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Lyle Lovett’s final project for a major label is a mixed bag of covers and original songs from blues to bluegrass, gospel to pop. Fittingly, most of the songs are about movin’ on. There’s the Ray Price/ Engelbert Humperdink hit “Release Me” (with k.d. lang), and, surprisingly, a previously released holiday song—a duet with Austin Texas singer Kat Edmundson on “Baby It’s Cold Outside” (issued on Lovett’s three-song holiday EP Songs of the Season). He turns up the heat on an upbeat cover of Jesse Winchester’s “Isn’t That So” and a fiddle-fired take on Townes Van Zandt’s “White Freightliner Blues” featuring the striking young fiddler Luke Bulla. And he lowers the temperature on Chuck Berry’s rock classic “Brown- Eyed Handsome Man,” turning it into a plaintive ballad. But he doesn’t stray far from his country roots—the sentimental “Night’s Lullaby” features Sara and Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek, and “Dress of Laces” (with Watkins on vocal harmony) is pure Lovett. To close there’s “Keep Us Steadfast,” a bracing hymn apt for a progressive singer/songwriter and country star entering uncharted territory. Sonically, the album offers a rich, warm tone that fills the room while retaining a sense of intimacy, especially on the slower songs.
By Greg Cahill
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