaker 1: Billy Williams from Phoenix, Arizona. Billy was the music director
19:08
Speaker 1: for Javid Sloane and The Rogues. Jay David Sloane was
19:12
Speaker 1: the lead singer and as a wonderful man and a
19:15
Speaker 1: wonderful singer. He and Billy were about the same age.
19:18
Speaker 1: I met them in nineteen eighty three in Luxembourg my
19:24
Speaker 1: friend Claude Weber, who was a country music fan, and
19:28
Speaker 1: his stage name was Buffalo Wayne. He said he named
19:31
Speaker 1: himself after his two favorite American cowboy heroes, Buffalo Bill
19:36
Speaker 1: and John Wayne. My friend Claude he had something to
19:39
Speaker 1: do with the city fair in Luxembourg called the Schuber four,
19:43
Speaker 1: and he asked me if I wanted to play between
19:47
Speaker 1: sets of the two main bands that were playing this
19:50
Speaker 1: American music tent at the schuberfour. One band was a
19:54
Speaker 1: top forty cover band from Orlando that billed itself as
19:59
Speaker 1: a Las Vegas show band, and they were called Body
20:01
Speaker 1: and Soul. I still know some of those folks as well.
20:05
Speaker 1: And the other band was Jay David Sloan and the Rogues,
20:09
Speaker 1: who were the house band at the Just Most Happening
20:13
Speaker 1: Country music nightclub in Phoenix, a place called Mister Lucky's.
20:17
Speaker 1: For years and years they were a house band. Billy
20:20
Speaker 1: Williams was originally from Michigan and then ended up in Phoenix.
20:23
Speaker 1: But he would produce demos for Buddy Cannon started working
20:27
Speaker 1: with Jay David Sloan, who he knew already, and they
20:30
Speaker 1: would look for talented musicians in the area. And they
20:34
Speaker 1: were the swingingest jazzist country band that I'd ever heard.
20:39
Speaker 1: Matt Rawlings would play a solo in a country song
20:42
Speaker 1: and I think, my goodness, I've never heard anything like
20:44
Speaker 1: that before in my life. Meeting up with them at
20:48
Speaker 1: the schuberfour was serendipitous, to say the least. But what
20:54
Speaker 1: made it so important was that we were there together
20:57
Speaker 1: for a month, playing five nights a week. My first
21:02
Speaker 1: day there, first time I played, I could see that
21:07
Speaker 1: my performance was unnecessary and superfluous. I played the set
21:12
Speaker 1: change between the two bands, and I wasn't they'd even
21:15
Speaker 1: set me up on stage. I was on the little
21:17
Speaker 1: dance floor in front of the stage while they changed
21:19
Speaker 1: the stage. People that came to this event because of
21:23
Speaker 1: Jay David Sloan and the Rogues being an American country band,
21:26
Speaker 1: you know, would come in their best cowboy stuff or
21:31
Speaker 1: best fact similear cowboy Steff, kind of messed up hats
21:35
Speaker 1: and cowboy clothes and some wearing wooly shafts with saddle
21:40
Speaker 1: Oxfords instead of boots, that sort of thing. The event
21:42
Speaker 1: was sponsored by Cargo Airline, and my friend Claude designed
21:49
Speaker 1: a poster of a cowgirl with Cisco Kid kind of
21:54
Speaker 1: gun belts criss crossed across her bare breasts. Didn't go
21:59
Speaker 1: over great with Cargo Lucks. Claude was dismissed and as
22:03
Speaker 1: a result, I was also, you know, on the bubble.
22:08
Speaker 1: Claude spoke for me and they kept me on the gig.
22:11
Speaker 1: My pay at that point had been a one way
22:14
Speaker 1: ticket to Luxembourg. I went to Jay David Sloan and
22:19
Speaker 1: to Billy Williams and I said, yeah, I'm a little
22:21
Speaker 1: worried about this, you know, I really I'm playing this
22:23
Speaker 1: gig for airfare and I'm a little worried that i
22:27
Speaker 1: might not get my return ticket and that would be
22:30
Speaker 1: important to me. And they said, we'll learn some of
22:33
Speaker 1: your songs, and why don't you sit in with us
22:37
Speaker 1: during our sets every night, and you know that way
22:42
Speaker 1: you will have worked and they'll have to pay you.
