Q: Lyle, sometimes artists go back to their roots at a certain time. They want to wipe the slate clean. They want to get in touch with their original impulses for making music. What was your motivation for recording this album of other people's songs?

A: Well, that was really it, Jody. These are songs that I've played for years. Songs -- some of these songs I learned before I started writing songs myself. So these songwriters were a big influence on me. And it just felt like a good time for me to go back and take a look at these songs and play them.

Q: Where did you grow up?

A: I grew up outside of Houston, outside of Spring, Texas. And was able to go and hear songwriters like Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt and Willis Alan Ramsey and get to open shows for songwriters like Eric Taylor and Vince Bell, whose songs are also on the record.

Q: So did you want to be a singer/songwriter from when you were real young?

A: You know, I played guitar when I was young and never really considered it as a way to make a living. But I always enjoyed it and as I got older and was able to start going to clubs and -- I found that I really enjoyed hearing people do their own songs. So I became attracted to singer/songwriters. I became interested in them as people, in a way, and was curious about what singer/songwriters had to say, what they wanted to say. That was as much a part of the appeal of a singer/songwriter to me as the music itself.

Q: About how old were you then? What year are we talking and how old were you?

A: Oh, we're talking like 1974-75, you know when I was 17, 18.

Q: So I'm imagining that most of the clubs you first went to were in Houston?

A: They were. Most of the clubs I first went to were in Houston. And then I would drive over to Austin occasionally. A buddy of mine from high school who had gone to school at the University of Texas, he and I played together some. His name was Bruce Lyon. And he would, you know, go and check out music here at Austin and invite me up and we'd hang out and go and hear people.

Q: Do you remember what some of the clubs were, the names of the clubs?

A: Well, sure. You know, we used to go to -- well, one of the first shows I ever say here was Willis Alan Ramsey at the Paramount, which is, you know, a theater, not a club. But to see Willis for the first time after having, you know, lived with his record and tried to learn every song on the record, to be able to see him and see how he miked his -- the base of his microphone stand and how he stood on stage, I was just captivated.

Q: Now, a few years later, you went to Texas A&M University. Were you playing out in clubs while you were going to school?

A: That was about the time that I went to school at Texas A&M. I graduated from high school in 1975, actually a semester early, and went straight to school, which may or may not have been a good idea. But I was -- I got to hang out at some of the local music establishments up there and got involved with the on-campus student union committee that had a local coffeehouse that was mainly a forum for student musicians to play and sing. Occasionally, we would -- once or twice a semester -- bring in regional performers to perform. But I got involved with the coffeehouse and got involved with the programming aspect of it, so I eventually got to help -- or got to book, really, the shows that played there.

Jeff Carrol, Lyle, and KGSR Program Director Jody Denberg share a laugh in the summer of 1990

Q: So you've been on both sides of the fence?

A: You know, I booked my first gig myself. I hired myself.

Q: I hope you paid yourself well.

A: You know, the pay was the same for everybody. Nobody got any money, but I gave myself a good 30-minute slot.

Q: And you were studying journalism. Did you ever wind up doing what I'm doing, interviewing musicians?

A: You know, I never worked as a journalist. Fortunately, you know, I've never had a job.

But I did get to do some interviews with performers as they came through town to play at Texas A&M. I did interview Steven Fromholz and I interviewed Michael Martin Murphy and I interviewed Willis Allen Ramsey. I interviewed Nanci Griffith. That's how I met her. The first interview I did with a musician was Don Sanders, who is a longtime Houston singer/songwriter and also a big influence. But I interviewed Eric Taylor. And had a really great time talking to singer/songwriters and trying to pick their brain and see how they worked.

Q: See, if you have to take a job, it's not a bad one to take. When did you get your first publishing deal? When did you realize you were going to write songs and make a career out of it?

