Steven Tyler really is back in the saddle again
The title of Steven Tyler’s current tour tells you all you need to know about how he views his foray into country music: “Out on a Limb.”
Whatever the public perception of the Aerosmith frontman and former American Idol judge reinventing himself as a singer-songwriter backed by mandolin, banjo and acoustic guitar, it cannot be said that he isn’t diving headlong into the challenge.
Tyler has relocated to Nashville, and aligned himself with some of Music City’s biggest names — Hillary Lindsey, Eric Paslay, and Brett and Brad Warren are just a few of the co-writers enlisted on his 15-track country debut, We’re All Somebody From Somewhere (which features a downbeat, bluegrass reboot of Janie’s Got a Gun).
But to hear Tyler tell it, as he did in a freewheeling teleconference with reporters in June, the risk is more than worth the reward.
“I’m happy as a clam,” Tyler said. “I think as you can hear in my voice, you know, I wake up passionate, and passion means I can’t wait to do whatever, either feed my koi fish or the dogs or go write a song or run through the woods or something like that. But I’m kind of that way and I’m grateful that I haven’t sat back on my laurels.
“I really took a chance on this country record and it just turned out so much better than I ever thought. So the sky is the limit from here on out.”
Right time, right place
Tyler, touring with the Loving Mary Band, brings his tour to Dallas’ Music Hall at Fair Park on Monday.
While on paper it sounds peculiar to envision the 68-year-old Tyler sharing shelf space with Kenny Chesney or Miranda Lambert, in practice, his approach to country music isn’t particularly radical — in fact, these 15 tracks underscore how much modern country music has shifted toward rock music in the last 15 years.
Women, faith and a bone-deep devotion to the USA serve as frequent lyrical touchstones — “Don’t give a damn about the summertime blues/All I need is red, white and you,” Tyler howls at one point — and Tyler’s elastic, emotive shrieks are deployed judiciously (it’s almost as if they’re all hoarded and unleashed on the album-closing cover of Piece of My Heart).
T Bone connection
The record’s breezy, rustic atmosphere is attributable, in part, to Tyler’s close collaboration with Fort Worth-raised producer T Bone Burnett, who shepherded another iconic rock voice — Robert Plant — through a similar evolution toward a more countrified sensibility a decade ago.
Tyler, someone whose default setting is effusive praise, gushed about working with Burnett, whom he met on the set of the popular series Nashville, created and overseen by Burnett’s wife, Callie Khouri.
Tyler played a handful of demos for Burnett, who was immediately on board with the project.
“I knew right then and there that he felt the same things I did — the soul of the song, if you will, the whatever the song was saying,” Tyler says. “When you write a song it kind of, yeah, it comes from your head, but then if the song is any good, it starts talking back. It starts telling you what you meant. Once you get in that place, it’s pay dirt. … T Bone knows that premise. We kept it light and open.”
Not just a lark
In light of Tyler’s admission in a June interview with Howard Stern that Aerosmith is planning a farewell tour next year, We’re All Somebody From Somewhere takes on a slightly deeper dimension than a vanity project — it seems less like a lark, and more like a feeler, seeing if the public would be interested in Tyler traveling further down this particular road.
For his part, Tyler insisted to reporters in June that country music — with its indelible melodies, close harmonies and vivid lyrics — has been in his bones from early in his life.
“The beauty of coming down here and working with a bunch of country folks is, A, I was cut on country; B, I am a country boy; [and] C, it was all about the Everly Brothers to me,” Tyler says. “But I’ve always had that — Dream On; You’re My Angel — I’ve been a sucker for melody. Coming down here and working with these folks, it’s more melody and more about words and carving meaning out of stuff.”
Preston Jones: 817-390-7713, @prestonjones
Steven Tyler
- 8 p.m. Monday
- Music Hall at Fair Park, Dallas
- $59.95-$149.95
- 800-745-3000; ticketmaster.com
This story was originally published July 26, 2016 at 3:07 PM with the headline "Steven Tyler really is back in the saddle again."