22:45
Speaker 1: So that's what we did. Jay and Billy negotiated my
22:49
Speaker 1: ticket home and at the end of that month they said,
22:52
Speaker 1: if you ever want to do any recording, come out
22:54
Speaker 1: here to Phoenix and we'll give you the first day
22:56
Speaker 1: in the studio for free. And so in early June
23:01
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty four, I called Billy and I said, Hey,
23:05
Speaker 1: it's your offer still good? Can I come out? And
23:08
Speaker 1: he said, sure, coming out. He booked us time at
23:11
Speaker 1: a really nice little studio in Scott's Dalely, Arizona, in
23:15
Speaker 1: the backyard of Ed and Marie Ravenscroft. They called their
23:19
Speaker 1: place Chatan Recordings, and an engineer named Steve Moore recorded
23:25
Speaker 1: us to twenty four track analog two inch tape, and
23:30
Speaker 1: we recorded four songs that first day, complete with harmony
23:34
Speaker 1: vocals and Billy overdubbing solos with his guitars less Paul
23:40
Speaker 1: plugs straight into the board. And those four songs were
23:46
Speaker 1: the first four songs that I took with me on
23:50
Speaker 1: my first trip to Nashville. A couple of weeks later,
23:53
Speaker 1: Well what are those songs? They were if I were
23:57
Speaker 1: the man you wanted, Cowboy Man, closing Time and give
24:03
Speaker 1: Back My Heart, Well, those are some pretty good songs. Well,
24:06
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. And recording with that band was
24:11
Speaker 1: just a revelation to me. I loved their playing, and
24:14
Speaker 1: I loved their take on well just their feel, and
24:18
Speaker 1: I was just grateful that they would let me play
24:21
Speaker 1: with him. We'll be right back with more from Bruce
24:24
Speaker 1: Headlam and Lou Love It after quick Break, but before
24:26
Speaker 1: we go enjoyed Love It's live performance of one of
24:29
Speaker 1: his greatest hits. If I had a boat, if I
24:46
Speaker 1: had able, I'd got out on the ocean, and if
24:51
Speaker 1: I had a bony, I'd ride him on my book,
24:56
Speaker 1: and we good all together and go out hut on
25:00
Speaker 1: the ocean, I said me, upon my bony on my book.
25:08
Speaker 1: If I will Roy Rogers, I shall enough this angle.
25:13
Speaker 1: I couldn't bring myself to marry in the old day.
25:19
Speaker 1: Let just be me intured. We go right and do
25:23
Speaker 1: them movies. Then we buy a boat and on to
25:27
Speaker 1: see leeds to see it. And if I had a boat,
25:33
Speaker 1: I go out on the ocean, and if I had
25:37
Speaker 1: a pony, I'd ride him on my boat, and we
25:42
Speaker 1: good all together, go out put on the ocean. I
25:47
Speaker 1: setting me up on my pony on my boot. But
25:53
Speaker 1: now the mysterymaged man was smart. He got himself Badanto.
25:59
Speaker 1: Cassanto did the dirty work for Breath. Badanto. He was smarted,
26:08
Speaker 1: and one had beamis ibby because my eyes. I bought
26:13
Speaker 1: a book. I'm pulling out to see. And if I
26:18
Speaker 1: had a book, I go out on the ocean. And
26:23
Speaker 1: if I had a pony, I'd rightly won my pool
26:29
Speaker 1: and we good all agether, go out hut on the ocean.
26:34
Speaker 1: I send me up on my pony on my book.
26:55
Speaker 1: And if I were like a lightning, I wouldn't need
26:59
Speaker 1: those stingers. Would I come in go whenever I would please?
27:07
Speaker 1: And I scare remand the shame dree and I'm scaring
27:11
Speaker 1: by the light boot. But when I scared my pony
27:15
Speaker 1: on my boot out on see. But if I had
27:20
Speaker 1: a book, I'd go out on the ocean. And if
27:25
Speaker 1: I had a pony, I ride on my boat and
27:31
Speaker 1: we good all the day, go out put on the ocean.
27:36
Speaker 1: I setting me up on my pony on my boat.
27:42
Speaker 1: I setting me upon my oy on my boot. We're
28:08
Speaker 1: back to the us of Bruce's conversation with Lyle love It,
28:12
Speaker 1: starting with how love It got his start in the
28:14
Speaker 1: music business. My dad's boss in nineteen eighty four was
28:21
Speaker 1: a man named mister Bress. Joe Bress and his son
28:25
Speaker 1: liked the idea of being in the music business. So
28:28
Speaker 1: he went to school at Middle Tennessee State University in Murphysboro,
28:32
Speaker 1: Tennessee to really get into the business. Dad knew that
28:36
Speaker 1: and talked to him, mister Bress, and we called his
28:39
Speaker 1: son Bow and both said, hey, I'll make some calls
28:42
Speaker 1: for you. He said, are you affiliated with you performing
28:44
Speaker 1: rights organizations? And I said, well, I've joined ASCAP six
28:48
Speaker 1: years ago or so when i started copywriting my songs.
28:50
Speaker 1: I joined as I'm a member of ASKAT. He said, well,
28:52
Speaker 1: he said, let me call ASCAP for you, set you
28:55
Speaker 1: up a meeting with a membership rep. And I said,
28:57
Speaker 1: do you think they do it? He said, well, that's
28:59
Speaker 1: what they do. It's their job to talk to their songwriters.
29:02
Speaker 1: That was my first meeting with a man named Merlin Littlefield.
29:05
Speaker 1: He was just enthusiasm, soonified and started making calls from
29:11
Speaker 1: me and set up meetings for me all over town
29:12
Speaker 1: that week. And Jim Rooney, if you know about Jim,
29:17
Speaker 1: is just an amazing, incredible human being on the planet.
29:22
Speaker 1: I think he's eighty two now lives up in Vermont,
29:25
Speaker 1: but he was part of the whole Cambridge folks scene
29:28
Speaker 1: and part of the new York folks scene in those days.
