Q Lyle, sometimes artists go back to their roots at a certain time. They want to wipe the slate clean. They want to get in touch with their original impulses for making music. What was your motivation for recording this album of other people's songs?

A Well, that was really it, Jody. These are songs that I've played for years. Songs -- some of these songs I learned before I started writing songs myself. So these songwriters were a big influence on me. And it just felt like a good time for me to go back and take a look at these songs and play them.

Q Where did you grow up?

A I grew up outside of Houston, outside of Spring, Texas. And was able to go and hear songwriters like Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt and Willis Alan Ramsey and get to open shows for songwriters like Eric Taylor and Vince Bell, whose songs are also on the record.

Q So did you want to be a singer/songwriter from when you were real young?

A You know, I played guitar when I was young and never really considered it as a way to make a living. But I always enjoyed it and as I got older and was able to start going to clubs and -- I found that I really enjoyed hearing people do their own songs. So I became attracted to singer/songwriters. I became interested in them as people, in a way, and was curious about what singer/songwriters had to say, what they wanted to say. That was as much a part of the appeal of a singer/songwriter to me as the music itself.

Q About how old were you then? What year are we talking and how old were you?

A Oh, we're talking like 1974-75, you know when I was 17, 18.

Q So I'm imagining that most of the clubs you first went to were in Houston?

A They were. Most of the clubs I first went to were in Houston. And then I would drive over to Austin occasionally. A buddy of mine from high school who had gone to school at the University of Texas, he and I played together some. His name was Bruce Lyon. And he would, you know, go and check out music here at Austin and invite me up and we'd hang out and go and hear people.

Q Do you remember what some of the clubs were, the names of the clubs?

A Well, sure. You know, we used to go to -- well, one of the first shows I ever say here was Willis Alan Ramsey at the Paramount, which is, you know, a theater, not a club. But to see Willis for the first time after having, you know, lived with his record and tried to learn every song on the record, to be able to see him and see how he miked his -- the base of his microphone stand and how he stood on stage, I was just captivated.

Q Now, a few years later, you went to Texas A&M University. Were you playing out in clubs while you were going to school?

A That was about the time that I went to school at Texas A&M. I graduated from high school in 1975, actually a semester early, and went straight to school, which may or may not have been a good idea. But I was -- I got to hang out at some of the local music establishments up there and got involved with the on-campus student union committee that had a local coffeehouse that was mainly a forum for student musicians to play and sing. Occasionally, we would -- once or twice a semester -- bring in regional performers to perform. But I got involved with the coffeehouse and got involved with the programming aspect of it, so I eventually got to help -- or got to book, really, the shows that played there.

Q So you've been on both sides of the fence?

A You know, I booked my first gig myself. I hired myself.

Q I hope you paid yourself well.

A You know, the pay was the same for everybody. Nobody got any money, but I gave myself a good 30-minute slot.

Q And you were studying journalism. Did you ever wind up doing what I'm doing, interviewing musicians?

A You know, I never worked as a journalist. Fortunately, you know, I've never had a job.

LBJS Operations Manager Jeff Carrol, Lyle, and KGSR Program Director Jody Denberg share a laugh in the summer of 1990

But I did get to do some interviews with performers as they came through town to play at Texas A&M. I did interview Steven Fromholz and I interviewed Michael Martin Murphy and I interviewed Willis Allen Ramsey. I interviewed Nanci Griffith. That's how I met her. The first interview I did with a musician was Don Sanders, who is a longtime Houston singer/songwriter and also a big influence. But I interviewed Eric Taylor. And had a really great time talking to singer/songwriters and trying to pick their brain and see how they worked.

Q See, if you have to take a job, it's not a bad one to take. When did you get your first publishing deal? When did you realize you were going to write songs and make a career out of it?

