Lyle Lovett

During the early pandemic lockdowns my wife, Jenna Zine, and I searched out interesting online streaming performances as a way to keep connected to the experience of going out to see live entertainment. We found it uplifting to be in “real time” with the performers and other audience members, while also helping support artists. One of our favorites was catching Lyle Lovett’s In Conversation & Song , where he remotely shared songs and stories with songwriters he admired, such as Lisa Loeb, Terry Allen, Shawn Colvin, Michael McDonald, and Marcus King. Lyle’s honesty and respect for songs really stands out when he talks with other songwriters, so when his new album, 12th of June , was coming out I thought it’d be interesting to talk to Lyle about the recording of the songs as well. As I expected, he was a true gentleman; he practically started interviewing me, and we had a great time talking.

Before I forget, my wife says I have to thank you for the In Conversation & Song livestreams.

Oh, thank you! We did 20 during the isolation. I enjoyed doing them so much that I haven’t given up on the idea of doing more. It was so weird at first. I did my first one when it was still the first serious lockdown. John Hiatt and I have been friends for years, and I felt comfortable enough with John to call him and ask him if he’d do it. It was free across all the socials and our websites. We had 318,000 actual views. I couldn’t believe it. The company that we worked with to help us broadcast it measured all the metrics and knew how to do all that. It flabbergasted me. I heard from a lot of folks who don’t get out, or can’t get out and can’t go to shows, even when we’re playing live. That was a great feeling.

You’re reaching people that you wouldn’t normally reach, and in such a different format. I’m amazed how much research you seemed to be doing for each one.

Well, aren’t you nice? For the most part, those were friends of mine, so I didn’t have to do research. But it was fun to get to try and help set them up to tell a story and talk about their process a little bit. That’s what I enjoyed hearing as a fan. I approached it like that. The weak point was that every other song was one of mine, for me. [ laughs ] I would have rather just interviewed.

Well, I don’t know if that’s a weak point. The first question is a “guest question.” I reached out to your former pianist, Matt Rollings [ Tape Op #133 ], and he asked, “What are the challenges of recording vocals and guitar at the same time? Is it easier to just sing, or to do both live?”

Oh, that’s really cool. Recording vocals and guitar, doing that at the same time, does present a technical problem with leakage.

Separation, yeah.

Even if I am going direct with the guitar, which we did not do on this record, we’ll still have guitar leakage in the vocal.

Yeah, definitely.

It’s something that I’ve struggled with, or had to deal with, from my very first recordings. Matt will know that playing and singing at the same time is important to the way my songs feel, and important to the phrasing. I would phrase differently if I sang without playing, and vice versa. So, for the songs to feel the way I think they should feel – the way that they do when I make them up, sitting on the side of my bed or wherever – I’ve got to play and sing them at the same time.

Is that something you work out with a producer or engineer? Asking questions about what their best technique’s going to be for that?

Yeah. I say, “This is what I’m doing. Deal with it.” They go, “Okay.” [ laughter ] I’ve actually worked with just a handful of engineers and producers over the years. They understand why it’s important to me. They’re technically able to help as much as they can. It’s a factor, and it’s part of the way the records sound. That leakage is just part of it. It’s not ideal, but I’m of the mind that it’s more important to have the songs feel right than it is to have them sound pristine but not have that feel. It’s something that we have to accept and work around it.

Your new record, 12th of June , was engineered and co-produced with the fabulous Chuck Ainlay [ Tape Op #97 ].

Chuck is one of my favorite engineers. My first three records were released from the Nashville part of MCA Records. Tony Brown was the head of A&R at MCA Records in Nashville at the time, and Tony was the one who gave me the green light at MCA. Jimmy Bowen was running MCA Nashville in those days.

<div class="captxt" style="background-color: #fff !important; color: #000 !important; text-align: center !important;"><a style="color: #22c95d !important;" href="https://open.spotify.com/album/0p13hRQZ6VwBqXuoYzFtBR" target="_blank"><em class="fa fa-play"></em> Listen</a></div>

Famously.