29:31
Speaker 1: Used to play music with Bill Keith. He's, you know,
29:34
Speaker 1: written books and I mean he's you know, deep and
29:37
Speaker 1: just you know, makes the world a better place. He
29:41
Speaker 1: would let me sleep on his couch when I'd come
29:43
Speaker 1: to Nashville, you know, in those days, I'd go to
29:45
Speaker 1: Nashville every four to five to six weeks and make
29:50
Speaker 1: the rounds again. He'd say, yeah, if you need a
29:52
Speaker 1: place to say, come over here, and so I took
29:55
Speaker 1: him up on that occasionally. He was emotionally supportive and
29:59
Speaker 1: saved me some money. Were you writing songs? Always try
30:02
Speaker 1: to be working on something. Was still playing the same
30:06
Speaker 1: eight places once every couple of months. That's sort of
30:09
Speaker 1: my usual rotation. Not making enough money to make a
30:12
Speaker 1: legitimate living as an adult, and so I was living
30:15
Speaker 1: back at home, you know, in my room with my parents' house.
30:19
Speaker 1: Jim Rooney helped me and ultimately took me over. He said,
30:24
Speaker 1: you know, he said, have you met any of the
30:25
Speaker 1: folks over at Criterion Music? I said, no, I haven't,
30:29
Speaker 1: and he took me to Criterion's Nashville office on seventeenth Avenue.
30:35
Speaker 1: That the guy that was running his name was Ted
30:38
Speaker 1: Criterion shared an office with Rodney Crow and Rosanne Cash,
30:43
Speaker 1: and I met Rodney and Rosanne at that same same meeting,
30:48
Speaker 1: and I was thrilled, you know, to meet them. Ted
30:51
Speaker 1: listened to my tape and he said, well, sent, He said,
30:54
Speaker 1: our headquarters out in Los Angeles. I'll send it out
30:57
Speaker 1: there to them. And I thanked him and that was
30:58
Speaker 1: it and didn't hear anything from him. That was in
31:01
Speaker 1: February of nineteen eighty five. In July nineteen eighty five,
31:06
Speaker 1: I got a phone call and the person said, it's
31:11
Speaker 1: a bow Golson from Criterion Music. Ted and Nashville just
31:14
Speaker 1: sent me your tape and I just listened to it.
31:18
Speaker 1: Would you like a publishing deal like that? Now? Every
31:20
Speaker 1: publisher I had talked to up to that point was
31:24
Speaker 1: encouraging to me, but no one had said, would you
31:28
Speaker 1: like a publishing deal? Would you like to write for us?
31:30
Speaker 1: People said things like, gosh, you know, I like this personally,
31:35
Speaker 1: but I just don't know what we'd do with it.
31:36
Speaker 1: Nobody expressed any kind of commitment until bow Golson and
31:41
Speaker 1: Bo said that in the you before I even said
31:44
Speaker 1: hello back, and he and he added, if you signed
31:48
Speaker 1: with us, I think we have a record deal for you,
31:52
Speaker 1: And I said, really, I said with who? He said,
31:55
Speaker 1: signed with us, and I'll tell you. So he invited
31:59
Speaker 1: me to come out to Los Angeles to see their
32:01
Speaker 1: offices out there and to meet him. I went, and
32:04
Speaker 1: he couldn't have been nicer. And they had an incredible catalog.
32:08
Speaker 1: I mean, they owned all of Charlie Parker's stuff. Lee
32:13
Speaker 1: Hazelwood was one of their writers. Rodney Kroll had been
32:16
Speaker 1: one of their writers, so Tom Kimmel was one of
32:18
Speaker 1: their writers. I just couldn't believe the titles that they
32:22
Speaker 1: had at that point. Did you still think you were
32:25
Speaker 1: going to be a performer or did you want to
32:27
Speaker 1: write for other people? I enjoyed performing and I had
32:31
Speaker 1: no intention of stopping performing. But I didn't have any
32:35
Speaker 1: expectation of performing beyond the gigs that I was already doing,
32:39
Speaker 1: you know, playing to places that held seventy five or
32:43
Speaker 1: a hundred people. Now, before you did that, you were
32:46
Speaker 1: at Texas A and M. That's true, and you met
32:50
Speaker 1: a lot of your songwriting heroes writing for the paper there.
32:55
Speaker 1: I did, were you really interviewing them? Were you just
32:57
Speaker 1: hitting them up for ideas? I started playing out when
33:00
Speaker 1: I was eighteen, So by the time I got into
33:03
Speaker 1: the School of Journalism, my main focus was performing. I
33:08
Speaker 1: didn't think performing was a realistic expectation for my life.
33:14
Speaker 1: Going to school was important to me because it was
33:18
Speaker 1: important to my parents. I've always been close to my
33:23
Speaker 1: parents and have always in any situation I've ever been in,
33:29
Speaker 1: if my parents would show up, I would always feel better.
33:34
Speaker 1: That's how supportive they always were. They were giving me
33:38
Speaker 1: the chance to do things they didn't get to do.
33:41
Speaker 1: That all seemed clear to me. You know. Halfway through,
33:45
Speaker 1: when I'd gotten my prerecorsites out of the way, I
33:48
Speaker 1: stopped thinking about, well, what do I want to study.
