Lyle Lovett says he likes being part of a team, whether serving as the centerpiece in a 30-person caravan traveling the country performing music, or being a player in an ensemble cast on a movie set.

“Maybe it’s because I was an only child growing up,” says the iconic singer-songwriter, who will bring his Large Band (and crew) to the Dominion Energy Center’s Carpenter Theater on Sunday, July 27. “I love being around a team of people all pulling in the same direction, all trying to make what we’re doing the best it can possibly be. I love the process. For me, it’s not so much about the end result as it is the continuing process of just trying to be better every day.”

Armed with wry, often sardonic original songs like “She’s No Lady” and “Don’t Touch My Hat,” Houston, Texas native Lovett has been straddling the genres of country, pop, blues and jazz since he emerged in the mid-’80s as the latest in a line of Lone Star cosmic cowboys and girls from Willie Nelson and Guy Clark to his mentor, Nanci Griffith. The New Yorker wrote that “Lovett reveals his weird splendor in a schizophrenic jumble of smoky jazz and twangy country that revives whole swaths of neglected popular American music.”

The 14-piece, Lyle Lovett and His Large Band concept, which he initiated on a Grammy-winning album of the same name in 1989, has enabled him to stretch out and carve a unique, open space that takes in Louis Armstrong as much as Hank Williams. His most recent album, “The 12th of June,” often dives into straight, unfiltered big band jazz — about as far from contemporary country as you can get. “In record stores, I used to get filed in the country section,” he says. “But eventually, they didn’t know where to put me.”

In addition to releasing 14 albums, copping four Grammys in his stride, the angular-faced singer has found a rewarding side career as an actor, most notably in four films directed by the late Robert Altman (he also scored an Altman film, “Dr. T & The Women”). Style Weekly recently spoke to Lovett about discovering music as a kid, his early days as a Texas troubadour, the art of being a musical chameleon, and what he’s learned from his experiences as an actor.

Style Weekly: On record and in concert, you are just as likely to break out into a swing jazz tune as you are a country ballad. When you started out, did you aspire to be a kind of musical polymath? 

Lyle Lovett: Oh no. None of what I do started out to be conceptual. I credit producer Billy Williams, who arranged much of my earlier work. Billy helped me. We’d listen to my songs I wanted to record and he would help me do arrangements that supported the songs. ‘What does this song need?’ ‘What can we do with this song to help it be everything it can be?’ Some of them were suited to horn parts, some of them to steel guitar and fiddle. That was where the diversity came from.

How do you keep such a large band on the road? It’s gotta be expensive and a logistical headache.

Well, we’ve been doing it for a long time and I just love the people in the band. But it’s changed a bit in the last few years. The gentleman that owned our sound company and mixed front of house for 30 years for me decided not to do it anymore during the pandemic. I mean, I didn’t play a show for two years and people just started doing other things; it sort of just reshuffled the deck in terms of people and job descriptions. But having musicians that are my friends, and a production crew that’s top notch, that’s the key to making it all work.

Do you tour with the Large Band a lot?

We do it mainly in the summertime when we can put a tour together with anchor dates in the bigger outdoor places like, you know, we end our tour at Wolf Trap in D.C. and this will be my 31st time to play Wolf Trap. They’ve been great to me over the years. But it’s those kinds of anchor dates that enable us to [cover] expenses. We’re over 30 people in the band and crew with our drivers and trucks and buses and all that. But I love playing with a large band because I can play anything I’ve ever recorded. We don’t have to rearrange it. These guys are so good.

I’m dying to ask, what was it like to work with Robert Altman?

Working with Altman was a great lesson for me in confidence. He was one of the most confident people that I’ve ever worked with. He always knew exactly what he wanted to say, and he was always unafraid to say exactly what he wanted to say. He was so helpful and inclusive, and not afraid to adapt to circumstances. Also, he encouraged association among his entire cast. He insisted that everyone in the cast be present every day at dailies to watch every take of every shot, whether you were in it or not. I’m still in touch with all of those actors that were part of those films [‘The Player,” “Short Cuts,” “Cookie’s Fortune,” “Ready to Wear”].

