Lyle E Style

Lyle E Style
Cutting Room Floor
Electric Recordings/Absurd Machine Records AMRLES213
*****
Outrageously brilliant album that tips its Stetson to the past giants of both country and rock and roll.
This fourteen-track release by Style is simply something else. A man who obviously doesn’t make an album by conventional methods of obtaining some material, whether it be their own or by other writers, then recording it until it sounds about right and then releasing it. Although eight of the songs are originals by Style, there are three which are his versions of unreleased tracks by some legendary and much-missed artists.
Am I Ever Gonna Find It is one such unreleased track by Buddy Holly. Given permission to record his own interpretation by Buddy’s widow Maria Elena Holly as he sung it to her over the phone, this is a version which I’m sure the great man would not disapprove of. Having wanted his music to become loved, this wish has achieved even further recognition by Style’s efforts. Being just over 2 ½ minutes long, it’s length is very apt of Holly’s work and is full of some Buddy style picking and helped out by backing singers sounding much better than The Picks ever did. As I have found out most recently, it is a great driving song that anybody would find difficult not to enjoy. Roy Orbison and Bill Dees’ Hold Onto That Feeling starts off the album with a very fine country rock sound that resonates Orbison’s style which he was most famous for producing. Like Holly’s track, it too has a short duration but the quality it packs into that small space of time is phenomenal. Harmonies are superb once again and with a stonking guitar solo in the middle it really is quite a track to hear. Like many songs’s recorded by Orbison and his rock and roll contemporaries it could have been extended to being much longer. Waylon Jennings’s Ain’t That A Hoot also finds itself appearing on the album. It too an unreleased track, it has a stuttering but effective beat that, as with Holly’s and Orbison’s songs, excels quality from every angle you can find. Great harmonies, as well as what can only be described as exceedingly good electric guitar picking finds itself included in this track that barely lasts the 2 ½ minute mark. Oh how I wish for this song to be longer.
The material of Holly, Jennings and Orbison aren’t just the only guys covered but also some of Style’s own work. You might ask does it match up to the legends he has decided to cover? Damn right it does. I Look At My Wife has a very rolling-off-the-tongue batch of lyrics that are downright hilarious. Telling of the possible drudgery of married life, it is to Style’s credit that he makes what could have turned out to be a depressive scenario into a song which must have been listened near on a dozen times by yours truly. I’m sure that the same has happened to others who have heard this quite sublime track. Until Next Time really is an oddball of a tune that is just so appealing and quite excellent. A combination of a pep talk and thanking you for buying this album, it enters Twin Peaks territory when you hear towards its conclusion a random voice talking. As he writes in the album sleeve, this is the voice of his Grandfather Gido who Style had recorded. Sadly passed away and despite Style regarding him as "the most miserable man I’ve ever met or heard of in my life", this different approach to song crafting certainly works. If a lesser-talented artist had attempted this, they would have failed. But with Style, he excels beyond all expectations.
Being a really fine, and indeed intriguing album, Cutting Room Floor is definitely worth catching that will surely not disappoint. His surname sums this guy up perfectly: Style. And there’s plenty to go around. RH
- Maverick Magazine - UK

Canadian singer/songwriter and author, Lyle E Style’s new release “Cutting Room Floor” on Absurd Machine Records is a gem, full of songs written by many of my all time songwriters. If you have read Lyle’s book, “Ain’t Got No Cigarettes”, about the one and only Roger Miller, you’ve got to add “Cutting Room Floor” to your musical collection. If you haven’t read the book, you should give it a try.

Well written songs, many written several years back, that for whatever reason never made it to a major label, were selected by Lyle for this album. Lyle added his own “style” and painted the songs with a 2008 coat, to come up with a “must have” musical expression.

Lyle has spent many years interviewing friends and acquaintances of the great Roger Miller for his book, and accidentally found many of the songs for this album. A song like, “Am I Ever Gonna Find It”, co-written by Buddy Holly, Graham Kilsby and Scotty Turner, had been misplaced, but not forgotten, when Scotty found the lyrics in an old worn out guitar case of his. Are we glad he did! The song captures a raw Buddy Holly early contribution to the Treasury of Rockabilly. Scotty Turner is considered to be one of the pioneers of Rockabilly music.

Bill Dees, who co-wrote many hits with Roy Orbison, wrote the first cut on the CD, “Hold Onto That Feeling”, and also co-wrote “River Queen” with Lyle. A Waylon Jennings and Troy Seals uncut song “Ain’t That a Hoot”, didn’t pass the record company’s editing team back when it was first written, but is starting to fit in today.

Lyle wrote many of the clever and entertaining songs himself, and surrounded himself with the finest musicians, to finalize a product that stacks up very well with other releases this year. “Ghost Story”, an uncut demo by Roger Miller, had great “style”.

