Lyle Lovett, Natural Forces

Natural Forces is Lyle Lovett’s great western road record, the theme of which might be “The Grand Ole Opry on Texas Swing Night.” The song progression suggests a concept album about the life of a traveling musician. Lovett’s songs are sung by strong, if sad, cowboy characters who love their families and their homes but make their living on the road — the only way they know how.

The album is sequenced like a brilliantly structured live show. After the striking drama of the slow-burning title track comes eight minutes of up-tempo swing (“Farmer Brown/Chicken Reel,” “Pantry”) that’s fluent and wholesome enough to bring fans to the dance floor no matter their age. In pursuit of the concept, the rest of the album will have people saying that Lyle Lovett has covered much of this space before. Like a painter perfecting his particular corner of innovation, Lyle Lovett is competing against history now, and history is often best pursued in increments. It’s that approach that has taken Lyle Lovett from mere perennial Grammy winner to being the Mount Rushmore of Texas Music.

The peak achievement of Natural Forces is that it could be played from start to finish on the stage of The Opry or the dance halls of Austin in any era. He examines the rural roots of his Houston home from the worldly viewpoint of 30 years on the highways of America with equal humility and profound insight. The result is as populist as it is personal. It’s as hopeful as it is melancholy. Lyle Lovett inhabits these spaces with the gravity of the greats of country music’s golden age. The cultural inheritor of Bob Wills has us dancing through the Great Recession.