A By 1984, I had been playing the same half a dozen clubs -- half a dozen or so clubs. You know, every month or six weeks I'd kind of make the rounds and really thought to myself that it was time to try to learn something about the business and really try to make a go of the music business or, you know, try to figure out what to do with myself. So I had a chance to go to Nashville to work with Nanci Griffith. She was recording an album there that came out on Rounder Records called "Once in a Very Blue Moon." And she'd asked me to sing some background vocal. She recorded one of my songs and asked me to sing with her. And while I was in Nashville, I took the opportunity to make a few phone calls and try to set up some meetings with publishers and try to learn something about the business.

Q Now, in the years since those early days, Lyle, you've moved from being an upstart to being a peer of a lot of the people that you looked up to. But there's a couple of writers whose songs that you champion on "Step Inside this House" that are no longer alive and they're without peer. One is Townes Van Zandt.

A Townes Van Zandt, I think, is regarded by any singer/songwriter from Texas as -- just in the highest way. It's hard to think of Townes Van Zandt and not mention Guy Clark as well. Guy and Townes were longtime friends and, I think, influences on one another and each others' writing. And so I always think of Guy and Townes together, really. But as you know, we lost Townes last year. And, gosh, the first album of Townes' I ever bought was "The Late, Great Townes Van Zandt." I heard Don Sanders in Houston play "Pancho and Lefty." That was the first I'd ever heard of Townes. And he introduced a song and said who had written it. And I went out and found "The Late, Great Townes Van Zandt." And once again, it was one of those albums I -- you know, I tried to learn every song on the record.

Q One of the first things listeners are going to notice about "Step Inside this House" is the instrumentation. It's very organic, mandolin and dobros. This isn't the Large Band.

A In the last few years, I've had the opportunity to play on stage with Jerry Douglas, who plays dobro, and Wisenborn and lap steel and Sam Bush, who plays, you know -- he's the best mandolin player anywhere, and Stuart Duncan, who plays fiddle. And I've really enjoyed getting to play live with them. Stuart's played on several of my records, played fiddle, but this was the first time I got a chance to work with Sam and Jerry in the studio. These songs, I felt, lent themselves to acoustic arrangements and that kind of instrumentation. So it's -- you know, it's -- arranging a song, I think, it's really a matter of doing what's -- it's all about communication, I think. And that sort of instrumentation, I thought, was really -- suited these songs. Arrangements should never sort of just overlay themselves on to songs, but should come about, I think, because of the song itself.

Q I was always pretty sure that when you toured with The Large Band -- and it seemed like it must have been an expensive proposition -- that artistic considerations for you always come before the financial ones. And now we have Step Inside this House. It's a double-disc set. Did you get any pressure to keep this album to just a single disc?

A You know, the record company was very supportive all along with this project. I've been very luck throughout my entire career that MCA and Curb, the record companies I'm with, have given me a free hand creatively. You know, the executives from the record company, they don't even come by the studio and check up on us when we're recording. They leave Billy Williams and me along and let us work. And that's really gratifying because that's, I think, why people do something like play music. It's really the ability to do something you want to do and do it the way you want to do it. That's the appeal. It's -- being successful, I think, is all about, you know, getting to do things you enjoy. And if you're successful enough business-wise to keep your job and to continue keeping doing something you like, then that's -- you know, that's really all you can hope for and all you want, really.

Q Well, then maybe you've answered the question I was anticipating asking you, which is: How do you keep these business considerations out of the creative process? Because it's not easy, it's reality.

A Well, true, but I think -- you know, it's -- I think, unless you're extraordinarily talented in a business way, it's so -- to be able to anticipate what an audience might want, I think it's really important to not try to anticipate the audience's reaction to what you're doing. It's really important to just do what you feel like you ought to do and hope -- naturally, hope people like it. I want people to like what I'm doing, but not at the expense of what I'm doing. I think it's -- for me, the only way that I can do it -- and I'm sure it's different for everybody or every singer/songwriter has a different approach, but I have to feel as though I'm representing myself accurately. I have to feel like I'm getting to be myself. If I had to go out and pretend to be somebody I wasn't or if I had to assume some character, I mean, the worst thing that could happen would be to assume some kind of character and then be successful because of that. You know, then you'd have to keep doing that. I feel really lucky that I get to do things that I really enjoy and get to be myself. And thankfully, the audience has allowed me to do that.

