Lyle Lovett may have a song for everything, but also he has a catalogue of stories to match.
At his Wednesday night concert — the first of three at City Winery Pittsburgh in the Strip District — he paused after his first song to tell the tale of touring with producer Billy Williams. “Anytime we ever crossed any river anywhere in the Univted States, he’d say, ‘Allegheny River,’” Lovett said, eliciting uproarious laughter from the full audience. “So I called him today to say, ‘it really is!’”
Accompanied only by his own guitar and accomplished fiddler Stuart Duncan, Lovett managed to stretch a 14-song set into a two-hour show with his between-tune anecdotes. And much like the stories, the songs spanned decades.
After all, Lovett’s been doing this for almost 50 years. The Grammy Award-winning country singer-songwriter has released 14 studio albums, most recently “12th of June” in 2022. And as he proudly explained on Wednesday night, he’s worked with greats including George Strait and Reba McEntire. He proclaimed that both are genuinely lovely people.
(Duncan, who has enjoyed a storied career of his own, assured the audience that Dolly Parton is just as amazing as we all think.)
Everything about the show was designed to be welcoming and intimate. He kicked off the music with amusing ditty “Once is Enough” and then immediately paused to chat with Duncan and the fans.
“You know, it’s warm in here,” he said. “Do you mind if I towel off?”
The crowd cheered as the proud Texan whipped around a Terrible Towel, pointing out that the Steelers originated a symbol that carried all the way down to Texas A&M when Pitt coach Jackie Sherrill moved to the Southern school. “I’m just acknowledging that you folks are responsible for something that A&M considers a tradition,” he said.
Sometimes, the 68-year-old’s singing voice could sound halting and a little strained. But then he’d bellow long, resonant notes in songs like “Fiona” and wow everyone present.
He reached back through the years to tell stories of collaborating with other artists, with an especially charming story about the writing of the song “Fat Babies.” After a near collision with a truck on a Texas road — in a car with a horn that didn’t work — he and friend Eric Taylor wrote the song.
At its start, he encouraged the audience to sing along. It turns out, that was part of the promise that the two friends made to each other: that if they performed it live, they would always tell the audience to join in. So they intentionally wrote lyrics so absurd that the crowd would feel a little silly singing along.
While Lovett pulled out many humorous tracks, there were plenty of heartfelt and heartbroken tunes, too. He dedicated the title track from 1995 album “The Road to Ensenada” to a group of motorcycling friends that were in attendance on Wednesday night, and his plaintive voice with Duncan’s mournful fiddle made the song magical.
He also played two songs from “12th of June,” the title track and highlight “On a Winter’s Morning.” Both were beaitufl odes to the life he’s built with his wife and eight-year-old twins.
His pre-encore closer came all the way from the ’80s, a stripped-down rendition of “You Can’t Resist It” that included a steadily building fiddle solo from Duncan that added a palpable joy to the rousing song. The pair returned to the stage to close it out with “Closing Time” — not the one by Semisonic, but his own creation. It was a quieter, peaceful end to the evening.
It was obvious that some fans who filtered out at the end of the show planned to return for Thursday and Friday night. “I wonder what he’ll do for night two,” one friend mused to another right outside City Winery.