LYLE LOVETT

Personnel: Lyle Lovett (vocals, acoustic guitar); Mac McAnally (acoustic guitar); Ray Herndon, Billy Williams, Vince Gill, Jon Goin (electric guitar); Tom Mortensen (steel guitar); Glen Duncan (fiddle); Steve Marsh (saxophone); Matt Rollings (piano); Mark Prentice (organ); John Jarvis (synthesizer); Matthew McKenzie, Emory Gordy, Jr. (bass); Jeff Boree, Bob Warren (drums); James Gilmer (percussion); J. David Sloan, Rosanne Cash, Francine Reed (background vocals). Personnel: Lyle Lovett (vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar, background vocals); Vince Gill (vocals, guitar); Francine Reed, J. David Sloan, Rosanne Cash (vocals, background vocals); Mac McAnally (guitar, acoustic guitar); Jon Goin, Billy Williams (guitar, electric guitar); Ray Herndon (guitar, background vocals); Tom Mortensen (steel guitar); Glen Duncan (violin, fiddle); Steve Marsh (saxophone); Matt Rollings (piano, electric piano, synthesizer); Mark Prentice (piano, organ, keyboards); John Jarvis (synthesizer); Jeff Borree, Bob Warren (drums); James Gilmer (congas). Audio Remixer: Gene Eichelberger. Recording information: Chaton Recordings, Scottsdale, AZ. Photographer: Peter Nash . The mid-1980s were a dire period for country music. Rampant commercialism and watered-down country-pop had taken over Nashville, and honest country singers with substantive songs were thin on the ground. Fortunately, a new generation of progressive country artists emerged, including Dwight Yoakam, Rodney Crowell, and Lyle Lovett, the latter being the quirkiest and most artful of the crop. With his suit, pompadour, and lantern-jawed mug, Lovett looked like nothing country had seen before. His roots were in the Texas singer/songwriter school of Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, et al, but he bore a pronounced streak of wry wit and razor-sharp irony. Though he would soon expand musically, Lovett stayed within the conventions of the country template on his '86 debut album, but judiciously tweaked the format to suit his intentions. To wit, "God Will" sounds like a classic country cheating ballad until the chorus delivers a powerful lyrical twist. "The Waltzing Fool" fits into the aforementioned Clark/Van Zandt folk-country style, but with a unique poetic sensibility informing its imagery. "An Acceptable Level of Ecstacy (The Wedding Song)" is full of both the jazziness and humor upon which Lovett would expand in subsequent recordings, pointing the way to the future of both his own career and forward-looking country music.