Famously, yeah exactly. Chuck was one of Bowen’s favorite engineers. Chuck was a young guy from Indiana who hadn’t been in Nashville that long. By the time I started recording there, he was well-established. He was recording George Strait, Reba McEntire, and The Oak Ridge Boys. All the big acts that Bowen was producing himself. When we were recording the Pontiac album in 1987, Bowen had a studio, Sound Stage [Studios], leased in Nashville. There was a big room in front at Sound Stage. I never got to record there, but it was a remarkable room in that there was no control room. The mixing console was in the room where they were recording. We recorded the Pontiac album in the back studio, which was smaller; a place called Back Stage.

Yeah, I’ve been back there.

Now, Back Stage has been expanded. It’s still smaller than the front room, but it’s bigger than it used to be. That was where we recorded this new record. Typically, in every recording I’ve done up to this one, I’ve been in the control room for every playback, every overdub, and every comp of every part on every track. I’ve always been that involved in my recording process. We would take a break, and we recorded the Pontiac album 30 days straight in March of 1987. I remember we were in there on Easter Sunday, and thinking, “Something’s wrong with this.” On breaks, I would walk up to the Front Stage, and Chuck would be sitting at the board by himself, working on tracks. Comping this or that or putting tracks together. I’d sit down next to him, and he’d tell me what he was doing. That’s how I got to know Chuck. When it came time the next year, when we recorded the Large Band album, I asked Tony Brown, I said, “I sure like Chuck’s records and the way things sound. Do you think we could get Chuck to engineer this record?” Tony worked on it, and sure enough, Chuck recorded and engineered the Large Band records. I’ve been friends with Chuck ever since. When it came time to do this record, he was nice enough to say he’d do it.

That’s a 30 year wraparound there.

From 1988. It was 31 years, because we recorded these tracks in November 2019. When they moved my deal from MCA Nashville to MCA Los Angeles in 1990, the first record I recorded for MCA Los Angeles was Joshua Judges Ruth . It came out in ‘92. We started recording in the Fall of ‘91. George Massenburg [ Tape Op #54 , #63 ] co-produced and engineered that. His assistant engineer was a 20-year-old Nathaniel Kunkel, Russ Kunkel’s son.

You’ve been playing with Russ Kunkel for how many decades now?

Well, exactly. Russ played drums on Joshua Judges Ruth , which was my ‘92 record, and I’ve recorded with him ever since. He’s been playing live with me since 2003. I love listening to Russ think. He really listens. He reacts and listens, and his feel is amazing. This summer it’ll be Russ and Leland [Sklar, bass] together in the band. That’s going to be really fun.

It must have been great to see Nathaniel Kunkel become so talented.

For sure. I liked working with George and Nathaniel so much. Nathaniel was so smart about everything he did. The next record was I Love Everybody . It was a more stripped-down record, in terms of arrangements. At first, I thought I was just going in to do some demos – to see how some of those songs could sound – and it turned into the record. I called Nathaniel and I said, “Hey, I’m just going to play through some songs. Would you come and engineer this?” It turned into that record. It was Nathaniel’s first time to be first engineer on a project. After that I kept working with Nathaniel. Toward the end of all of that, Nathaniel, because of the state of the recording business, he ended up taking an industry job. I called Chuck and explained everything to him. I said, “Would you be willing to do this record and work with me?” He said, “Yes,” and I was so grateful.

It seems you’ve kept your eyes on the engineers who did very good work. Massenburg, Nathaniel, and Chuck Ainlay are going to support your vision.