Q You play so many different styles of music, though, which is sometimes -- you know, it's not the easiest route to go, folk, country, jazz, gospel, swing and blues. Do you sometimes feel like you're on a mission to expose lesser-known styles like Texas Swing to people who listen to rock and pop music?

A You know, it's really fun to -- if people discover great Texas music like Bob Wills songs or, you know, even Ray Benson's Asleep at the Wheel stuff because of what I'm doing. That's really gratifying. But, you know, I don't feel like I'm on a mission like that at all. I'm really just trying to do things that I enjoy. I'm trying to play music that I like to play and like to listen to. You know, I just have to think, you know, if I like those different kinds of music, there are other people, you know, who aren't so different from me.

Q And you won a Grammy for "The Road to Ensenada" for best country album. What did you make of that, you know, the reaction to you winning that Grammy because you're rarely heard on Country radio?
A It's a great feeling to be recognized, you know, for your work. I think to win a Grammy for anything speaks to the voting base of the people who are a member at the Academy, because it's not just about one specific kind of music. And I think there's a lot of, sort of, cross-voting in the Grammys.

Q On the new album, "Step Inside this House," you sing songs written by other people. Did you feel like you didn't have to deal with your own emotions as much making this album because you weren't doing the writing?

A You know, it was a different kind of responsibility. I didn't feel -- these -- first of all, these songs speak for me. They're all songs that I wish I had written, so they do really speak to my emotions. But it was a different kind of responsibility in the studio. I found myself wanting to communicate the songs in a way that was true to the songwriter's original intent or my perception of the songwriter's original intent. That was the challenge of it, really, was to be respectful of the songs and the songwriters and try to get that right.

Q Guy Clark's "Step Inside this House," it really sums up the album conceptually, doesn't it?

A I learned "Step Inside This House" from Eric Taylor years ago and got to do some shows a few years back with Guy Clark and Joe Ely and John Hiatt. Songwriter-in-the-round kind of shows. We did about a half a dozen of them in different places across the country. And one night, I introduced that song. We were all playing our own songs, but one night I introduced that song and played it for Guy because I knew that Guy hadn't performed it onstage in years. He told me that night -- told the audience -- that it was the first song he had ever written. And so I was really pleased to play it for him and surprise him. But I didn't realize it was the first song that Guy had ever written. It's such a beautiful song. And just the idea of it, inviting someone in, did seem appropriate to me. I want people to sort of, you know, feel as though they're invited to listen to these songs by these great songwriters. I'm such a fan of these songwriters. And these songs, I think, are all wonderful examples of their work. It was very difficult to decide, you know, which songs to do by these songwriters because they all have so many wonderful songs.

Q These songs often sound like they're taken from the diaries of the writers who wrote them. Do you think that listeners can read too much into songs, that they assume everything is a first- person account?

A You never know for sure as a listener what's what. I do think -- certainly with my own writing, real-life experiences inspire songs. Even if a song ends up being a big lie, there's always a kernel of truth somewhere in songs for me, even if it's the real experience that inspires an imaginary one in the song. As a member of the audience and listening to songs by somebody like Guy Clark, I find myself wondering the same thing.

Q In one of the songs on "Step Inside This House," you sing, "I surely know the songs that suit me best." I think it's the David Rodriguez song that has that line. But is there a shared quality on these songs written by, you know, Eric Taylor, Willis Alan Ramsey and Robert Keen that draws you to them other than besides the fact that they're all Texans?

A You know, that line from "The Ballad of the Snow Leopard," the David Rodriguez song, that's -- I think any singer/songwriter who sang that line would feel as though, you know, that's something that you really want to say, because writing songs and singing your own songs is all about individual expression. And that's a gratifying line to sing. The shared quality among these songs, I think, is the great storytelling. It's the great narrative. The imagery, the subtlety of the narrative in some cases. The -- you know, the subtlety of the humor in Willis Alan Ramsey's song "Sleepwalking." The irony in Michael Murphy's song "West Texas Highway."

