Lyle Lovett

Before Lyle Lovett ever wrote any songs, he learned countless songs by great artists. He still likes to revisit them, both live and on his own albums.

On his latest disc, "Natural Forces" (Lost Highway), the multiple Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter once again pays musical tribute to some of his influences, and he bookends them with some new tunes of his own.

Expect to hear songs from that record and plenty of older numbers from across his three decades of recording when Lovett and His Large Band play tonight at the Roanoke Performing Arts Theatre.

"I like people in the audience ... to walk away from the show feeling as though they've gotten to know at some point ... everybody onstage," Lovett said during a phone conversation Wednesday from his tour stop in Tallahassee, Fla.

That's not an easy feat with a 14-person act with such a depth of talent. Guitarist and studio session legend Dean Parks is making a very rare run with the band. Other top cats including drummer Russ Kunkel and pianist Jim Cox will be onstage, as will singers Sweet Pea Atkinson and Harry Bowens, both former members of Was (Not Was).

"It's an incredible feeling to be in the middle of that kind of talent and ability, and just to be able to stand there and listen to them every night is really fun," Lovett said.

One regular Lovett sideman, violinist Gene Elders, is a Roanoke native. But he's not on this tour because when it started, Elders was already on the road with country music hitmaker George Strait.

"George has been his regular gig now for 30 years," Lovett said of Elders. "We've been lucky that George typically works at a different time of year ... and George has been so gracious about not minding if Gene comes out with us. It usually works out ... but this year, George toured during the summer, so we had to find somebody else to play fiddle. But yeah, I imagine working with Gene in the future for sure."

Old friends' songs

In some respects, "Natural Forces" is a lot like Lovett's 1998 disc, "Step Inside This House," an album of cover songs written by friends and musical heroes. In addition to original Lovett songs, "Natural Forces" features songs written by a couple of those same artists.

"Like that album, the outside songs on this record are all songs that I've played since I was 20 years old," said Lovett, who turns 52 on Sunday. "And they're all written by songwriters who have been not just a big part of my music but who are friends of mine, who have been a big part of my life as well."

"Whooping Crane" is by Eric Taylor, a Georgia native who was well established in the Houston music scene in the late 1970s, when Lovett moved back there after college.

Crane, like other singer/songwriters around the Houston scene, had been heavily influenced by the country blues fingerpicking of such players as Lightnin' Hopkins and Mance Lipscomb, both of whom lived and played music in the area.

Listeners can hear that guitar style in much of Lovett's own playing, and he has applied it here, too.

"By the time I had enough of my own songs to start playing in the original music clubs there in Houston, Eric was one of the established guys," Lovett said. "Eric was like 31 or 32 years old, and I was 20."

Taylor invited Lovett to do a guest set during one of his nights at Anderson Fair Retail Restaurant, "probably one of the most important original music clubs in Houston," Lovett said. "And Eric helped to introduce me ... there, which was a very important thing in my life."

Again on "Natural Forces," Lovett covers a troubadour's troubadour, the late Townes Van Zandt. Between Lovett and his peers, practically every song the tragic Van Zandt ever published has been covered. What led him to choose "Loretta" for this project?

"It's just such a beautiful melody, and it's just such a beautiful sentiment," he said. "It's a perfect Townes song. Townes' songs were so powerful and seemingly simple but so deep. And Townes was very much that kind of loner character. While at the same time he's expressing feelings of intimacy about this character in the song, Loretta, he's got one foot out the door. He's hittin' the road.

"I think that's something that all performers feel at one time or another. While we all love what we do and are all glad for the chance to be able to go out and play, there's always a part of you that feels like you're leaving your home behind a little bit. That melancholy that Townes was writing about in 'Loretta' was what I think appealed to me."

Writing with friends

"It's Rock and Roll" is a collaboration between Lovett and his old buddy, Robert Earl Keen, that dates to their college days at Texas A&M University.

Keen's house, near Lovett's at the time, was the go-to place for pickers, singers and partyers. Keen would never kick anyone out, but sometimes things got so busy there that Keen would rent a motel room at exam time, just to study, Lovett remembered.

The two wrote "It's Rock and Roll" for a college theater group's "Rocky Horror Picture Show"-style musical parody. They hoped to include "every rock 'n' roll cliche possible," he said.

Later, Lovett pitched it for the movie, "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story." Lovett, who has been acting and doing soundtrack work for years, had sung on the title track with Jackson Browne, Jewel and Wu-Tang Clan's Ghostface Killah. "It's Rock And Roll" didn't wind up on that soundtrack, but Lovett recorded it for kicks and said that he and the band enjoyed it so much he decided to include it on the record.

Another cut, "Pantry," was co-written with his fiancee, April Kimble. Lovett said that Kimble is a great cook, and on one day, she brought home groceries that got him all excited about what she might prepare. As he carried in the bags, he started going through them. She told him to "keep it in the pantry" -- inspiring a bluesy, double-entendre lyric about staying faithful when one is away.

It's the only song they've ever done together, he said, and he's waiting for her to come up with a new hook line.

"It's up to her. Make us a living. I'm all for it," he said, laughing.

The title cut may be the most important song on the record. It's a history of the United States in word sketches, from settlement to the Trail of Tears to the current wars, with looks at long-haul trucking and reining horses. The line "home is where my horse is" is a metaphor for the world we've made, a world we're responsible for, Lovett said.

"Not placing judgment so much about war, but our boys are at war, and most of us are untouched by it and don't have to suffer the consequences of some of our actions," he said. "It underscores that no matter what the politics are, we bear the responsibility for those decisions."

He wrote it in one sitting, inspired by an afternoon in front of the tube, watching football.

"I was struck by the contrast -- it went from the game to a beer commercial ... to a promo for the evening news ... which featured an update on the war," he said. "I just thought, the idea that we are so insulated from the horrors of war, the things we're involved in."