For more information on Lyle E Style’s CDs and books, go to www.doitwithstyle.com.

-Tony Ansems (President of the Songwriters of Wisconsin International)

- Songwriters of Wisconsin International

When country singer-songwriter Lyle E Style asked whether his musical heroes had any unrecorded songs, he got the answer he was hoping for: they did. And so Cutting Room Floor was born. The album contains unreleased songs written by legends Roger Miller, Waylon Jennings, Roy Orbison and Buddy Holly, along with nine originals. With those names come mighty big boots to fill, but there’s a lot of cowboy under Style’s hat. The whiskey-soaked vocals sound at times reminiscent of Kenny Chesney and at other times like Jeff Tweedy, all the while remaining unique. Style shows great respect for his musical forefathers while carving out his own path in the industry and on the scene. While it’s no Mermaid Avenue, this serving of songs by renowned writers and performers is pretty OK.
—Brandon Bertram, The Uniter - The Uniter

Combating the sameness
Singer-songwriter does things his own way on new CD
Curran Faris
Lyle E Style occupies that increasingly rare point on the country music continuum that’s far away from generic Top 40 pop country - and that’s exactly how he likes it.

After living in Vancouver and Nashville, trying to catch his big break, the 37-year-old returned to his native Winnipeg and signed to Absurd Machine Records. That label has released his new album, Cutting Room Floor.

Style’s musical career began nearly 20 years ago, performing in high school rock bands. Speaking by phone from his vacation spot in Palm Springs, Style said that at that time, country music was the cringe-inducing music his parents listened to. Like so many country song clichés, Style got into the genre after an encounter with an early girlfriend.

“I think [I got into country music] when I broke up with my first girlfriend. I never understood country music whatsoever… Once I got dumped, I started to understand all those country songs and I started realizing that a lot of those songs were stories and I really got hooked on them,” Style said.


Since that initial heartbreak, Style has been perfecting his brand of stripped down Americana and digging deep into country music’s history. His research culminated in his first book, 2005’s Ain’t Got No Cigarettes: Memoirs of Music Legend Roger Miller and his record Cutting Room Floor.

Style said artists like Miller, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings were huge influences and sources of inspiration on his own music—and he’s always preferred the rare, hard-to-find tracks from his favourite artists.

“I just found that some of the stuff that wasn’t commercial was just so creative and so cool and I just try to take pieces of that and throw it into my music.”

Cutting Room Floor harnesses Style’s love for obscure songs, as it features renditions of previously unreleased songs by Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison and the aforementioned Miller and Jennings. Relying on his industry connections, most notably producing and songwriting legend Bill Dees, Style poured over dusty demo tapes and even gained permission from Buddy Holly’s widow to compile these rare tracks. The result is an album that’s at once refreshing and historic.

“One of the reasons behind putting out this release is its uniqueness,” said Colin Musulak of Absurd Machine Records. “The fact that there’s a story behind it makes it special.”

Style said he always tries to do things that haven’t been done before.

“The one thing I’ve heard time and time again from spending so much time in Nashville and Branson, and I was lucky enough to spend time with my heroes, and they’ve all said there’s a ‘sameness’ in country music,” Style said.

Ain’t Got No Cigarettes and Cutting Room Floor are his way of combating that sameness.

“Nobody has ever written a book on Roger Miller and nobody has ever released a record like I’ve just released…No one has ever found unreleased songs by Roy Orbison, Waylon Jennings, Roger Miller and Buddy Holly, so I’m pretty proud of the fact that I’ve hunted these songs down.”

Cutting Room Floor is available now. Visit www.doitwithstyle.com.

- The Uniter

"When you've got a name like Lyle E. Style, your only career options are playing point guard for the Kentucky Colonels circa 1973 or chronicling country music, and readers should be grateful that Style has chosen the latter path. In this collection of Q. and A.'s with dozens of illustrious country artists and fixtures of the Nashville scene, he ostensibly recounts the life of the musician and raconteur Roger Miller, of "King of the Road" and "Dang Me" fame, who died of cancer in 1992. But through a quirk of deliberate or accidental genius, what Style has actually assembled is a living document of country music in its hootin', hollerin' outlaw heyday, when the D.J. Captain Midnight ruled the airwaves, Tootsie's Orchid Lounge was the ultimate hangout and everyone, it seems, was on cocaine -- even the mimes. Along the way, Style learns some unprescribed uses for diet pills, discovers that Miller's King of the Road Hotel may have been owned by the mob and reignites an old feud between Tompall Glaser and Waylon Jennings. As Mel Tillis says, "they're all characters or they wouldn't be in the business."
- Dave Itzkoff, New York Times Book Review - The New York Times

By Kathy Coleman

Guide Rating - 5 Stars

The Bottom Line

There are two things that characterize this book over everything else. One is Mr. Style's truly excellent, well, style, as he draws these memories out of some of the most famous and possibly intimidating people in Nashville and across the country; and secondly, Roger Miller was not only a remarkable genius, he had more people crazy about him than probably anyone else in the world.