Well, it’s remarkable to get to know people like that over the years. I’ve done a few one-off projects with Don Was [ Tape Op #113 ] and Ed Cherney. Getting to know Ed and work with Ed on Matt’s record [ Mosaic ]. Gosh, I even got to work with Al Schmitt. I’ve worked with Dave O’Donnell in New York. I’ve done a few one-offs with Russ Titelman producing songs for movies. To work with the people in the business, like Peter Asher [ #137 ], is a learning experience. To be in the room with people who have that depth and history in their career, it’s a privilege. I’m enough of a fan that it appeals to me. I think of standing in a room with Don Was or Peter Asher as being a big deal. To be able to learn from them and hear their stories, it’s a fascinating thing to me. I’m grateful. None of that is lost on me, in terms of how special it is. Even at this point in my career, I often think back on all of the wonderful things I’ve gotten to do.

You had to navigate the ‘80s, where sometimes studio techniques involved drum machines, lots of click tracks, and sterile sounding or big reverb recordings. You had to get through that work in your style and stay authentic to the song.

I was lucky in the ‘80s to work with people like Tony Brown who supported the way I wanted to work. They were willing to let me be myself in terms of material, and in terms of the way we recorded. I’ve always recorded with the whole rhythm section. We basically record live. On this new record, we recorded the tracks with the horns all at once. We didn’t overdub the horns later – we recorded with everybody playing. I love putting a bunch of talented musicians together in a room and hearing how they react to one another. An arrangement in the hands of talented musicians just gets better. Matt was always brilliant. Why would I want to limit somebody with his talent and say, “Play exactly this”? Putting musicians all together in a room, and trusting them to make things better, is part of the fun of recording. There were a couple of tunes on this record, “Straighten Up and Fly Right” and “Gee Baby, Ain’t I Good to You?” that I’d recorded before. “Gee Baby…” I’d recorded with Matt Rollings [for the film Kissing Jessica Stein ]. “Straighten Up and Fly Right” we recorded for a Garry Marshall film [ Dear God ]. Then, on the last couple of large band tours that I’ve done, we did arrangements so that [vocalist] Francine Reed and I could do those as duets. That’s why I recorded them on this record.

Most of your records have covers of other peoples’ work, as well as your writing.

My love of songs and songwriting, and the Texas songwriters I always speak about, does come from a standpoint of a listener and a fan. I enjoy their music. I talk about them among all my influences so much, because they were people I could go see live. Those were people who would come through Texas, and I could go and see them in person. Listening to records also makes an impression, but when I get to see somebody live, talk to them, and know a little bit about how an artist works, it makes their music special.

Early on in your career you worked with producer Billy Williams.

I was just going to say that we need to talk about Billy Williams! Billy Williams and J. David Sloan had the band that Matt Rollings was in; the house band [The Rogues] from Mr. Lucky’s in Phoenix, Arizona. I met them in a serendipitous way, when we were both being booked on this gig in Luxembourg in Europe. That’s how I got to know Matt and the guys. Billy co-produced everything that I did, through all those early records until Billy retired in the late aughts. Billy is such an important part of my music. He helped me to think about arrangements, and he taught me so much about recording and the difference between a recording arrangement and a live arrangement. Being around Billy was an education. I still rely on him. I send him mixes and talk to him on the phone. With this new record, I sent him rough mixes. He was helpful.

That’s amazing.

He was the music director for the Mr. Lucky’s band in those days, when Matt Rollings was 17 or 18 years old, Billy was in his early 40s, and they had these brilliant young people in the band. Matt Rollings and Matt McKenzie [bass], Ray Herndon [guitar], and Jeff Borree was the drummer. I remember hearing Matt play piano for the first time and thinking, “Wow, I’ve never heard anybody play piano like that in a country song.” I listened to every set they played for a month in September 1983. The fact that they would be willing to work with me was a big deal to me. Everything we do is so influenced by the people we know, the people we meet, and the people we work with. The best part of life is to be able to engage with all those folks and be involved.

You’ve worked with a lot of very sympathetic studios and players. Have you ever been in studio situations that weren’t to your liking?