You’ve been in other movies, and had a recurring part in the TV show, “Blue Bloods.” Do you pursue acting roles?  

I don’t pursue acting in the way that actors do. But every now and then, somebody thinks of me. I’ve enjoyed it every time I’ve gotten to do it. It’s always exciting and, you know, it’s inspiring to be able to peek in the windows of someone else’s creative process. And as collaborative as playing music is, you know, shooting a film or television show is more so. On the set, I don’t have to be the band leader. I can just be a guy in the band. I learn my lines, I do a very specific thing, and that’s a fun change for me.

Where did music start for you? 

From my parents [William and Bernell]. They taught me early on how to use the record player. I remember they bought me a 45 record changer, you know that box with a lid, and they would always let me go into a little record store in our local shopping center and buy 45s. I remember being able to go to the record store and buy those songs that I heard on the radio.

What were some of the early songs that galvanized you?

One of my very first often-played singles was a song called “Beep Beep, The Little Nash Rambler” [by the Playmates]. I loved that one. And “Long Tall Texan” [The Four Pickers] and “Red Rubber Ball” [The Cyrkle]. Houston was a major media market so I listened to country, proper country, on KILT AM and KIKK AM. And my parents belonged to the Columbia House Record Club, so they would get a new LP every month for their record collection. I would play their records when they were at work and they had big band records, Ray Charles records, Ray Price, Nat King Cole, Merle Haggard, Lefty Frizzell, Hank Williams…

When did you start singing?

We went to church every Sunday and singing was a big deal. You had to sing. After my parents graduated, taking night school classes from the University of Houston, we moved out to where I grew up, in Klein, which was out in the country north of Houston. It’s all suburbs now, but back then it was still a farming community. Our church was the only church in the area, and we had a church school. Singing was a part of every day, singing Lutheran church hymns.

When did you first pick up an instrument?

I started by taking guitar lessons. My second grade teacher’s husband offered lessons, and my mom asked me if I wanted to take them. I said, sure, sounds fun to me. I learned how to play a G chord. I learned how to play a D chord. a C chord. I learned that playing an F chord was hard. And it still is [laughs], He would teach me songs out of a songbook. The very, very first song that he taught me was “Go Tell Aunt Rhody,” an old folk song. I took lessons from him during that school year. And then he took a job somewhere else and I think they moved.

Then my mom found another place where I could take guitar lessons. In those days, our community was so small. there weren’t many options there. And so she found a place near where she worked downtown that offered guitar lessons. And so from third grade on, once a week I would go there.  My guitar teacher was a wonderful man named Charles Woods, a local studio musician who played with local bands that performed at events like the Houston livestock show and rodeo. They would play the cowboys on and off.

Where we lived is about 28 miles north and west of downtown Houston. And so once a week, my mom would drive out after work and pick me up and take me into Houston, all the way back into Houston where she worked, for a lesson. And then my dad would work late on those nights, and then we’d pick him up after my guitar lesson and then we’d all go home.

Wow. What great parents.

Well, they really were. I mean, they didn’t play music. They didn’t have the luxury in their lives of pursuing artistic endeavors of any kind. They both went to work, separately, for the old Humble Oil team [later Exxon] when they were 17 years old and met there. So I can never say anything bad about the big oil companies because I wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for them.

When did you start writing songs?

I didn’t start writing songs until probably my high school years. [Woods] taught me to read music and taught me some music theory and how to apply it to the guitar. But I would sit with records at home and try to figure out what I was listening to and figure out the chords. And oftentimes I would become frustrated when I couldn’t figure out exactly what I was hearing and I would kind of make something up as a fallback, as a relief to that sort of frustration of pursuing something that I couldn’t quite get, you know? I would just put some chords together and string some words together of my own just because it was easier. And that was how I started making up songs.

When did you write one that you thought was a keeper?

The oldest song of mine that I’ve recorded, and that I still play, is one from the “Pontiac” album [1988], “Give Back My Heart.” I made that up when I was 17 and started playing it out when I was 18.

That’s when you started performing live in front of people?