33:50
Speaker 1: I want a degree in, and I started thinking what
33:53
Speaker 1: can I get a degree in? And I'd always done
33:56
Speaker 1: well on papers, so I thought, let me just check
33:58
Speaker 1: into this. And when I got to the College of Journalism,
34:02
Speaker 1: when I went and met professors there and looked around
34:06
Speaker 1: and saw the students working at our daily paper, the Battalion,
34:11
Speaker 1: they were as as interested in writing and in getting
34:14
Speaker 1: that paper out and publishing as I was in booking
34:18
Speaker 1: my next gig. It was an electric atmosphere and I
34:22
Speaker 1: was drawn to it immediately. I was on the city desk.
34:26
Speaker 1: I went to every city council meeting for a year
34:30
Speaker 1: and a half and enjoyed learning about the local politics,
34:34
Speaker 1: enjoyed getting to know the councilman. But entertainment stories we
34:37
Speaker 1: would kind of draw straws for the entertainment stories were
34:40
Speaker 1: fun to do, you know, to be able to talk
34:42
Speaker 1: to two artists. I always put my name in the
34:45
Speaker 1: hat for the kinds of performers that I like to
34:49
Speaker 1: go and hear and often got to write about them.
34:53
Speaker 1: I mean it was certainly personally enriching, and I was
34:57
Speaker 1: I was just honored and excited to be in the
34:59
Speaker 1: room talking to somebody I was a fan of. But
35:02
Speaker 1: my objective in writing those stories was to, you know,
35:06
Speaker 1: to spread the gospel of Nancy Griffith, of Eric Taylor,
35:10
Speaker 1: of Don Sanders, of Stephen Fromhol's Michael Martin Murphy. And
35:17
Speaker 1: although Murphy was really well known and it was a
35:20
Speaker 1: big hit in those days, he did a concert in
35:23
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five at Texas and m that I attended
35:26
Speaker 1: that was just pivotal in my growing up because he
35:31
Speaker 1: had a number one pop hit on the radio at
35:34
Speaker 1: that time wildfire, I mean pop hit, and there he
35:38
Speaker 1: was filled up the basketball arena and he did a
35:40
Speaker 1: two hour show, the first hour of which was him
35:44
Speaker 1: and his guitar, and he had, you know, seven thousand
35:49
Speaker 1: people at Gee Riley White Coliseum. Just made it seem
35:53
Speaker 1: like he was in a room of a hundred people.
35:56
Speaker 1: It was so quiet and such an intimate performance. And
36:01
Speaker 1: I saw the power of that, and I just thought,
36:03
Speaker 1: wouldn't that be amazing to do something like that? And
36:07
Speaker 1: when had you started playing guitar. I'm embarrassed to admit this,
36:11
Speaker 1: but I've started taking guitar lessons in second grade. I'm
36:14
Speaker 1: not a guitar player. I play well enough to accompany
36:17
Speaker 1: my songs, but nobody would hire me to play guitar
36:19
Speaker 1: in their band, you know. But I always loved playing.
36:23
Speaker 1: And my guitar teacher in those days was a man
36:27
Speaker 1: named Chuck Woods who was a session player around Houston.
36:30
Speaker 1: Our lessons were exercises and enjoyment. Really. He taught me
36:34
Speaker 1: to read treble Cleff taught me to count. Sometimes I
36:38
Speaker 1: would practice a little bit during the week, and other
36:41
Speaker 1: times I wouldn't practice at all, but I always looked
36:43
Speaker 1: forward to that that Monday night and later Thursday night
36:47
Speaker 1: lessons with him guitar with something in my life that
36:53
Speaker 1: it was just just always a positive. It was always
36:56
Speaker 1: something that I enjoyed. I don't feel like I'm really
36:58
Speaker 1: a competitive kind of person, so I didn't really have
37:01
Speaker 1: any kind of you know, anybody to play guitar with
37:04
Speaker 1: in school? Did he teach you fingerpicking a little bit?
37:09
Speaker 1: But my fingerpicking came from in my high school years.
37:14
Speaker 1: I took lessons at H and H Music Company on
37:17
Speaker 1: Caroline Street in downtown Houston. My buddy Bruce Lyon, who
37:22
Speaker 1: was a year older than I in high school and
37:26
Speaker 1: had his driver's license a year ahead of me. He
37:29
Speaker 1: would drive us in those days, totar a lesson and
37:32
Speaker 1: Freddie was his teacher. That's how I met Freddie. Freddie
37:35
Speaker 1: was a graduate student at University of Houston. He had
37:37
Speaker 1: this gorgeous read Gibson ES three fifty five stereo guitar
37:45
Speaker 1: and they played through a Fender amp and Freddie loved
37:50
Speaker 1: chet atkins. We learned chet arrangements of songs. He taught
37:55
Speaker 1: me how to alternate my thumb, so I owe that
37:58
Speaker 1: to Fred Foss. And then listening to Texas singer songwriters
38:03
Speaker 1: like Murphy. If you listen to Murphy's first album, in
38:07
Speaker 1: particular with a song like Boyfriend the Country, it's all
38:10
Speaker 1: about alternating that thumb. I asked, because there's something very
38:14
Speaker 1: distinctive about your finger picking on some songs. I must
38:20
Speaker 1: not be the only one who thinks this, because if
38:22
Speaker 1: you go on YouTube, there are about a thousand instructional
38:25
Speaker 1: videos to play If I Had a Boat to me,
38:27
Speaker 1: it's very snipped. A skinny Legs is another one that
38:30
Speaker 1: has that sound. You know, typically with fingerpicking, you know,
38:34
Speaker 1: people get the bass going and then they add a
38:36
Speaker 1: little right off the top. Particularly on If I Had
38:39
Speaker 1: a Boat, it's full of notes. You've got like sixteen
38:43
Speaker 1: notes right at the top of that, and not many
38:45
Speaker 1: people play that way. It's very it's very distinctive. Well,
38:48
Speaker 1: thank you. It's not unique and it's not even that unusual.