No, I haven’t. No. I think I can sort all that out ahead of time. There are always creative discussions that happen, but they’re usually productive. Somebody either presents me with an idea that I like better than my own, or they present an argument that makes me think, “No, I like the direction I’m going here.” It either confirms what I’m already thinking, or it changes my mind in a good way. That’s part of the fun of the process. I’m 64 years old at this point. My parents both worked for Exxon. I don’t know what that’s like. When I was 18, and first starting to play in clubs, I never dreamed that at 64 I’d still be playing music or would have been able to play music the whole time. When I was 18, I thought, “This is something fun to do for now.” I don’t have the perspective of what other jobs would be like. But I do know this about my job: It’s rare when any two days are alike. There are such a variety of things I get to do. I get to meet so many interesting people that it’s interesting every day. Recording is such a different thing from playing live. Playing live is such a different thing from writing a song. Every facet of it is different, and every facet of it is interesting. And the contrast: Being able to perform in different setups. Going from sitting by myself in a room and trying to make up a song to being on stage and listening to an arrangement come to life. The contrast keeps me engaged and involved and interested.

I tell people all the time that every day I wake up it’s a different set of problems to solve or a different scenario.

Exactly. Yeah. That’s certainly one way to say it. If there are problems to solve...

Interesting problems! It keeps my brain engaged.

It does. How do you deal with somebody who wants to play acoustic guitar and sing at the same time?

Technically, one of the techniques I’ll use is to set up figure-8 patterns on the microphones. I’ll use the null spot, between where the two pickup patterns are, and where I can get some separation. If the person doesn’t either sing too loud, or play guitar loud, or at least if they do both loud, it works. If someone’s strumming loud and singing quiet, then we’ve certainly got an issue. But the figure-8 trick, if I get the mics in the right places, I’ve had sessions where I’ve kept the acoustic guitar track and re-tracked the vocal, and there’s just a tiny bit of bleed. It has to be set up just right.

For fixes, we typically went to alternate takes and used that. It’s tricky to line up your instrument so that I don’t feel any kind of a rhythmical shift, and to have the leakage. Replacing a word with a vocal where we don’t have any guitar bleed – where the leakage goes away – I can feel the whiplash of that. It’s pretty tricky.

Have you done vocal punch-ins where you’re strumming along to add the bleed back in?

Oh, for sure. Absolutely.

That’s one trick.

I know some people use a piece of plexiglass between the instrument [and the mouth], but anything that affects the way I might play, or if I have to stand, that can affect the performance.

I’ve tried pieces of foam, but then they can’t see the frets. Uh-oh!

I need to see my frets, for sure! What mics do you use on acoustic guitar?

Sometimes something “trashy,” like a dynamic mic. Something a little flat-sounding can give the acoustic guitar a papery or “old record” quality.

Yep.

A lot of times I’ll use small-diaphragm mics. Even stereo, if it’s carrying more of the song.

Yeah, for sure.

If it’s just one person singing and playing, and we’re not going to add tracks and nobody’s playing along, I’ll put mics around the room and try to get more of a feeling of space.

Get the sound of the room. We used very little reverb on this new record. We used more room or ambient sounds.

The record sounds really natural.

Oh, cool. Nice.

Well, you’ve got Chuck Ainlay engineering.

He’s great. It’s fun to go in and have that confidence, and not be worrying about it. Go in there and think about playing and singing, and about the arrangement. That’s a wonderful feeling.

You are a true collaborator and you’re able to make sure that people are carrying the weight with you.

I grew up without brothers and sisters. I love the collaborative nature of being in the studio. It’s an interesting shift playing in the studio with people as opposed to playing live. Playing live, it’s so freeing. In the studio, there’s an extra concentration; people realize that even though this is just one performance of a song, it’s going to be the permanent record of the song. Musicians think of it in that way. Performances in the studio can be extra special because of that. The environment, the interdependence, and the supportiveness in the studio is something that is heightened. As supportive as players can be to each other on stage live, in the studio there’s an extra quality to it. These people here are trying to help me. They’re trying their best. I love that.