Yes, with Bruce Lyon, who was a year older, we were friends in high school. We both raced off-road motorcycle events and we discovered that we both played guitar. My teacher, Mr. Woods, had semi-retired so I hadn’t been taking lessons and Bruce had a guitar teacher that he liked, at the H&H Music Company, this big music store in Houston that supplied all of the high school band instruments. Our teacher’s name was Fred Foss. He was a graduate student in the School of Music at the University of Houston and he was a big Chet Atkins fan. And so he taught me how to alternate my thumb and got me into the finger picking style that I still use today.

Bruce and I learned some songs together and in the summer of 1976 we thought about trying to get some gigs somewhere. So we did just that. We played a couple of shows at the Coffee House on campus at Texas A&M. And then we found a place close to home in Houston, a steak-and-seafood restaurant called The Mariner. A nice young man named Sammy Nolan, who’s gone now, he hired Bruce and me to do nights to fill in for the regular performer, who was taking a break. We played Tuesdays and Saturday nights for $50 apiece. It actually started out at $40 a piece, and we later got a raise. [Laughs] We continued doing that even when we started playing other places.

How long did Bruce & Lyle perform together?

Bruce and I played together that first summer and then Bruce went back to school. He was a serious student, a chemical engineering major who then got his MBA and went on to have a great career with Shell Oil. That summer 1976 was the extent of our playing together. After that, I played on my own, just by myself. I played anywhere I could, restaurants mainly, and still played the coffee house on campus.

What kind of music were you doing in those early days?  

Bruce and I were both fans of the Texas singer songwriters who had national record deals in those days. So, so of course, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, but also guys like Michael Murphy, who had a huge hit with “Wildfire” and wrote “What Am I Doin’ Hangin’ ‘Round” for the Monkees. It was through those records that we discovered Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt and Jerry Jeff Walker and Steven Fromholz and B.W. Stevenson and Willis Alan Ramsey and, you know, all, all the Texas singer songwriters that I cite to this day as my influences. [Lovett recorded a tribute album to these Texas songwriters, “Step Inside This House,” in 1998].

Those were mainly the songs we would play. Juan, the regular guy that played at the Mariner would do all the current hits from the radio, but we were sort of stubborn and thought ‘well, we’re going to play songs that we feel like playing, songs that people need to hear now.’ My point of view was that you can turn on the radio and hear these other songs, but you can’t turn on the radio and hear the songs that we’re going to play for you.

When did you start playing your own songs?

Listening to Guy Clark songs and Townes Van Zandt songs made me want to write songs. So from 1976 to 1978, I did just that. I played other people’s songs with a few of my own sprinkled in. And by 1978, I had enough songs of my own to be able to start knocking on doors of places that featured original music.

Did you have any success?

I opened two shows for Nancy Griffith in the fall of 1978 at the Coffee House in College Station, which was an important place to me in my development. The first night, she listened to my set, which is not always the case for the headliner to listen to the opening act. She asked me about some of my songs and if she could sing on one of them and she joined me on stage during my set the second night. She asked me if I’d ever heard of the Anderson Fair Retail Restaurant in Houston. And I said, “yeah, of course.” I would go there to listen to Don Sanders and Eric Taylor. And she was Eric Taylor’s girlfriend at the time. Eric was playing there the next Thursday night, and she said, ‘Why don’t you come down and do a guest set?’

I couldn’t believe it. I was so grateful. I played a couple of songs in the middle of one of Eric’s sets at Anderson Fair, and it was an audition of sorts for the owners of the place. And it was a fundamental change to play a place where people went to hear songwriters instead of a place that had music as an aside. From there, I was able to play other places that featured singer songwriters, like Poor David’s Pub in Dallas, and Emma Joe’s and, later Cactus Cafe in Austin.

Do you consider that your big break?

When I look back at my career, it was all incremental. Baby steps. It was like one baby step after another that led to more and more opportunity.

So, after all these years, is songwriting easy for you?

No, it’s not easy. It’s not easy, and yet it doesn’t take effort.

Lyle Lovett & His Large Band will perform at the Carpenter Theatre in the Dominion Energy Center on Sunday, July 27. $76-$120. Tickets and more info at www.dominionenergycenter.com