Lyle Lovett: Klein’s Restless Genius

Today is the birthday of Lyle Lovett. He is 69 today.

Lyle Pearce Lovett was born in Klein, Texas on November 1, 1957 — a small community north of Houston that was settled by his ancestor Adam Klein in the 1840s. Lovett grew up on his family’s land. He studied journalism at Texas A&M and started writing songs that refused to behave like any country song anyone had heard. They were funny and devastating at the same time. They were jazz and country and gospel and Western swing all at once. Nashville didn’t know what to do with him. He signed there anyway.

The Category He Had to Invent

Lovett’s debut album came out on MCA Records in 1986 and established him immediately as something genuinely original. “Cowboy Man” and “God Will” hit country radio. Then Pontiac in 1988 went further — a record that used a jazz big band and a gospel choir to tell Texas stories nobody had dared to tell quite that way. He won four Grammy Awards. He married Julia Roberts in 1993 — a tabloid story that never quite captured who Lovett actually was. He kept touring, kept recording, kept playing with his Large Band. Klein’s land is still in the family. Learn more on Wikipedia.