Q And you can really see those qualities -- as a listener I can say this -- reflected in your own songs. Those are some of the same qualities that a Lyle Lovett song has. Was it Dylan once said, "I know my song well before I start singing?" Another one of your pursuits, Lyle, which is definitely a collaborative one is making films. How did you begin acting in movies like -- you know, you were in "The Player," "Shortcuts" and, I guess the last one was "The Opposite of Sex?"

A Robert Altman came to a show that we did in 1990. I was on tour with Rickie Lee Jones and we played all over the country one summer. And we were in Los Angeles at the Greek Theater. And I -- you know, I had no idea Altman was there or, you know, who was at the show. But a couple of weeks later, after the tour was over, the phone rang at the house one day and it was Altman. And he asked me if I wanted to be in a movie. And, you know, I didn't -- honestly didn't think it was -- I thought somebody was playing a joke on me. But sure enough, it was Altman and he asked me to be in "The Player." And I've just worked with him again this past summer in a film that he did down in Holly Springs, Mississippi, called "Cookie's Fortune," which will be out next year. But getting to do that has been great fun for me, even though it's not -- you know, I don't think of it as my real job. I've been real lucky to be a part of some wonderful projects.

Q And I'd imagine that your family in Texas gets a big thrill from seeing you in the films or on the late-night talk shows. Are your folks still alive?

A Yeah, my folks -- you know, my folks have -- were always really supportive of my playing music. And, you know, the put me through school and never put any pressure on me to go out and get a real job. But, yeah, my folks are -- I feel very lucky to have my -- still have my folks. My mom's 67 and my dad's 64. And, you know, I don't have brothers and sisters, so we're very close. (Note: Lyle's Dad passed on in the Fall of 1999).

Q So they go out to the movies and they watch you on Leno and Letterman when you're on there?

A You know, it's nice, because I can always count on them. I don't have to worry about taping anything when it's on TV because they do it for me.

Q What about riding motorcycles? That's an avid pursuit of yours.

A You know, my job in high school was at a motorcycle shop. And my buddy, Bruce Lyon, who I used to play guitar with, he and I used to race together as well. So we were motorcycle buddies and guitar-playing buddies. Yeah, that's something that I really enjoy doing.

Q But it always comes back to the music?

A Well, you know -- yeah, actually, writing is a -- gives me a similar sort of feeling -- physical feeling as standing on stage and playing and singing. It's -- I don't know if it's the adrenaline or what it is. But there's a certain charge that comes with both.

Q There are countless mentions of Texas on the new album, "Step Inside This House." You've probably ridden across the state on your motorcycle a time or two or three. And, of course, there's Michael Martin Murphy's "West Texas Highway." Now, is it true -- I think you said this earlier, this is one of the first songs you ever played on stage and that Michael Martin Murphy never recorded it. So how did you learn it? It's like the Guy song.

A Murphy didn't record this song, but it was recorded by a band called Three Faces West that Ray Wiley Hubbard was in at one point and Rick Fowler. And they -- I think they were a New Mexico based band at that time, out of Red River. And they recorded an album -- a live album at a club called The Outpost. And "West Texas Highway" was on that album. I first heard the song, though, at a concert in 1975 that -- of Murphy's that I saw. It was when he was -- when "Wild Fire" was a big hit on the radio and I didn't know what to expect, other than "Wild Fire." And went to the show and Murphy came out with just his guitar, just all by himself, and played, I guess, the first half of the show like that, just by himself. He told stories in between songs. He introduced the songs and stood there and played and sang. It just -- I watched him and I thought, man, I wish I could do that.

Q Lyle, it seems that the first disc , it's almost a sampler of all the songwriters that are included on the record. And then on Disc 2, you go a bit deeper into their catalogues. Was that by design?

