John Hiatt is certainly one of the most prolific songwriters of all time having penned hits for Bonnie Raitt, B.B King, Eric Clapton, Jeff Healey and Three Dog Night. His skill with multiple genre’s including rock, country, blues and soul, solidifies his status as one of the founders of modern Americana, and a true songwriters’ songwriter.
His twenty second album is a unique collection of seventeen songs, at least two from each of the 8 albums released between 2000-2012 chosen more because of their quality and artistic significance rather than a set of “radio hits.”
The fan must have album begins with the title track from the all acoustic ‘Crossing Muddy Waters,” then moves chronologically thru the decade’s worth of music in which Hiatt surrounded himself with some of the world’s finest musicians to back his genuine everyman voice.
Highlights among those magic moments include appearances from slide guitar wizard Sonny Landreth , The Goners, Cody and Luther Dickinson, his daughter Lilly Hiatt and Joe Bonamassa killing it on the previously unreleased track ‘Here To Stay.”
In 2008 Hiatt explained his technique of challenging songwriting in which he highlights the mistakes of life as “You can’t have the light without the dark.” The lines between observation and autobiography are blurred in every line of Hiatt’s songs. He nimbly tackles sentimentality on “My Old Friend,” and rocks out about hitting the bottom on ‘Everybody Went Low,’ and ‘Love’s Not Where We Thought we Left It.”
The tangled tongue twisting tale “Master of Disaster,” is endemic of Hiatt’s ability to weave lyrics together that will keep you guessing at their meaning for years. Just when we have given up on him and his Dylan-esque prose he gives us the simple sing along ‘What Love Can Do.’ In the legion of great American Song writers John Hiatt is indeed “Here To Stay.”
originally published at Innocent Words March 2014
