August 14, 2000
DOWN HOME:
Concert offers reminder: You're not entirely alone
___Thanks to the love of my life, I celebrated my birthday six weeks early.
___Rushing birthdays is not exactly a priority, of course. Not anymore, at least. I remember when I couldn't wait for my birthday to come. Especially the presents. Now, I'dgive some of those footballs and bicycles and bows and arrows back, just to slow the cycle down a bit.
MARV KNOX
Editor
___But this year, I knew what I wanted as soon as I heard about it.
___Lyle Lovett sang at Bass Hall in Fort Worth. And there Joanna and I were, on the front row of the nosebleed section. Hearing Lyle sing "That's Right, You're Not from Texas" and "She Ain't No Lady, She's My Wife" was worth turning 44, another year closer to middle age.
___About the only way Jo and I could've been Lyle Lovett fans any earlier would've been if we had gone to A&M with him back in the '70s.
___We heard about Lyle when he made his first album, memorably titled "Lyle Lovett." We lived out-of-state at the time, but we had an excellent country music station there in Nashville.
___The station played a song Lyle sang about a cowboy, and I liked his voice, so I bought the album. Then I heard him sing a song he wrote with Robert Earl Keen, "This Old Porch." When I listened to that song, I could taste Tex-Mex cheese enchiladas, smell sagebrush and see the beloved West Texas sky. Lyle made me homesick for Texas, and when you live a long way from the place you love, you nurture homesickness. Sometimes, it's as close to home as you can get.
___So, we've been big Lyle fans almost forever. No album disappointed.
___But the problem with being a Lyle fan is nobody understands. Lyle's country-blues-folk-bluegrass-jazz style doesn't make the radio much anymore, and we hardly know anyone who owns his albums. "Oh, he's the one with the hair," some people say. "You mean the guy who married Julia Roberts," others recall. Lyle fandom can be lonely.
___And that was one of the best things about going to his concert. We soaked up his wonderful lyrics and marveled at his incomprehensibly talented band --with more than 2,000 other Lyle fans. And we learned the sold-out concert did not satisfy ticket demand, so he came back for two more nights.
___"Isn't this great?" Jo asked. "We're not the only people who love Lyle after all!"
___Lyle's concert kind of reminded me of going to church. (In fact, one of his best songs is the Spiritual-inspired "Church" about a preacher who doesn't know when to quit.)
___Sometimes, Christians feel alone and lonely. Others don't always understand us. But when we go to church, we remember we're not alone. And the presence of others who understand inspires us. And gives us courage.
__
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