BY LARRY NAGER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Lyle Lovett's new album, Step Inside This House, is a three-volume set. There are the two CDs filled with the eclectic Texas singer - songwriter's' masterful interpretations of 21 songs by some of his favorite writers.
This is the material he'll be singing in concert tonight at the Taft Theatre.
The third piece is the elaborate booklet packed with song lyrics and 18 pictures by his favorite photographer, Cincinnatian Michael Wilson.
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IF YOU GO
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Lyle Lovett
When: 8 p.m. today.
Where: Taft Theatre, Fifth and Sycamore streets, downtown.
Tickets: $35 and $22.50, at Ticketmaster (562-4949) and the door.
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Mr. Wilson, 39, who lives in Price Hill with his wife, Marilyn, and their three children -- Morrison, 6, Polly, 7, and Henry, 9, -- has done photos for every Lovett album since 1992's Joshua Judges Ruth.
But Step Inside this House breaks new ground as the photographer's most elaborate album project to date.
"I knew that that's where he (Mr. Lovett) was heading with the art direction," Mr. Wilson says in his halting, syncopated way of speaking. "And I was certainly thrilled by that, and a little worried, because you're basically just making very simple pictures. So it's a little scary, at the same time, to see them treated in a very respectful way."
The photographer, who plans to attend tonight's concert, is well known in the music industry for his stylized cover shots for B.B. King, the Mavericks (who used his photo of son Henry, then 5, for the sleeve of What A Crying Shame), Buddy Miller, Toad the Wet Sprocket and the Replacements.
On the local scene, he has done album covers for Over The Rhine, Blessid Union of Souls and Rob Fetters. Some images from those sessions, both local and national, are displayed at Cincinnati Art Museum in the exhibit What I Really Like is Music: Photographs by Michael Wilson.
The Lovett shoots occurred in May and June, starting in Nashville. "We just took a little road trip," Mr. Wilson says.
Natural setting
Many of the songwriters covered in Step Inside This House live in Nashville, so they were able to get a lot of work done there. They started with one of Mr. Lovett's oldest friends and mentors and got a free meal to boot.
"Guy Clark made us breakfast, with these low cholesterol eggs from South American chickens," Mr. Wilson recalls.
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IF YOU GO
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What I Really Like is Music: Photographs by Michael Wilson
When: Through Jan. 10.
Where: Cincinnati Art Museum, Eden Park (721-5204).
Tickets: $5, free 18 and younger, free admission Saturdays. <
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The two friends' easy rapport comes through in the photos.
"Obviously, there was lots of history between them, Guy Clark being someone whom they all (Mr. Lovett's generation of Texas songwriters) basically sat under."
Another Nashville photo session was done with Willis Alan Ramsey, a legendary Texas songwriter still revered for his self-titled 1972 debut album.
Mr. Ramsey, a near-obsessive perfectionist, has never made a second record, but he and Mr. Lovett are old friends and often sing together on Mr. Lovett's albums.
Michael Martin Murphey was making an album in Nashville, so they combined photo and recording sessions, Mr. Wilson says.
"He was covering one of Lyle's songs, so he asked Lyle to come in and sing back-up on it." Mr. Wilson shot them in the studio.
Another longtime Lovett pal, Robert Earl Keen, was performing in Knoxville, so the troupe headed east. But not by limo or any other pretentious pop star form of transportation.
"We just got a rental car," says Mr. Wilson. "Lyle drove, with me and a fellow named Jonas (Livingston) who was the creative director at MCA. He's not there anymore, but he was the one at the record company that Lyle insisted on working with."
That's something that stands out about Mr. Lovett, whether on record or stage. He knows what he wants to do, he knows the people he likes to work with, and he stubbornly goes his own way.
A couple of trips to Texas completed the sessions, with a visit to Anderson Fair Retail Restaurant in Houston, where fellow Texan Nanci Griffith recorded her live album, 1988's One Fair Summer Evening.
There, Mr. Wilson took a photo of an Uncle Walt's Band poster. Walter Hyatt, one of Mr. Lovett's oldest musical friends, was killed in the 1996 crash of ValuJet Flight 592. One of the best songs on Step Inside this House is Mr. Hyatt's "I Know About Lonesome," a wry bit of Texas swing.
This was not a typical major-label photo shoot. The Grammy-winning performer who has appeared in such films as Robert Altman's The Player and Short Cuts, the ex-husband of Julia Roberts, takes off with no publicists or assistants, no one to do his hair or makeup. "He doesn't go in for that," says Mr. Wilson with a laugh. "When a magazine's doing a piece on Lyle, that might be a different story. But he's pretty much in control of his packaging, and he does it how he's comfortable with."
Developed loyalty
In that, the performer and photographer have much in common. Each determinedly follows his own muse, avoiding the typical ways of getting things done.
The two have been compared for their quirky, unassuming styles and often surprising results.
It was the latter that caused Mr. Lovett to tag the photographer, "Sneaky Bastard," for shooting candid photos without warning. But their longtime collaboration is proof you don't have to follow the rules to make memorable album art.
"In between . . . (the road trips), I spent a little bit of time at his house (in his hometown of Klein, Texas). That's where the cover image on the front and back were made," Mr. Wilson says.
Like much of the work of this remarkably self-deprecating artist, the cover photos were pretty much an accident.
"It was really not like a photo session that way. It was more like a regrouping type of place, and we made a few pictures there. And they tended to be the most open-ended and correct for a cover." Just as Mr. Lovett stands 180 degrees from today's self-absorbed pop stars, so does Michael Wilson. For proof, here's his secret of success:
"In my mind, I'm trying not to mess up too badly, stay out of the way, basically."