Pros: Memoirs from Mickey Newbury, Willie Nelson & Buck Owens

Cons: None

Description
A solid collection of recollections on the life of Roger Miller by those who knew him best.
Published by Great Plains Publications.
Filled with wonderful anecdotes, jokes, as well as heartbreakingly honest and open stories.

Guide Review:

The main thing I come away from in reading this book is that Roger Miller was pretty much universally loved by everyone who came in contact with him. Even those who just met him were charmed by him, or impressed by his intellect, or amused by his wit. The other thing is that it must be a universal truth that genius cannot be boxed in or pushed; invariably, it seems from every story in this book, every time Roger was doing very well it was when he was left on his own to record or film or write the way he wanted to. Any time some producer or executive put the strings on him, he failed spectacularly.

I laughed out loud several times reading this book; I felt a lump in my throat many more times. Here was a guy that absolutely no one disliked, and everyone had such wonderful things to say about him I wished I'd gotten the chance to meet him myself. He was funny, he was articulate, he was brilliant. He wrote songs like "When Two Worlds Collide" and "Husbands and Wives." He voiced a cartoon rooster for Disney so children from my generation and beyond will always know his unique voice. He made us laugh. His music still appears on TV in shows like "The Simpsons" or in commercials (and I think Roger himself would laugh at the use of "Chug-A-Lug" to sell milk). Everyone, and I mean everyone, loved him.

Roger Miller passed away far too young, at the age of 56, in October of 1992, of cancer. He left a gigantic void in country music and in the hearts of a lot of people. - About.com

“Singer/Songwriter Lyle E Style has put together just the right type of book to celebrate and remember Roger Miller. Rather than churn out the standard biography, Style’s work lets the people who really knew, admired and loved him, tell their stories. The result is a book that’s sometimes hilarious, sometimes troubling and sometimes poignant, one that gives readers far more detail and insight into the Miller personality than any academic chronicle. …As distinctive as he was versatile and unusual, Roger Miller’s charm and skill is wonderfully outlined in this valuable account.” – Ron Wynn, American Songwriter Magazine

- American Songwriter

OFF THE SHELF: Ain’t Got No Cigarettes:

Memories of Music Legend Roger Miller

Author: Lyle E Style


Go ahead – try it.


Say the name of Roger Miller out loud and don’t smile.


Impossible isn’t it?


The name instantly conjures up wonderful memories for those of us fortunate to have experienced country music when he was indeed ‘King of the Road.’


He had a rare magnetic personality that transcended the mediums of print and television. He reached out past the molded wax rings of his records and touched you. He made me you smile, made you think, made you laugh and sometimes shed a tear. He was complex and simple. You found in Roger Miller’s music just what you needed; depending how deep you needed to dig. The word genius simply pales beside his name.


It’s seems odd when you consider that no one has ever taken the time to write about Roger Miller at such length until now. Almost everyone in the business has a Roger Miller story – and now thanks to Canadian musician, songwriter and author, Lyle E Style, many of those stories are written down for posterity. Style discovered the magic of Roger Miller after the legend had passed on, but the impact was profound and reverberates to this day.


Ain’t Got No Cigarettes” (Great Plains Publishing) is an unexpected wealth of country music history coupled with the personal and intimate story of an eclectic genius told through the fond memories of his friends. We’re fortunate that someone’s taken the time to write it down to preserve it.


Style has a knack of being in the right place at the right time and taking full advantage of it. The book has almost one hundred ‘one on one’ interviews with many of the people Roger’s life impacted including memorable conversations with legends such as Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson.


“I believe you have to make things happen for yourself, I just decided this book needed to be written, I never had any doubt that I would get to talk to him or any others for that matter and I think that helped in making it a reality. I'll share the main secret to lining up interviews: I never asked if it would be possible to interview them, I'd respectfully ask when would be a good time to interview them.”


In fact, the first interview Lyle snagged for the book was a gem – Merle Haggard.


“I drove to Grand Forks, North Dakota to see his concert just knowing I would meet him and at least talk to him about my book idea. I didn't have anything lined up in advance other than seeing it in my mind's eye. I introduced myself to his manager and then landed an introduction.”


“He's never been approached to chat about Roger Miller before (as with most people I interviewed) so he was more than willing to share some stories.”


Style’s direct and confident approach worked more than well, and he recalls only one resistant interviewee.