38:52
Speaker 1: John Hyatt and I are friends and have worked together
38:55
Speaker 1: for years doing songs, swap kinds of shows, and sometimes
38:58
Speaker 1: John will throw in one of those forward roles just
39:00
Speaker 1: to go, hey, I'm Auntie, I know what you're doing.
39:03
Speaker 1: And one of his songs which he gives he'll give
39:05
Speaker 1: me a grind. But that style alternating bass, that style
39:10
Speaker 1: of fingerpicking was prevalent among songwriters I would hear around Houston,
39:18
Speaker 1: like Eric Taylor, like Nancy Griffith, like Don Sanders, like
39:22
Speaker 1: Vince Bill. Because the performers I was drawn to were
39:25
Speaker 1: playing original music clubs and they're usually laying solo, that
39:29
Speaker 1: kind of fingerpicking, that those kinds of arrangements were a
39:34
Speaker 1: way to to have kind of a complete accompaniment, you know,
39:39
Speaker 1: without having to have a band. You know, there was
39:41
Speaker 1: something complete about that style of playing to my ear
39:45
Speaker 1: as I saw other people do it, That's why I
39:47
Speaker 1: did it. You know, you can express the song with
39:50
Speaker 1: just your guitar, but now you're playing. It's a little
39:54
Speaker 1: bit like your singing in a way. When I listened
39:58
Speaker 1: to you, you're very forward in the pocket the way
40:00
Speaker 1: you sing. Even when you sing blues gut you know,
40:03
Speaker 1: my baby, don't tolerate it's it's this big bluesy album
40:06
Speaker 1: of yours, but you're very at the top of each bar.
40:09
Speaker 1: I think, do you think? I think maybe because I
40:12
Speaker 1: worry about laying it back too much, I do think
40:15
Speaker 1: about that. I do you find that in the in
40:18
Speaker 1: the towards the end of the phrases. Sometimes I'll try
40:20
Speaker 1: I try not to lay it back too much. We're
40:22
Speaker 1: talking to Paul Simon. You know, he talked about when
40:25
Speaker 1: he was singing with Garfunkel, everything was very upfront, and
40:30
Speaker 1: when he became a solo arts and he really had
40:32
Speaker 1: to rethink, he found himself moving further and further back
40:36
Speaker 1: in the pocket. And you know he's got that now.
40:39
Speaker 1: I've had the good fortune of being around Paul Simon
40:42
Speaker 1: a few times. You know, I wouldn't say we're you know,
40:44
Speaker 1: I know, I know him well, but I've gotten to
40:45
Speaker 1: be part of some special events with him, and I
40:49
Speaker 1: know Edie and he's such a lovely, you know, brilliant person. Gosh,
40:57
Speaker 1: you know what a wonderful combination of feeling and thinking
41:00
Speaker 1: the impact of his music feels purely emotional. But then
41:05
Speaker 1: you know it's all thought out. I mean, there's not
41:09
Speaker 1: a word or a note that hasn't been considered. There's
41:15
Speaker 1: so much going on in those songs. Two beautiful albums
41:18
Speaker 1: to listen to. Amen Back in the old days, you know,
41:21
Speaker 1: and I made my first demos and really only my
41:25
Speaker 1: first record that we mix on an analog board. But
41:29
Speaker 1: mixes were as much of a performance as tracking was.
41:32
Speaker 1: Sometimes you'd have three or four people on a board
41:35
Speaker 1: making their moves at the right time. And the question
41:39
Speaker 1: at the end of a mix wasn't well, show we
41:40
Speaker 1: mix it again? It was always well you think we
41:43
Speaker 1: can beat that one? I mean it was a performance. Well,
41:45
Speaker 1: now I'm mixing. Isn't like that? Because everything's automated, You
41:48
Speaker 1: can recall mixes ten back if you want to, and
41:50
Speaker 1: go back to something if you feel like if you've
41:52
Speaker 1: gotten away from what was good. The ability to be
41:55
Speaker 1: detailed is endless, and artists like Paul Simon are they
42:02
Speaker 1: realize everything is important. Every sound has an impact. How
42:09
Speaker 1: detailed are you in the studio? I'm detailed? My mom
42:13
Speaker 1: her last secret Joe's job was in the publications department
42:16
Speaker 1: at X which which is really part of the reason
42:19
Speaker 1: that I was interested in journalism. The publications department would
42:22
Speaker 1: allow my mom to check out cameras. Ended up writing
42:25
Speaker 1: for Local Motorcycle publication. The art director for Xon Publications
42:32
Speaker 1: is a really sweet man named Richard Paint. He agreed.
