Singer-Songwriter Lyle Lovett, Colorado's Favorite Texan, Coming to Red Rocks

Lyle Lovett can’t remember how many times he’s played Red Rocks over the years.

The legendary Americana singer-songwriter, who was inducted into the venue’s hall of fame in 2018, knows he’s taken the stage at least twenty times since his first opening slot in 1990. Two years later, he was back between the towering red-rock pillars for a headlining show with his longtime ensemble, the Large Band, but the exact number of appearances after that eludes him.

No matter how many times he visits, though, he knows one thing — it never gets old.

“Getting to experience something firsthand that you read about in Rolling Stone magazine is a pretty cool deal,” Lovett says in his cool Texas twang.

For the record, Lovett has played Red Rocks 22 times in the last thirty-plus years. His 23rd show will be on Tuesday, July 9, again with his Large Band. Shawn Colvin and KT Tunstall are also on the bill.

Lovett was initially introduced to Colorado in 1986, shortly after his self-titled debut album landed on Billboard’s country charts, during a showcase at the Oxford Hotel that his manager at the time, the Denver-based concert promoter Chuck Morris, organized.

“That was a long time ago now, but still a memorable experience for me,” he says. “I’m just grateful that Colorado and the people have supported me the way they have, and I can come back all these years later and play Red Rocks.”

Since then, the Texas native has reached honorary Coloradan status, a title he doesn’t take lightly.

“When you’re from Texas, that’s high praise, actually,” says Lovett, who has collected four Grammy Awards and is also a member of the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame for his lengthy résumé of riding and showing horses in his home state.

But the genre-hopping Lovett is most proud of the stable of musicians he’s been able to pull from since his Large Band came together back in the 1980s. Currently, he tours with fourteen players, including the Muscle Shoals Horns section. In total, around forty musicians can say they’ve been part of Lovett’s Large Band.

“The entire Large Band family is quite large,” Lovett says wryly. “We all stay in touch. This is the same lineup we had last year, which is rare. Each year, usually the band is different by one or two players, just because there’s so many of them.”

“But the way I like to tour with the Large Band is with the horns section and vocal group.”

With so many moving pieces, the set organically changes nearly every night. It helps that Lovett likes to throw some bluegrass-esque jams into the set, too.

“We try to respect the recorded arrangements of the songs, but I never asked the guys in the band to play exactly what they played on a record. Their solos are improvised every night, so I hear musical conversations go back and forth across the stage,” he says.

“We’re actually playing live, so the music feels alive to me every time,” Lovett continues. “When you play with great players, I love listening to the members of the band think from night to night. It’s interesting to me how they interpret what we’re doing.”

Fresh off a headlining spot at last month’s Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Lovett and company are primarily promoting the group’s latest record, 12th of June (2022), which is heavy on jazz and R&B, particularly on the rendition of “Straighten Up and Fly Right,” a duet cover of a Nat King Cole classic that features veteran Large Band member Francine Reed.

Over the years, Lovett’s ability to write whatever he wants, from country and bluegrass to blues and big band (no pun intended) swing, has made him hard to describe. Audiences may know him most for his music, whether that’s his 1996 Grammy-winning record The Road to Ensenada or, if you’re a Millennial, his version of Toy Story tune “You Got a Friend in Me” alongside Randy Newman. Add in all his acting work, including his big-screen debut in Richard Altman’s 1992 black comedy The Player, and Lovett really does do what he wants, when he wants, despite any labels the press may have placed on him.

His first three records were released by Nashville’s MCA Records, which, he theorizes, is most likely why the country tag got hung on him early on.

But he’s “not about the world of the country music business,” he says.

“I haven’t really been a part of country music since then,” Lovett continues. “People who don’t listen to country music think of me as country. People who do listen to country music don’t think of me as country. That’s sort of how it goes.”

Spoken like a true outlaw. It’s that type of renegade spirit, and the adventures of making music with his friends, that keep him going at 66.

“It’s not about milestones or selling a certain number of records — or, these days, having a certain number of followers on social media. The thing that keeps me going, the thing that I live for, is the process,” he says.

“I wouldn’t know what else to do,” Lovett concludes. “I love being able to play music with my friends. In settings like Red Rocks, it really doesn’t get any better than that.”

Lyle Lovett and His Large Band, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 9, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, 18300 West Alameda Parkway; tickets are $50-$299.