Chart success

Pontiac reached number 12 on Billboard's

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

chart for Top Country Albums, and 117 in the Billboard Hot 200.

Critical acclaim

Pontiac was ranked as 201 in the list of the "500 Best Albums of All-Time" by the German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 edition of Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

. The album was also cited as one of the top 100 albums of the 1980s by the Italian magazines Il Mucchio Selvaggio and Velvet. The album is also one of 300 listed in the book, 50 Years of Great Recordings and appeared at number 33 the Village Voice's list of top albums for 1988.

Track listing

All songs written by Lyle Lovett

1. "If I Had a Boat" – 3:06
2. "Give Back My Heart" – 3:00
3. "I Loved You Yesterday" – 2:56
4. "Walk Through the Bottomland" – 4:11
5. "L.A. County" – 3:17
6. "She's No Lady" – 3:13
7. "M-O-N-E-Y" – 3:15
8. "Black and Blue" – 3:58
9. "Simple Song" – 3:17
10. "Pontiac" – 2:24
11. "She's Hot to Go" – 2:30

Personnel

• Tony Brown – Producer
• Paul Franklin
  Paul Franklin (musician)
  Paul Franklin is an American multi-instrumentalist, known mainly for his work as a steel guitarist. He began his career in the 1970s as a member of Barbara Mandrell's road band; in addition he toured with Mel Tillis and Jerry Reed. He has since become a prolific session musician in Nashville,...
  
   – Steel Guitar
• Vince Gill
  Vince Gill
  Vincent Grant "Vince" Gill is an American neotraditional country singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He has achieved commercial success and fame both as frontman to the country rock band Pure Prairie League in the 1970s, and as a solo artist beginning in 1983, where his talents as a...
  
   – Guitar, Vocals, Background Vocals
• John Hagen – Cello
• Emmylou Harris
  Emmylou Harris
  Emmylou Harris is an American singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including...
  
   – Vocals, Background Vocals
• Ray Herndon – Electric Guitar
• Simon Levy – Art Direction
• Lyle Lovett – Acoustic Guitar, Vocals, Producer
• Steve Marsh – Saxophone
• Matt McKenzie – Bass
• Glenn Meadows – Mastering
• Edgar Meyer – Bass, Double Bass
• Peter Nash – Photography
• Willie Pevear – Engineer
• Francine Reed
  Francine Reed
  Francine Reed is an American blues singer.-Biography:Reed as a youth sang at church services, and her music was inspired and influenced by her gospel-singing father. She is the sister of jazz singer Margo Reed.In Phoenix, Arizona, Francine Reed appeared with Miles Davis, Stanley Jordan, Smokey...
  
   – Vocals, Background Vocals
• Matt Rollings
  Matt Rollings
  Matt Rollings is an American composer, musician and record producer. He plays piano, organ, and keyboards.Known mainly for playing in Lyle Lovett's Large Band, he has worked with many artists, not all country...
  
  – Synthesizer, Piano, DX-7
• J. David Sloan – Vocals, Background Vocals
• Harry Stinson – Drums, Background Vocals
• Steve Tillisch – Engineer, Mixing
• Ron Treat – Engineer
• Billy Williams – Acoustic & Rhythm Guitar, Associate Producer
• Marty Williams – Second Engineer

Chart performance

Chart (1988)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Top Country Albums	12
U.S. Billboard 200	117