42:36
Speaker 1: I asked him if he would paint a helmet for me,
42:41
Speaker 1: because all the you know, how you looked was almost
42:44
Speaker 1: as important as how fast you went. He drew up
42:47
Speaker 1: several designs which I rejected, and then finally he came
42:52
Speaker 1: with the design that I liked, and he scrawled a
42:55
Speaker 1: note across his drawing of it, and he said, Burnell,
43:00
Speaker 1: that's my mom's name, Burnell. See if this does anything
43:03
Speaker 1: for that piggy kid. Now I was thirteen, you know
43:06
Speaker 1: I'm thirteen. I have that framed in my office. You know,
43:10
Speaker 1: I've been accused of being I don't think I'm picky.
43:12
Speaker 1: I just want to get things the way they sound
43:15
Speaker 1: good to me. But you know, I've been fortunate to
43:18
Speaker 1: work with generous people in my life that tolerate my
43:24
Speaker 1: preferences and help me, you know, ultimately, just help me
43:27
Speaker 1: get something to where I like it. Tony Brown, Billy
43:31
Speaker 1: Williams and Chuck Anley, who engineered the Large Band record,
43:36
Speaker 1: and George Massenberg, Nathaniel Kuncle, who I met together in
43:41
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one to record Joshua Joe's Ruth and then
43:43
Speaker 1: recorded everything since that with Nathaniel Kuncle. Before we get
43:48
Speaker 1: off the subject of that great wave of Texas songwriters,
43:54
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you more about how they
43:55
Speaker 1: influenced you. I do want to ask you about one,
43:57
Speaker 1: and that's willis Allan Ramsay who's this sort of singular figure,
44:03
Speaker 1: maybe because he put out one album, But can you
44:05
Speaker 1: tell me a bit about about him and your relationship
44:08
Speaker 1: with him. I've discovered his first record through my friend
44:12
Speaker 1: Bruce lyon gosh it was nineteen seventy four, and bought
44:19
Speaker 1: it and just you know, immediately started trying to learn
44:22
Speaker 1: every song on it. The thing that really drew me
44:26
Speaker 1: into Willis, besides his melody and use of language, was
44:32
Speaker 1: his blues influence. All of those songs, you hear blues
44:37
Speaker 1: in all of them, and I loved his voice, and
44:40
Speaker 1: I just thought, gosh, this is amazing. I mean, this
44:44
Speaker 1: is old blues and new music. Could you just a
44:50
Speaker 1: couple bars of a Willis Alan Ramsey song? True, yeah,
45:12
Speaker 1: I wish it was a millionaire. I play rocking music
45:17
Speaker 1: and grow along. Tell you boy, I buy new roads,
45:27
Speaker 1: bringing women come to me. I give mall the third degree.
45:33
Speaker 1: You can send Jeeves to keep Martha's streeting to do Halleluia,
45:56
Speaker 1: let me zaga due, praise the Lord Pas and Mascal
46:03
Speaker 1: lad and grate your whole Oh you come as soon
46:14
Speaker 1: as him and blen my glab. Willis is a major
46:43
Speaker 1: influence on me. I got to know Willis personally, and he's,
46:48
Speaker 1: you know, one of my closest friends. I just admire
46:52
Speaker 1: his He's now talk about detailed Willis Is. I'm convinced
46:58
Speaker 1: that Willis allan Ramsay, can hear things that I can't hear.
47:00
Speaker 1: He perceives things sonically that other people are imperceptible. I
47:06
Speaker 1: got to interview him in nineteen seventy nine because the
47:08
Speaker 1: Basement booked me to open for him, and I thought, well,
47:12
Speaker 1: I'll ask the Battalion if I can write about it.
47:13
Speaker 1: And I said yes, And so I'm interviewing him in
47:16
Speaker 1: between sets. And I asked him in nineteen seventy nine
47:20
Speaker 1: the obvious question. The first thing I said to him
47:24
Speaker 1: was when you know, meaning the second album? And I
47:29
Speaker 1: asked him a one word question. When he gave me
47:32
Speaker 1: a one word answer, he said soon. And that was
47:34
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy nine. I asked friend of mine who
47:37
Speaker 1: teaches journalism in Austin, now, what is your most Texas song?
47:44
Speaker 1: And he said, this old porch Ah very nice and
47:48
Speaker 1: which is a which was a you know, a collaboration,
47:50
Speaker 1: which is an unintended co write with my friend Robert O'Keane.