“I'm a huge Lee Hazlewood fan. I knew Roger lived with him for a while in California , I really wanted to chat with Lee about it and he pretty much told me off. Sometimes it's best not to meet your heroes or have any contact with them; I haven't listened to too much Lee Hazlewood music since. Overall though, most everyone I chatted with or approached to do an interview was very nice to me and accommodating.”


When I asked Lyle what makes Roger Miller so endearingly 'real' and iconic in the same breath, Style’s answer is quick and poignant.


“Roger Miller was himself all the time. I've been told that by many people. He was the same person on stage as he was offstage, which is unlike many celebrities who put on an act for the audience and media but aren't so nice in real life. I guess that could make Roger "iconic" because that's the same way Jesus was from what I've read: he practiced what he preached, and he was the same to people if he was preaching to mass crowds, hanging out with friends, even on the cross. You got to respect and admire that.”


Those of us who remember wouldn’t argue any of those points, and thanks to this heart-driven project perhaps many more will be converted.


Style believes strongly in the enduring pertinence that Roger’s legacy holds.


“I believe you can learn a lot from the past, be it from someone's successes or by learning from their mistakes. You can learn a lot from Roger's life and about the cost of fame. He was completely unique and a true artist. Too many people out there in my opinion are giving the public, media and record labels exactly what they want, and that's sad because we aren't seeing much that is unique these days. I think artists and people in general should be themselves like Roger was himself, he didn't edit himself in any situation and I think that's awesome.”


Ironically, Style considers the most compelling point of Roger Miller’s legacy to be how someone so talented could, in some circles, be so often overlooked, underappreciated and in some cases, forgotten.


“ - Take Country Back

BOOK REVIEWS
(by CMN’s Larry Delaney)


Ain’t Got No Cigarettes
(Memories Of Music Legend Roger Miller)
by Lyle E Style
(Published by: Great Plains Publications)
(312 Pages - $24.95 (Cdn)
*********

Normally, when an author admits that he was not familiar or even aware of his subject just six years prior to writing a book about the person, you might expect a less than complete reading. Not so with Lyle E Style’s Ain’t Got No Cigarettes (Memories Of Music Legend Roger Miller); which covers the life and music career of the late country Hall of Famer, Roger Miller. This is a thoroughly enjoyable book…one you just can’t put down until you’ve read every page…and even then it leaves you wishing there was another 10 chapters.



Author Lyle E Style, a songwriter, alt-country singer, actor, etc., from Manitoba no less, apparently was introduced to the music of Roger Miller in 1998 (some six years after Miller’s untimely passing October 25, 1992; and about three decades after Miller’s incredible string of hit records). Like most who get exposed to the uniqueness and magic of Roger Miller’s songs, Style became enthralled with the Miller mystique. For the record, Roger Miller is best recognized for his 60’s novelty hits like King Of The Road, Dang Me, England Swings, You Can’t Roller Skate In A Buffalo Herd, Kansas City Star, Chug-A-Lug, etc.)…but in reality Roger Miller was a complete artist who also had a serious side, penning such sensitive country classics as When Two Worlds Collide, When Your House Is Not A Home, Walking In The Sunshine, Husbands & Wives, etc.



While Lyle E Style may not have been personally familiar with Roger Miller while the star was in his prime, which would have allowed a biographical book (incredibly no such book has ever been written about Miller – his life and music career would also make for a great movie); he does the next best thing by interviewing dozens of people who were associated to Roger Miller’s career, as well as his music peers and friends. Style is so thorough in reaching the right people and documenting their memories of Roger Miller, that the book becomes as interesting as any ‘biography’ would have achieved.



Most of the “interviews” are relatively brief and to the point, all containing special insights and background details on Roger Miller that are informative and interesting. Among the many pertinent interviews are reflections by Mel Tillis, Kris Kristofferson, Bobby Bare, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Buddy Killen, Tompall Glaser, Willie Nelson and dozens more, all of whom speak of personal memories of Miller, touching on both the good and the bad…and the previously unrevealed. The common thread throughout all of these reminisces is the incredible sense of humor, wit and zaniness that Roger Miller was blessed or cursed with, depending on the viewpoint of the story-teller.



While Ain’t Got No Cigarettes (the title is derived from lyrics in Miller’s classic song King of The Road) is exceptionally well researched (most of the pertinent people are interviewed) it would have been neat to have some ‘thoughts’ from Dean Miller, the son who inspired Roger Miller’s wonderful song Little Toy Trains; or from Ray Price, who gave Miller his early career training as a sideman in Price’s honky tonk band. Also missing here is a Roger Miller Discography” (or even a listing of his charted hits) which would provide a better appreciation to the reader of Roger Miller’s musical legacy.

- Country Music News