Artist: Lyle Lovett Album: Release Me Bitrate: 231kbps avg Quality: EAC Secure Mode / LAME 3.98.4 / -V0 / 44.100Khz Label: Lost Highway Genre: Country Size: 90.90 megs PlayTime: 0h 51min 56sec total Rip Date: 2012-03-10 Store Date: 2012-02-28 Track List: -------- 01. Garfield's Blackberry Blossom 3:06 02. Release Me 2:45 03. White Boy Lost In The Blues 3:34 04. Baby, It's Cold Outside 3:18 05. Isn't That So 4:51 06. Understand You 3:43 07. Brown Eyed Handsome Man 3:37 08. Keep It Clean 2:37 09. One Way Gal 2:59 10. Dress Of Laces 6:13 11. The Girl With The Holiday Smile 3:58 12. Night's Lullaby 3:25 13. White Freightliner Blues 5:06 14. Keep Us Steadfast 2:44 Release Notes: -------- Somewhere between Leonard Cohen and Bob Wills lies the Promised Land inhabited by Lyle Lovett, who balances elegantly broken romanticism with loose-jointed swing that shuffles and jumps like exalted Texas Playboys. Lanky with high rise hair, Lovett has been an anomaly of the singer/songwriter ilk since appearing with a chock-a-block debut albumùand Release Me, his final album of an almost 30-year career for Curb, finds him resolutely steadfast in his excellence and eclecticism. Opening with a hard reel, fiddles flying in close formation and gallop-beats pummeling the traditional ôGarfieldÆs Blackberry Blossom,ö this true country nugget suggests LovettÆs final Curb project is an homage to the people, artists and oeuvres that have, as they say in the South, ôbrought him.ö Melting into the slinky noir jazz of the doubly ironic title track, he gets entangled with fellow country-cred-scare upstart and world-class chanteuse kd lang for a rumination on the silken torture of needing to be freed from a love that is gone. A tribute to his roots, there are songs by obscure folkies, who inspired Lovett. Eric TaylorÆs tentative outreach to a girl (ôUnderstand Youö) and John Grimaudo and Saylor WhiteÆs breathtaking tale of a seamanÆs child and the siren/mother whoÆre torn apart by the hale fellowÆs preference for the water (ôDress of Laces,ö) take yearning to near madness, a theme found in LovettÆs own songs. Not all is dour. Lovett writes ôThe Girl With The Holiday Smile,ö a jaunty homage to a hooker in the grocery store, and revisits the droll ôWhite Boy Lost in the Bluesö with a soulful vocal assist from Arnold McCuller, skewering poseur musicianship with a sincerity that takes irony to another level. The jazz standard ôBaby, ItÆs Cold Outsideö is slyly read by LovettÆs lothario to the Rickie Lee Jones-evoking Kat Edmonson, all slushy vowels and wide-eyed Judy Holliday dishy-ness. With piano sauntering along, resolve crumbles, young love tumbles and the crescendo packs the charm of vintage romantic comedy. That camaraderie extends to the appearance of Nickel CreekÆs Sean and Sara Watkins on the ruminative ôNightÆs Lullaby,ö as well as the horn-propelled ôIsnÆt That So,ö featuring Was (Not Was) vocalists Harry Bowen and Sweetpea Atkinson and bluegrass progressive Sam Bush. ThatÆs the beauty and wonder of Lyle Lovett: coexistence isnÆt just natural, itÆs tasty. Winding up with a scorching rendition of Townes Van ZandtÆs ôWhite Freightliner Bluesöùfeaturing vocal support from road compadres Keith Sewell, Luke Bulla and Ray Herndon, the combustion desolves into ôKeep Us Steadfast,ö an old Methodist hymn thatÆs an elegy of all that is happened.