Cracks In Sidewalks

For some reason today I got thinking about John Hiatt.  Maybe it was because of all the news about New Orleans these past several days.  And perhaps it was because I saw John Hiatt perform at the “New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival” along side Sonny Landreth and the “Goners” and he slipped back into my consciousness?  What ever it was I wanted to hear the sound of his voice today and I’ve fulfilled my wish and now I’m sharing it with you.

I was a major John Hiatt fan.  I played him all the time.  I knew his albums and lyrics by heart and I probably had a crush on him.  He could be so close, yet so illusive, troubled and talented.  He was an artist respected by many other great artists and writers and they were people I respected too, like Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe, Roseanne Cash, and Iggy Pop.  He never seemed to quite have the fame and notoriety that I felt he deserved, kind of like a male Bonnie Raitt who played for years before making it big, only he never had the “Luck of The Draw” album to cross that line and break through to the other side of commercial success.  All the other great songwriters and players, his peers, were out there rooting for him too.  He had a big following of fellow musicians and does to this day.

I shouldn’t be talking about John Hiatt in the past tense because he’s out there putting out albums, writing new material, and touring.  I am simply being nostalgic about a musician I have so dearly loved and always thought more people should notice and appreciate.  In his singing there is a raw quality that one is drawn to or not, and there is an honesty in the way he writes; there is a lilt to his voice, a yearning in his sound, and a sense of humor and simplicity in his performance.

Seeming to put out an album about once every two or three years for the past several decades, the ones I am most familiar with are the ones he recorded with A&M Records, “Bring the Family,” “Slow Turning,” “Stolen Moments,” and “Perfectly Good Guitar.”  Being a consummate songwriter his songs have been covered by a number of other artists but probably the one most familiar would have to be Bonnie Raitt’s arrangement of his song, “Thing Called Love.”  With a style that has been described as a “rootsy fusion of rock & roll, country, blues, and folk,” his is a sound that appeals to me.  It strikes a chord so to speak, that and of course his soulful intelligent songwriting ability of which you will find a small sampling below.

To hear John Hiatt sing “Have A Little Faith In Me,” from his “Bring the Family” album just click on the link below or cut and paste it into your browser.

“Have A Little Faith In Me”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UkKTlzyLhQ

This entry was posted on Friday, September 5th, 2008 at 6:14 am and is filed under Daily Tune On. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.