Four extraordinary talents from the American roots music scene visited Victoria this week for a pair of informal singer-songwriter concerts.
The elder statesman of the quartet, Guy Clark, set the tone off the top Tuesday night when he declared: "We have no set list..
. we have no agenda. We have no clue, but we have no fear.
"
Clark - grey maned and blue jeaned - was joined by Joe Ely, John Hiatt and Lyle Lovett. Each took turns playing and singing. Aside from Indiana-born Hiatt, all are from Texas.
They range in age from 49 (Lovett) to 65 (Clark). During their 2 1/2 hour concert, they gave the impression of men who've drunk, fought, loved and lost more than a little.
While each shone in a different way, all sang songs full of feeling, wit, whimsy .
.. and, occasionally, flashes of great depth.
Lovett, sporting his trademark curly pompadour, was the most talkative. First, he thanked Dave Cahill of Old Town Strings for mending his guitar.
Then Lovett - ever gracious, ever considerate to his stage-mates - favoured the sold-out audience with favourites such as If I Had a Boat as well as lesser known gems.
The latter included Record Lady, which Lovett explained was inspired by his friend, Robert Earl.
Apparently Earl, trying to persuade guests to leave his house, attempted to induce Lovett's departure by suggesting a visit to a record shop inhabited by a gal with "the cutest little cartridge you've ever seen."
The songwriter also impressed with his country-swing tune, I've Been to Memphis, with the wonderful line: "The sun comes up in a coffee cup.
"
An affable Hiatt sometimes served as straight-man to Lovett's dead-pan observations. For example, after Hiatt sang Drive South, his pal asked what inspired it.
Some French poet guy, replied Hiatt.
Do you speak French?,asked Lovett. Uh no, said Hiatt, the poem was translated.
(In print, this doesn't come off as particularly side-slapping, however, something in the bemused delivery of Julia Roberts' ex-husband cracked the crowd up.)
Of the four, Hiatt is the most closely aligned to rock and rhythm-and-blues. There was definitely a Rebel Yell swagger to Tennessee Plates, a chugging rockabilly boogie about grand theft auto.
The singer's nasal,ravaged-sounding vocals sounding particularly soulful for Ain't Never Goin' Back, about a girl remembered by a musician as he plays a circle of dead-end bars.
Arguably, the highlight of the evening was Hiatt's gospel-influenced encore: Have a Little Faith.
Joined by Ely and Lovett on the choruses, the singer pushed himself on raw, bluesy high notes for this paean to secular love and devotion.
The result was truly soul-restoring.
Clark may have looked like he was dozing off at this point, however, he was impressive elsewhere.
Nothing was finer than his rendition of Magdalene, a poignant and melodically beautiful song in which a man tries to convince his lover to travel to Mexico.
Randall Knife, delivered talking style, is Clark's heartfelt and poetic tribute to his late father.
With Out in the Parkin' Lot, this songwriter's songwriter deftly conjured up a microcosm of life in a car lot where folks drink "old Crow whiskey and hot 7-up" while two drunken sods slug each other until they spew.
Ely easily held up his end, offering some of the night's most impassioned performances.
Up on the Ridge, a lonesome yarn about tangling with fate, benefited from his aggressive, twangy strumming and Hiatt's bluesy lead guitar lines.
And Ely told the best tale of the night, about how his friend Butch Hancock dreamed about a song being played on a reel-to-reel recorder, woke up, wrote part of it down, then returned to the dream to hear the rest of the tune.
The composition, Just a Wave, was recorded by Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and contains the imaginative putdown: "You're just a wave, you're not the water.
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