Various Artists – It’ll Come To You:The Songs Of John Hiatt

The genius of John Hiatt’s music is that his best songs are at once John Hiatt songs, Willie Nelson songs, Linda Ronstadt songs… At least 90 different artists have covered some 80 Hiatt tunes over the past three decades; and then there are Hiatt’s nineteen solo albums. It’ll Come To You includes new recordings from Buddy & Julie Miller, Patty Griffin, and Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise, plus ten previously released tracks hand-picked by Hiatt.

Hiatt fans likely already own a handful of these covers. Rhino’s Love Gets Strange: The Songs Of John Hiatt (1993, and mighty hard to come by) featured material from Nick Lowe, Rodney Crowell, Rosanne Cash and Emmylou Harris. Even fans of pop radio will be familiar with “Thing Called Love”, which fueled Bonnie Raitt’s career in 1989. And “Riding With The King”, from Eric Clapton & B.B. King, is straight outta VH-1.

Other cuts are less familiar but no less potent. Linda Ronstadt soars effortlessly on “When We Ran”, and Buddy Guy turns in a reading of “Feels Like Rain” that’s even more soulful than Hiatt’s original.

The three new recordings show the breadth of Hiatt’s talent. Though it wasn’t the case, it almost seems these songs were written with these particular artists in mind. “Take It Down” may never become a Hiatt classic, but it’s the perfect vehicle for Patty Griffin’s spare acoustic trio. Similarly, Bradley & Blackwater Surprise make “It’ll Come To You” their own. Buddy & Julie Miller start with a crunching guitar riff, then pour their swampy harmonies all over “Paper Thin”.