THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 1, 1994 TAG: 9412010507
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B11 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Music Review
SOURCE: BY RICKEY WRIGHT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
A string quartet entered stage left, tuned and played a brief introduction. A spotlight rose on Lyle Lovett, picking a guitar and singing ``Just the Morning,'' a soft acoustic lament.
The reversal of traditional big-opening concert protocol was typical of Lovett's approach over the two hours-plus that followed at Chrysler Hall on Wednesday night. That is, if any one element of his music and its live presentation could be located anywhere in the neighborhood of ``typical.''
Even the few weak songs that the Texas singer/writer offered - mostly from his current album, ``I Love Everybody,'' and mostly dispensed with in the show's first third - boasted some fine lines. On leaving town: ``Say you'll see them when someone dies/And says goodbye to Carolina.''
Though Lovett appeared with his full-complement Large Band (14 pieces, including singers, horn section and himself), he frequently rearranged pieces in the manner of the small-group tour that brought him to the venue last year. Four local string players gave him even more flexibility in making over material that ranged through and beyond his five CDs.
The horns, as well as violin and the cello of the justly celebrated John Hagen, aided in the reconstruction of the bluesy, uptempo ``I've Been to Memphis.'' Where a bar-room piano line led the recorded version, Lovett placed his own guitar out front before giving solo space to fiddler Andrea Zahn.
The Large Band's stellar interplay was given even more room to flourish with a version of Bob Wills' ``Blues for Dixie.'' Here, guitarist DesChamps Hood's solo dovetailed with Zahn's before the horns finished the number.
The party-time mood vied for time with Lovett's own subtly self-deprecating humor, both in song and spoken introduction. Even as he envied, in ``Skinny Legs,'' ``that boy with that guitar/He's got a shirt and tie like I always wanted,'' he was wearing his own trademark, very sharp three-piece gear.
While walking up to other numbers, he cannily styled himself as unable to stop talking, all the while worrying his guitar strings as if to snap himself back into the more comfortable state of singing and playing. He also gave the packed house to a droll sing-along invitation in which he claimed to hate sing-alongs.
Near the end, Lovett dipped into his early albums for a mini-set that took in ``If I Had a Boat,'' ``Give Back My Heart,'' ``L.A. County,'' and a jazzy, low-key ``Good Intentions.'' Hagen took his customary boundary-leaping solo on ``You Can't Resist It,'' evoking the music of India, power chords, whining power lines.
And in contrast to its hushed opening, the show concluded on a series of socko moments ranging from the gospel-tinged ``Since the Last Time'' and ``Church'' (another sly juxtapositioning) to Lovett's distinctive signature song, ``Here I Am.'' by CNB