Lovett’s second album, 1988’s Pontiac, expanded on the jazz influences he touched on in his debut. In fact, the album is split right down the middle between traditional country songs on the first side and the jazz/blues tunes on the second.
Which side you prefer probably depends on your fondness for country music. I know a certain country-averse commenter here will have a strong preference for side B. And certainly there’s a great case to be made for those songs.
I’m bound to make my regular readers happy with this theme week, which will actually span two weeks and ten albums. I know my sister considers Lyle Lovett her ‘desert island’ artist (though where we’d get batteries for the CD player on this island, I don’t know — I love that moment in Season One of Lost where Hurley’s discman finally runs out on him).
I won’t go so far as to call Lovett my own desert island artist, but he’s definitely in the running. His combination of rootsy instrumentation, jazz flourishes and literate, humorous lyrics — not to mention that world-class voice — puts him in a league of his own. He doesn’t make it to my island because there’s a sameness in his work over the past 20+ years, but if you have to settle on a sound, he couldn’t have picked a better one.
Ironically, I was first introduced to Lyle Lovett by my country music-hating brother-in-law, Dana. Because Lyle Lovett is many things, but he is most certainly a country music singer-songwriter.
However, as anybody familiar with his work knows, he is equally adept at blues, jazz and gospel. The truth is, he has established such a distinctive sound that he’s essentially a genre unto himself. “Lyle Lovett” means peerless musicianship, lyrics both poignant and clever and one of the best voices in the business.
Meet Me In Montauk 