A There are -- you know, there were 21 songs and I -- we -- I picked the songs, really, by playing one song in the studio and thinking, well, gosh, what do I want to do next. You know, these are songs that I've played for years, as you said. They're songs that have been a part of my life. I didn't learn any new songs for this record. I just thought, which of my favorite songs do I want to play. And so programming -- sequencing the album was something that really intimidated me just because of the number of songs. All the songwriters are -- all the different songwriters are represented on the first disc of the two discs. There are ten different songwriters. And so, if you listen to the first disc, you'll hear all the different songwriters on the album.

Q And then, Disc 2, well, like the first disc, they both begin with a Steven Fromholz song. The first disc has "Bears" and then the second disc begins with "Texas Trilogy," which is a legendary song cycle here in the heart of Texas. But a lot of people, they don't know about Steven Fromholz.

A I learned about Steven from -- I saw him on "Austin City Limits." He and Larry Nye, just the two of them, played an "Austin City Limits" show. And I saw it on television. Not long after I started hearing about these singer/songwriters and hearing their songs, I came across Jan Reid's book, The "Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock," which featured chapters on many of these songwriters, Steven Fromholz and Michael Murphy and Willis Alan Ramsey and other great Texas singer/songwriters, like B.W. Stevenson and Willie Nelson, of course, and Jerry Jeff Walker and Rusty Weir and Bobby Bridger. That book was a wonderful guide to finding out about many of these singer/songwriters, for me. And Fromholz -- the chapter on Fromholz, was really insightful. I listened to the first -- the first time I listened to "Texas Trilogy" it reminded me of where I'm from, outside of Houston. It reminded me of the changes that have taken place in a place, for me, was a rural place that was has been kind of overtaken by the big city, by Houston. And Fromholz' song about Carporal, Texas, talks about progress in that way and what happens to people and to the place. And that's a song I've always loved.

Q There's such a sense of place on the album, "Step Inside this House," that people who've never been to Texas will get some of the essence of it, I think.

A You know, that's one -- that's a quality that -- about these songs and about these songwriters. It's a lesson that I learned from these songwriters. When Guy Clark writes about a specific place in Texas, when he's in -- "Texas 1947," when he writes about the train that comes through Monahans, you know, he's talking about changes in the world. He's talking about not just that train, but he's talking about -- there's something that anybody in the world could relate to. These songwriters, these songs, deal in the specific, but not to the exclusion of anything. They talk in detail about a specific place, but in that, anybody, anywhere in the world could relate his own experience to it.

Q And in listening to "Step Inside This House," I found that the second disc, it's really pretty mellow and melancholy. I mean, you've probably listened back to the sequencing by now, several times. It's a beautiful second disc. It's a late-night, early-morning kind of feeling. I don't know if you found that or not.

A The two discs are different, I think. And in wanting to represent all the songwriters on the first disc, it made for really two different feeling discs, which -- there aren't a lot of fast songs on the record. So it -- you know, if you want to feel up, then put on the first disc.

Q Your singing, Lyle, it's really the best on this, I think, which is your seventh album. Have you ever taken any training or did you just pick up tips along the way from some of those great singers in the Large Band?

A Come on, Jody, don't tease me. It was really -- not doing my own songs, you know, I became a singer. I mean, I had to think of myself as, you know, what am I dealing with here? And so I -- man, I felt like -- there was this pressure, I felt, that I had to try to sing these songs. You know, I couldn't pass off my bad singing as, you know, I meant to do that. So it was -- yeah, there was this sort of added pressure to think of myself as a singer, which, you know, that's very nice of you to say.

Q Have you ever had any training or did those guys in the Large Band -- I mean, you --

A Well, I've gotten to work with wonderful singers in the Large Band. Francine Reed and Willie Green, Jr., and Sweet Pea Atkinson and Harry Bowens and Arnold McCuller. I love to listen to them sing. You know, just watching them. When you listen to them sing, you know, you feel like you don't even have to sing yourself.

Q A lot of these Texas songwriters that we talked about, Eric, Willis and Robert Earl, are three that you actually have collaborated with. You've written songs with these guys. Is co- writing a difficult task for you?

