Every once in a while the propensity to repackage an artist’s career in two neat discs works to the listener’s advantage, but rarely. John Hiatt has long been a gifted songwriter and has cut a handful of brilliant albums, notably last year’s Crossing Muddy Waters and 1987’s watershed Bring The Family.
But he has also floundered, releasing more than a handful of albums that seem, particularly in retrospect, to delight in hiding one or two brilliant songs among a confusing array of dross. Muses are not so easily controlled, but Hiatt has battled on, and mostly won.
So for once it makes sense to condense and summarize. And the best of John Hiatt is well and truly represented on this collection, opening with “Sure As I’m Sittin’ Here” (a Three Dog Night hit, his first). And enough of the rest (say, “Down Home” and “Slug Line”) to give a sense of how far he has come.
Mind you, there’s nothing new here, though a few cuts (“Spy Boy” from the Cruising soundtrack, and his duet with Rosanne Cash on “The Way We Make A Broken Heart”) weren’t album tracks. Naturally the collection tilts slightly toward his post-Family career, but there’s enough early material to give one a sense of how the artist came to find his voice. Indeed, even flipping through stacks of vinyl, it’s hard to imagine any track one would wish to hear that isn’t included.