The Lyle Sinclair Band gives Boise and the Treasure Valley a homegrown, live country band. With Garth Brooks and Blake Shelton coming to town for just a few days, it is nice to have someone here who brings traditional country music to Boise on a regular basis. And not just covers—Lyle has several albums out featuring some wonderful original country music songs. The Boise Beat sat down with Lyle Sinclair recently to discuss country music, growing up in Idaho and of course the Lyle Sinclair Band.
Q: Lyle, how did you start playing music?
A: I got started in the business when I was in the Navy. I bought a guitar for twelve dollars and wore my fingers out and started playing music. It was mostly country—-we do all kinds of different stuff though. With the Lyle Sinclair Band, we play most of the different local venues. We play the Sandbar, the Sa-wa-dee Thai Restaurant, Rice here in Eagle, the Eagle Lodges in Boise and Nampa and we play the Lakeview Golf Course one Friday a month in Meridian.
I have a great little band, either a duo or a four-piece; and we enjoy playing music. We love to have a good time!
Q: You have a mix of both original and cover songs?
A: Yes we do and it seems to work great. What we’ll do some times is that I’ll do an original sometimes in our show and nobody will know it’s not a cover. They’ll say, “Who did that song?”. It’s just amazing to love to watch people, young people. The live music scene has somewhat dissipated—when you listen to the radio and iPods and things like that and young people don’t know that it’s caused by real people. When we play restaurants and these types of venues, it’s the children than are just totally fascinated that human beings really do this and it’s not just on TV or an iPod or some kind of recording.
Q: Who were your musical inspirations?
A: When I first started playing, Johnny Cash was big. Marty Robbins, Merle Haggard, Buck Owens—Tony Orlando and Dawn, the Who, Blood Sweat and Tears—I mean there was just an enormous amount, the Beatles had just taken the nation by storm—it was just a whole variety of music and I miss that today because when you played country music like when I was on the road you played everybody that was Number 1. It didn’t matter if it was Motown or if it was Willie Nelson, it was just whoever came up. You were inspired by every one of the writers and singers of that time; and even today i’ll perform a show and I’ll do Johnny Horton and i’ll do Johnny Rivers and I’ll do Rawhide. Young people; and I’m talking about grandchildren to me, know all the words to every song we do, from Margaritaville to Mama Tried. It doesn’t make any difference! They just love music. It’s something I’ve known ever since.
One of the most inspirational things that ever happened to me was that I went out elk hunting one time. It was cold and miserable, but I had to come and do something from McCall, which was where we were at in that area and I stopped in a little restaurant. It was in Old Meadows, right at the foot of Goose Creek Hill and the lady there had a guitar and I started playing music. I wound up with a full meal, a full tank of gas in my truck and twenty dollars cash. This was back in 1973 or ’74. That was a lot of money back then! But they love music. People, no matter where you go, love music.
Q: When you were growing up, did you live in an area that was big in Country Music?
A: I was raised in Weiser and the biggest thing was the Fiddler’s Festival once a year. But as far as country, no, it was more of a farm community. We worked at moving spreader pipes and bucking hay—the simple kind of life. We didn’t know anything other than….we had the radio. Now and then we’d see an advertisement and we’d put $3.98 for an album and received it in the mail and that’s the way it worked.
Q: Tell me about two of your original songs that you particularly like.
A: I don’t do a bad song. Every one of the songs that i’ve written are very much a personal thing with me. The first song I wrote was Lovin’ The Night Away. That was in the time of Knock Tree Timesand Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Ole Oak Tree and it was just a love song. It was feelings about emotions you go through as a young person; your first date and all that other stuff. As I grew in the music industry, I find that we are losing that closeness of reality and the stories. We don’t get those any more.
Every one of my songs that I have written has either been something that’s happened to me—for instance, I wrote a song called Big Wheels. It’s an upbeat, rockabilly-type song. I had a friend of mine named Leroy Jenkins, who has passed now from cancer from Vietnam. I asked him one time, “How did you become a truck driver?” because he was a professional truck driver and owned a travel busy company here in Boise. He said, “Lyle, when I was a little boy, my mom bought me a Big Wheels. That’s what started the whole thing up. I’d stand on my tiptoes and look out the window and see all these big trucks go by. I wanted one of those!”And he eventually grew into that.
Another song I wrote was Simple Country Song, which is the title of one of my albums. That was for a friend of mine who said he never liked country music until he was stranded in Casper, Wyoming in a Holiday Inn. He said, “I walked into their lounge and there was a country song on the jukebox. I sat down by myself to have a drink by myself, reminiscing; and all of the sudden this person in that jukebox, he said—I swear—lived in my house and went though the same thing”. So I wrote the song around that.
Every song that I do that I’ve written; and some of my Gospel songs, are either prayers or things that people have inspired me to do. It’s real fun to try to spread that out with everybody. When I play the places I play regularly , when I do those songs I look out and I watch the audience singing the song word by word that I’ve written. They know the songs better than I do! It’s amazing! It makes no difference to me if it’s country, blues, jazz or whatever it is. There’s a story there and it touches the heart of everybody.