A Co-writing, I think -- yeah, writing is a difficult task. But to, you know, get to work with a great songwriter like Willis Alan Ramsey or Eric Taylor or Robert Earl, you know, for writers like that to help you or to let you in on their ideas and to be able to do that with them is -- it's a great experience. And, oftentimes, you know, you -- I mean, you've come up with something that you, of course, never would have just on your own.

Q Now, some of these guys, you grew up listening to. But Robert Keen is a peer of yours. First of all, let's clear this up once and for all. Were you a roommate with Robert, were you not a roommate with Robert in college? What was your relationship with Mr. Keen?

A I lived down the street from Robert. Robert lived in a house that everybody sort of hung out at in between classes at school. People would just -- there were always people at Robert's house, whether he was there or not. There was always somebody sitting on his porch, playing a guitar or playing a fiddle. So we all just kind of met up over at Robert's. And that's how I got to know him, just wandering by and seeing people outside playing. That's how I met him. Robert is the only one of these singer/songwriters who was my friend before I learned his songs. I've, you know, really, luckily and happily gotten to know each of these singer/songwriters over the years. But I first came to know them because of their music and got to know them later, either from interviewing them or from, you know, getting to meet them after I started making records. Robert was my friend. If these -- if the rest of these songwriters, you know, were my teachers, Robert was like my classmate. And I remember the day he first played "Rolling By" for me after he had just written it. And I made him play it enough times that I could learn it, you know, sitting right there on his porch.

Q They've got the goods. And not only do you cover a lot of great writers on "Step Inside This House," but you feature a man who was also a great singer, and that's Walter Hyatt. How was his group Uncle Walt's Band an influence on you?

A You know, Walter and Uncle Walt's Band, with Champ Hood and David Ball, they were so inventive and never content to sort of think of something and sort of stay in one place. Musically, they were always pushing for the next idea. Walter's songs were so complicated. You know, it's always a challenge to learn one of Walter's songs. Walter's arrangements were just always so precise and thought out musically and lyrically. His songs are so -- they're just so thoughtful and complete and so honest. You know, from his heart. Walter was like that as a person. And it's just a privilege -- it's a privilege to sing all these songs, but particularly to get to sing Walter's songs and Townes' songs. It's a privilege.

Q Now, for listeners who don't know about Walter Hyatt or Uncle Walt's Band, perhaps they know the song, "Once is Enough," which was on one of your albums that the band sings on. You produced one of Walter's albums...

A Billy Williams and I -- Tony Brown, from MCA in Nashville, asked Billy Williams and me to do an album with Walter for the MCA Masters series, which had been an all instrumental label that MCA Nashville put out. And Tony was familiar with Walter and wanted to do a singer/songwriter album as part of the Masters series and asked Billy and me to do it. So that was in 1989 when we did that record with Walter. And, you know, that was just a great experience in my life. Something that I'll always cherish, getting to work that closely with Walter and get to record, you know, some of his songs that people hadn't heard yet.

Q Walter Hyatt died in the Value Jet plane crash. Do you feel that by covering songs like "Teach Me About Love" and "I'll Come Knocking," that you're repaying a debt to him?

A It's exciting to me for people to get to hear his songs. I tell you. It's not repaying a debt to Walter, at all. It's really -- it's being able to enjoy a gift that Walter has given to me and to all of us, really, his songs. It's not -- you know, getting to sing one of Walter's songs isn't doing anything for Walter, he did that for us. And getting to record one of his songs -- or four of his songs, like I did on this record, and getting to sing them on stage every night, that's something Walter has done for me.

Q And, Lyle, you're not only singing four songs by Walter Hyatt, who has left us, you've got four songs on "Step Inside This House" by Townes Van Zandt, who died New Years Day, 1997. Do you think that "Step Inside This House," in the best folk tradition, is about keeping these songs alive for future generations?

A These songs and these songwriters will survive even my recording them. You know, people will know these songwriters and these songs, whether or not I recorded them. Really it's not something that I'm doing to preserve the songs. It's really just the -- it's something that the songwriters are doing for me and for all of us in giving us these songs. I am a part of the audience as I get to perform these songs and just get to enjoy them and appreciate them.

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