A: By 1984, I had been playing the same half a dozen clubs -- half a dozen or so clubs. You know, every month or six weeks I'd kind of make the rounds and really thought to myself that it was time to try to learn something about the business and really try to make a go of the music business or, you know, try to figure out what to do with myself. So I had a chance to go to Nashville to work with Nanci Griffith. She was recording an album there that came out on Rounder Records called "Once in a Very Blue Moon." And she'd asked me to sing some background vocal. She recorded one of my songs and asked me to sing with her. And while I was in Nashville, I took the opportunity to make a few phone calls and try to set up some meetings with publishers and try to learn something about the business.

Q: Now, in the years since those early days, Lyle, you've moved from being an upstart to being a peer of a lot of the people that you looked up to. But there's a couple of writers whose songs that you champion on "Step Inside this House" that are no longer alive and they're without peer. One is Townes Van Zandt.

A: Townes Van Zandt, I think, is regarded by any singer/songwriter from Texas as -- just in the highest way. It's hard to think of Townes Van Zandt and not mention Guy Clark as well. Guy and Townes were longtime friends and, I think, influences on one another and each others' writing. And so I always think of Guy and Townes together, really. But as you know, we lost Townes last year. And, gosh, the first album of Townes' I ever bought was "The Late, Great Townes Van Zandt." I heard Don Sanders in Houston play "Pancho and Lefty." That was the first I'd ever heard of Townes. And he introduced a song and said who had written it. And I went out and found "The Late, Great Townes Van Zandt." And once again, it was one of those albums I -- you know, I tried to learn every song on the record.

Q: One of the first things listeners are going to notice about "Step Inside this House" is the instrumentation. It's very organic, mandolin and dobros. This isn't the Large Band.

A: In the last few years, I've had the opportunity to play on stage with Jerry Douglas, who plays dobro, and Wisenborn and lap steel and Sam Bush, who plays, you know -- he's the best mandolin player anywhere, and Stuart Duncan, who plays fiddle. And I've really enjoyed getting to play live with them. Stuart's played on several of my records, played fiddle, but this was the first time I got a chance to work with Sam and Jerry in the studio. These songs, I felt, lent themselves to acoustic arrangements and that kind of instrumentation. So it's -- you know, it's -- arranging a song, I think, it's really a matter of doing what's -- it's all about communication, I think. And that sort of instrumentation, I thought, was really -- suited these songs. Arrangements should never sort of just overlay themselves on to songs, but should come about, I think, because of the song itself.

Q: I was always pretty sure that when you toured with The Large Band -- and it seemed like it must have been an expensive proposition -- that artistic considerations for you always come before the financial ones. And now we have Step Inside this House. It's a double-disc set. Did you get any pressure to keep this album to just a single disc?

A: You know, the record company was very supportive all along with this project. I've been very luck throughout my entire career that MCA and Curb, the record companies I'm with, have given me a free hand creatively. You know, the executives from the record company, they don't even come by the studio and check up on us when we're recording. They leave Billy Williams and me along and let us work. And that's really gratifying because that's, I think, why people do something like play music. It's really the ability to do something you want to do and do it the way you want to do it. That's the appeal. It's -- being successful, I think, is all about, you know, getting to do things you enjoy. And if you're successful enough business-wise to keep your job and to continue keeping doing something you like, then that's -- you know, that's really all you can hope for and all you want, really.

Q: Well, then maybe you've answered the question I was anticipating asking you, which is: How do you keep these business considerations out of the creative process? Because it's not easy, it's reality.

A: Well, true, but I think -- you know, it's -- I think, unless you're extraordinarily talented in a business way, it's so -- to be able to anticipate what an audience might want, I think it's really important to not try to anticipate the audience's reaction to what you're doing. It's really important to just do what you feel like you ought to do and hope -- naturally, hope people like it. I want people to like what I'm doing, but not at the expense of what I'm doing. I think it's -- for me, the only way that I can do it -- and I'm sure it's different for everybody or every singer/songwriter has a different approach, but I have to feel as though I'm representing myself accurately. I have to feel like I'm getting to be myself. If I had to go out and pretend to be somebody I wasn't or if I had to assume some character, I mean, the worst thing that could happen would be to assume some kind of character and then be successful because of that. You know, then you'd have to keep doing that. I feel really lucky that I get to do things that I really enjoy and get to be myself. And thankfully, the audience has allowed me to do that.