Q: Do you have a good story from the road?
A: When I worked on the road I had a lot of good times. There were things that just happened. I’m trying to reminisce-…a few years ago, I played lead guitar for Alan Frizzell. He lived in Porterville, California at that time, down by Visalia. Lefty [Frizzell]had come to town to do a show at the Cow Palacein San Francisco. It was a big country venue. We were sitting around the table and talking and Lefty handed me the guitar and said “Start playing me some stuff, son”. I said, “this is weird” and he replied, “Remember this every time. I don’t care who is in the audience or where you are. Whoever enters that space and gets on that microphone is the star. That’s who is in command. Win, lose or draw, you’re it!”. I’ll never forget that and he asked me to come to Nashville that next spring and see if I had what it was. Bless his heart, he passed away a little while after that so I never did get to go, but I’ll never forget.
He was such an inspiration to the whole music field. A lot of people don’t know Lefty but he was around when Hank [Williams] Senior was big. They were Number One and Number Two for almost every song on the country charts for three or four years. He said that Hank would say, “Lefty, I got a great song for you to do” Lefty said, “Great i’ll do it!”. Two days later he’d ask “Hank where’s that song” and the answer was “I thought it was so good I decided to do it myself!”. But that’s the way they lived. That was a new part of recording and getting out to TV also, before the lawyers took over everything in the music industry. He said, “We had a ball, because when we went out to entertain, we were it. You could draw a crowd from anywhere. They’d come from hundreds of miles just to see somebody live”.
Q: What is it about country music that inspires you more than other types of music?.
A: The biggest thing is, it’s writing a story, a three-minute or less story that you could make a two hour movie out of. It is a simple melody that sticks in your mind and you can hum. Almost anybody can take a song like Willie Nelson’s On The Road Again; almost everybody in the world can hum that tune. That’s the biggest thing. Or Hey, Good Lookin’, by Hank Williams or El Pasoby Marty Robbins. It’s just there, it sticks in your mind and takes you to a place other where you’re at right now, soothes you and relaxes you back down to nature. That’s what inspired me to write, it’s the fun things. Even the sad things, everybody goes “WOW, that’s my life too”. We’re all bound together whether we like it or not. That’s the way it is. I don’t care what religion, nationality or anything—when you open your mouth and start playing music, everybody in the world plays the same songs.
I worked in a group, the first group I was ever in. I was in the military and stationed at Adak, Alaska. There were eight of us, five black gentlemen and three white men. We didn’t have any kind of issues at all, we played various songs from Function at the Junction(recorded by both Ramsey Lewis and Shorty Long) to King of the Road. That’s just the way it is, they were songs that everybody related to and everybody understood. We were fascinated by each other in the way that you could take a country song and just move right over to a Motown song and never change anything. Everybody just accepted it, it was just amazing. This biggest thing about it, once you get in, you can’t get rid of it; it stays with you all the time. If you don’t go out and perform, You’re in the backyard cutting down a tree or something (laughs).
Q: Thanks Lyle for talking about your music and life. We’ll see you and the Lyle Sinclair Band at the shows!
Lyle’s albums showcase his songwriting talents. On the Simple Country Song album, a tune like Fuzzy Haze has both the angst and humor that country is famous for. Hooked on Memoriesrecalls the feel of Tennessee Waltzwith it’s own unique story. Let the Lord Walk With Youis a fast, Country Gospel tune that gets it’s point across.Whiskey Beer and Winesounds like a song Willie Nelson (or Jimmy Buffett, too) might do. Again, humor and some tragedy make a mix that is typical of the traditional country genre.
Just Getting Started features Devil Woman, a song that has the Jimmy Buffett/AlanJackson/Kenny Chesney island vibe down pat. His album has several covers too, including renditions of Folsom Prison Blues and the great Workin’ Man Blues. These songs tend to be staples of Lyle’s popular live shows. Heartaches by the Number has the Western Swing beat and signature pedal steel guitar, all wrapped up in a good old-fashioned song.
The Lyle Sinclair Band plays pure country the classic way. At other times, he plays with his bassist Jerry a mix of country and classic rock tunes to satisfy everyone. Tonight, the duo consisting of Lyle and bassist Jerry Biggle plays at the Lakeview Golf Course in Meridian from 6-9pm, a monthly gig they have. They also play at Sa-Wa-Dee Thai Restaurant in Meridian on the 2ndWednesday of every month. If your tastes run to straight country and hanker for some dancing too, the Lyle Sinclair Band plays every first Friday of the month at the Eagles Lodge in Boise. Nampa also gets the full band on September 8 at the Eagles Lodge. The full band includes Jeanne Cannon on piano and Paul Dubish on drums.
Lyle Sinclair Band Facebook Page
Email Contact:lylesinclairband@gmail.com
Good to see you get just a little of the media exposure you more than deserve. Love you and love your music. I feel honored that you would take time to write a song for Dale and my wedding. I cherish it and your friendship.
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