Lyle Lovett By Jody Denberg SEPTEMBER 14, 1998:

AC: On Step Inside This House you cover a writer who was also a great singer: Walter Hyatt. Was his group Uncle Walt's Band an influence on you?

LL: Walter and Uncle Walt's Band, with Champ Hood and David Ball, they were so inventive and never content to think of something and stay in one place. Musically, they were always pushing for the next idea. Walter's songs were so complicated. It's always a challenge to learn one of Walter's songs. Walter's arrangements were just always so precise and thought out musically and lyrically. His songs are so thoughtful and complete and so honest -- from his heart. Walter was like that as a person. And it's just a privilege to sing all these songs, but particularly to get to sing Walter's songs and Townes' songs. It's a privilege.

AC: You produced King Tears, one of Hyatt's albums, didn't you?

LL: Tony Brown, from MCA in Nashville, asked Billy Williams [Lovett's producer] and me to do an album with Walter for the MCA "Master Series," which had been an all-instrumental label that MCA Nashville put out. And Tony was familiar with Walter and wanted to do a singer-songwriter album as part of the series. That was in 1989 when we did that record with Walter. And that was just a great experience in my life; something I'll always cherish, getting to work that closely with Walter, and getting to record some of his songs that people hadn't heard yet.

AC: Walter Hyatt died in the Valujet plane crash in 1996. Do you feel that by covering songs like "Teach Me About Love" and "I'll Come Knocking" that you're repaying a debt to him?

LL: It's exciting to me for people to get to hear his songs. I tell you, it's not repaying a debt to Walter, at all. It's being able to enjoy a gift that Walter has given to me and to all of us, really, his songs. Getting to sing one of Walter's songs isn't doing anything for Walter, he did that for us. But getting to record one of his songs -- or four of his songs, like I did on this record -- and getting to sing them onstage every night, that's something Walter has done for me.

"There's never been a band in Texas as swingin' as Uncle Walt's Band," ( the band that Hyatt led in Austin, Texas in the '70s and early '80s) "Walter's stuff was so sophisticated yet so simple and cool at the same time. He did stuff with chords that no one else did -- it had a jazzy feel to it, but it also was down-to-earth and straightforward."

"Walter was a unique individual -- a wholly wonderful and gracious soul," "His death affected me. I still miss him immensely."

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My favorite album is probably Walter Hyatt’s “King Tears”. Walter’s voice has a quality to it that is sad when I’m sad, smart when I’m content and clever when I’m happy. The songs on this recording are timeless and have helped me through many low times and also been the soundtrack to falling in love with my husband. Put this record on and it makes whatever you are doing seem more glamorous. I’ll never tire of this music.  Kelly Willis