Kyle Hutton’s Art Imitates Life
Texas music artist Kyle Hutton's new mantra is
“keeping it real.” It is a theme that not only
dominates his last CD release, but it also permeates
his singing and between-song chat during live
performances. With all of the 'virtuals' and
artifice that pop culture dishes out, could this be
the latest, cutting-edge, mastermind marketing
campaign?
Whether it is or it isn't, any involvement with
Kyle and his art affirms that “keeping it real” is
the intent of the man behind the music.
More Like Me is a Reflection of Life
As he points out in his liner notes, there was a
five year span between the release of Kyle Hutton's
Coming Home and the new CD, More Like Me. The reason
for this, simply put, is that Kyle had some growing
up to do.
On the opening cut, “Circumstantial at Best,”
Hutton tells us of a life that looks charmed from
the outside, but is a facade, a house of cards. “Go
on and ask the mirror on the wall, who's the biggest
fool of all?” He calls it “a solitary life laced
with irony.”
The song's irony is that midway through he turns
his words on himself. His advice is his resolve,
“Let my yes be my yes and my no be my no. Start
living from my chest, stop putting on my show. What
I do says more than I could ever profess; it’s a lie
at the worst and circumstantial at best.”
Then he gets to the sticking point: “What I
really want is gonna take a look inside. Love
demands my secrets; she requires all my pride.”
Kyle obviously had a mission when recording this
collection of country-rock-songs-with-a-twang. It is
easy to fold the message into the gentle blend of
lyric-play, rhythms and sweet guitars and miss the
point, and if that is your inclination, Hutton and
band will still give you your money's worth. In
other words, there is not a 'light' song on the CD,
but if easy-listening is what you want, you can have
it.
This is because Hutton doesn't sacrifice crisp
and clever wordsmithing in order to get to the nut
of the things that really matter in this life. He
pierces the veneer, which for most of us is a stew
of image-consciousness, selfishness, greed, and lack
of accountability. While pointing the finger only at
himself, Hutton leads us to a reflecting pool. We
all have the same kind of growing up to do that Kyle
did; it's a never-ending process.
At its best the “Texas Music” genre is lyrically
rich, but the other 80 percent could be
characterized as adequate-but-trite. By delivering
simple themes to which we can relate, painting
word-pictures that look like us, Hutton's More Like
Me rises to the top of the class.
What is Success?
Humans are built to move forward, to set goals,
and to achieve. Put in the context of his latest
release, Kyle said, “In the past my measurements for
success were all external... how much money I made,
how full my schedule was, what people's perceptions
were of me.” He explained that something began to
dawn on him a few years ago.
“Regardless of how well I was doing against my
self-imposed measuring sticks for ‘success,’ I was
growing increasingly empty.”
Not only did Kyle's efforts in music,
professional life, and family leave him feeling like
there was no gas left in the tank, he says his
family paid the highest price during this quest. But
it was his family that helped him discover what his
own definition of success really was. As he puts it,
“I was looking for, ‘new’ measuring sticks to hold
my life up against.”
His former definition of success, and the
over-commitment it created, left him feeling like
the circus juggler. He was, “never focused on the
ball in my hand, in fear of all the others falling.”
He had, in fact, created a vicious circle. “When I
was working I would feel guilt for being away from
family... when I was with family I would worry about
what was left undone at work, and so on, and so on.
That life was a lose/lose proposition, because no
matter where I was, I wasn’t there.”
The demands of his life had their own momentum,
and it took some effort for Kyle to apply the
brakes. “I took a hard look at the things I was
saying ‘yes’ to and realized that to be successful I
could only have one thing at the top of my priority
list. For me that was my faith.” With that at the
front, Kyle said that his family, music, making
money, and everything else seemed to fall in line.
“Granted,” he said emphatically, “I don't have this
all figured out. I struggle with keeping these
priorities straight and making decisions that line
up.”
He knows he is on the right track – that he is
successful – when he is fully present, and
'completely there.' “On stage, in a meeting, playing
monopoly with my boys, on a date with my wife,
whatever... the only way I can be present is to
manage my own integrity and priorities like my life
depends on it... which by the way, it does.”
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