47:55
Speaker 1: And he said Robert enjoys saying son of a bitch
47:58
Speaker 1: a little more than you do in that song, and
47:59
Speaker 1: I and I put it in, Yeah, Robert. It was
48:03
Speaker 1: the spring of nineteen eighty and Robert and I had
48:07
Speaker 1: stretched our undergraduate career as long as we could at
48:11
Speaker 1: tex AM. Robert was class of seventy eight. I was
48:13
Speaker 1: class of seventy nine. We graduated in August of nineteen
48:17
Speaker 1: eighty on the same day. We were two of just
48:22
Speaker 1: a few students from the college with Liberal Arts who
48:25
Speaker 1: graduated that day. His name started with a K, mine
48:29
Speaker 1: with an L. We sat right next to each other.
48:31
Speaker 1: It was it was perfect, but we were both thinking, well,
48:35
Speaker 1: what are we going to do? You know, neither one
48:37
Speaker 1: of us had been interviewing for jobs. We wanted to
48:40
Speaker 1: play music. And Robert played for me that spring a
48:45
Speaker 1: new song and it was the first three verses of
48:49
Speaker 1: what he called the front Ports song, and it was,
48:51
Speaker 1: you know, a different tempo than I play it, and
48:54
Speaker 1: it had some spoken word connections between the verses, which
48:58
Speaker 1: suited Robert's personality great. And I said, well, I want
49:02
Speaker 1: to learn that right now. Teach it to me. So
49:04
Speaker 1: he did, and I went back to my apartment and
49:08
Speaker 1: kept played it and played it, played it, and I
49:11
Speaker 1: started thinking to myself, Robert painted these beautiful pictures of
49:16
Speaker 1: places that we would go to, of places we loved,
49:20
Speaker 1: in places we would miss, but he left himself out
49:24
Speaker 1: of the song. And Robert had a wonderful relationship with
49:28
Speaker 1: his landlord, man named Jack Boyett, who was in his seventies.
49:31
Speaker 1: He seemed ancient, but he was just in his seventies.
49:34
Speaker 1: And that area of town had been the Boyett family
49:38
Speaker 1: farm years before and been sold off subvided a dilapidated
49:44
Speaker 1: old farmhouse with a front porch that was always in
49:47
Speaker 1: need of propping up, and Robert and his roommate Brian
49:50
Speaker 1: Duckworth were always working on it and we'd all help,
49:53
Speaker 1: and it was just the place where we all hung out.
49:57
Speaker 1: I learned Robert's song, played it over and over, and
50:00
Speaker 1: I started thinking about the tenderness Robert showed to mister Boyett,
50:05
Speaker 1: who was regarded by his other tenants as being a
50:08
Speaker 1: slum lord insensitive. And one thing that mister Boyett was
50:12
Speaker 1: sort of famous for was he would just walk into
50:15
Speaker 1: those rent houses as though they were his, as though
50:18
Speaker 1: somebody else wasn't living there. And most of his tenants.
50:21
Speaker 1: I mean some people moved out. Most of his tenants
50:23
Speaker 1: were upset by that. And Robert when mister Boyett would
50:28
Speaker 1: just walk in the front door and walk into the
50:31
Speaker 1: kitchen and look into the refrigerator and say, hey, mister Boyett,
50:33
Speaker 1: come on in. And I just always admired Robert's relationship
50:39
Speaker 1: with him. I admired how Robert looked out for mister Boyett,
50:42
Speaker 1: how he would go down to his mister Boyett's farm
50:45
Speaker 1: place in Millican, Texas and help him with his cows
50:47
Speaker 1: and help him patch the fence and just whatever he
50:50
Speaker 1: needed to do, or go to lunch with mister Boyett.
50:53
Speaker 1: And so I started thinking about that, and I wrote
50:56
Speaker 1: the last three verses of that song and then went
51:01
Speaker 1: to Robert and said, look, I'm not trying to meddle,
51:07
Speaker 1: but can play this for you. And he really meant
51:13
Speaker 1: a lot to me. He said, oh, I love that.
51:16
Speaker 1: Let's keep it. We didn't really write the song together.
51:20
Speaker 1: We wrote it separately in two parts, and I played
51:24
Speaker 1: it the way I play it, and I left out
51:26
Speaker 1: Robert's spoken word parts because I thought those who should
51:29
Speaker 1: be unique to him. It's interesting that he had spoken
51:34
Speaker 1: word parts that you say, sort of connected some of
51:37
Speaker 1: the images. Yes, you know a lot of your writing
51:40
Speaker 1: I think of back then as being very impressionistic. Don't
51:44
Speaker 1: spell everything out, leave room for people to connect the
51:47
Speaker 1: dots themselves, don't tell them how to connect the dots.
51:52
Speaker 1: That kind of writing appeals to me. Is it something
51:55
Speaker 1: where you have the idea and then you strip away
51:58
Speaker 1: the connections or does it come out of the language.
52:02
Speaker 1: I think it's more fun to drop breadcrumbs than it
52:07
Speaker 1: is to pave the path. So a song like Pontiac,
52:11
Speaker 1: for example, Yes, did that start with a character? Or
52:13
Speaker 1: did that it did start with character? Was that something
52:16
Speaker 1: you observed Before everybody became a songwriter. People sometimes would
52:23
Speaker 1: suggest topics to write about, and my girlfriend at the
52:27
Speaker 1: time said, you know what, you should write a song
52:31
Speaker 1: about it? You know, My first thought was, yes, anything
52:36
Speaker 1: except for what you're about to say. And she said.
52:43
Speaker 1: She told me where she lived, and there was a
52:45
Speaker 1: there was an art gallery next door, and she said,
52:49
Speaker 1: there's a you know, there's a man that parks here
52:52
Speaker 1: every afternoon. He says you should go talk to him,
52:55
Speaker 1: and so I paid attention, and sure enough, he had
52:57
Speaker 1: one of those old kind of faded GM blue that
53:01
Speaker 1: that they had in those in those days. This was
53:03
Speaker 1: in the mid eighties and I can't I can't remember
53:06
Speaker 1: if it was a Vonneville, but what it was, it
53:10
Speaker 1: was a sedan. He would open the door and Jack's
53:14
Speaker 1: leg at the side, and he would smoke a cigarette
53:18
Speaker 1: and there would be a can of coke on the
53:20
Speaker 1: dashboard and he would It was just kind of on
53:24
Speaker 1: a hill that went down to Shoal Creek in Austin,
53:28
Speaker 1: and I thought, I don't want to talk to him.
53:31
Speaker 1: It's like it seemed like such a ritual to him
53:35
Speaker 1: that I wouldn't want to disturb it. I just imagined
53:39
Speaker 1: what his story might be. But the idea was you
53:45
Speaker 1: just don't know everything that's behind that face that you're seeing.
53:52
Speaker 1: It's an experience that's common to all of us. That's
53:55
Speaker 1: why in the music video, it is the very first
53:57
Speaker 1: music video I ever did. I wanted to just have
54:00
Speaker 1: portraits of people in a way to say this story
54:07
Speaker 1: could belong to any of these people, or conversely, to
54:10
Speaker 1: say the story that you're hearing about, each of these
54:14
Speaker 1: people have their own story as well. And I'm in
54:18
Speaker 1: the very last shot of that, and the record company
54:21
Speaker 1: just you know, had very little reaction to the video
54:24
Speaker 1: except you're not in it. And I said, well, yeah,
54:29
Speaker 1: I'm there there, I am right there. It's just at
54:32
Speaker 1: the very end. I said, well, yeah, it's a song
54:35
Speaker 1: like a simple song. It's the same way. There's no
54:37
Speaker 1: chorus to it. It goes right through. Was that something
54:40
Speaker 1: Guy Clark or another songwriter had done that you admired.
54:44
Speaker 1: It was just how it came out, and it was,
54:46
Speaker 1: you know, simple song was earlier. You know, I made
54:49
Speaker 1: up simple song. I think when I was eighteen. I
54:52
Speaker 1: was a freshman and we were studying in English class.
54:57
Speaker 1: We were studying the five paragraph paper. So I was
55:01
Speaker 1: I thought, okay, I'm going to try to make up
55:03
Speaker 1: a five verse song, you know, with the introductory verse,
55:07
Speaker 1: three verses in the body, and then a conclusion verse.
55:13
Speaker 1: That was a simple song. But but I don't I
55:17
Speaker 1: didn't feel as though songs needed, you know, necessarily needed
55:24
Speaker 1: a chorus. Funny thinking about that album, maybe one of
55:29
Speaker 1: the most conventional songs is La County, which is actually
55:34
Speaker 1: the most violent song, but it has the most um
55:39
Speaker 1: immediately grasped kind of feel and structure. It's a story
55:44
Speaker 1: song and you've got the chorus, but it's got the
55:46
Speaker 1: most surprising ending and musically. But musically it's really unconventional
55:51
Speaker 1: in that, you know, there are only two chords in
55:54
Speaker 1: the song. Playing that for the first time to Tony Brown,
55:59
Speaker 1: he raised his eyebrows. He said, really, really, it's just
56:02
Speaker 1: two chords. I said, let's just try it. Let's try it.
56:07
Speaker 1: So it was very order. All right, I've taken up
56:11
Speaker 1: to the norms fount of your time, but it's been
56:13
Speaker 1: hugely enjoyed. I'm sorry I talked so much. We're not
56:16
Speaker 1: using tape anymore, so it's not like we're seeing the
56:19
Speaker 1: real Thanks allow love It for coming on Broken Record
56:24
Speaker 1: to talk about his life, career and a new level.
56:27
Speaker 1: You can hear all of our favorite Lyle Lovett songs
56:29
Speaker 1: on my playlist at Broken record podcast dot com. Be
56:33
Speaker 1: sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot
56:36
Speaker 1: com slash Broken Record Podcast, where we can find all
56:39
Speaker 1: of our new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter
56:42
Speaker 1: at broken Record. Broken Record is produced help from the
56:45
Speaker 1: Arose Jason Gambrel, Bent Holiday, Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez
56:50
Speaker 1: the engineer, and help from Nick Chafee. Our executive producer
56:54
Speaker 1: is Neil be Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
56:58
Speaker 1: If you like this show and others from Pushkin, consider
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Speaker 1: subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription
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Speaker 1: four na. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcasts subscriptions,
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Speaker 1: and if you like the show, please remember to share, rate,
57:16
Speaker 1: and review us on your podcast app. For the music,
57:19
Speaker 1: spyt Candy Beats, I'm justin Richmond,