The real gems are those songs previously unrecorded by Hiatt, such as the title tune (given a typically off-kilter reading by Don Dixon) and “I’ll Never Get Over You” (in a heartbreaking version by Jo-El Sonnier). Kelly Willis-not Nick Lowe, as we reported-sings “Drive South” on last week’s New Pick, the compilation album “Love Gets Strange-The Songs of John Hiatt.”
Los Angeles Times Thursday OctoOrange County Edition OC Live! OC Live Desk 1 inches 23 words Type of Material: Correction Column John Hiatt coheadlines with Los Lobos at the PNE on Monday (August 30).12:00 a.m. I was like, ”˜Wow, this is life on the road? This is cool!' ” And then here was this stripper in the dressing room, and everybody in the audience smokin' pot. “It was very exotic for this little kid from the Midwest to be up in a foreign country with John Hammond Jr., a real blues king, in my opinion. “It definitely happened just like I said in the song,” asserts Hiatt. “Exotic dancer came into my dressing room, started dancing exotically/They were smoking something in the audience that night smelled exactly like cat pee/Old days are comin' back to me.”
Hiatt's travels inspired Same Old Man's opening track, “Old Days”, in which the 58-year-old troubadour recalls a long-ago show at the Commodore Ballroom. That's just the result of you're in one place, you want to be in another.
But I took a year off in 2009, and I think it caused me to write more than one road kinda song. “Certainly, I do spend a great deal of time travelling, but in general it's just the idea that nothing's fixed, you know, we're constantly in a state of shovin' off, hellos and goodbyes. “I think the larger metaphor is just movin' on in general,” says the Indiana native. With choice numbers like the rollicking title track, the equally freewheeling “Haulin' ”, and the poignant, slide-adorned “Movin' On”, one might assume that the album's mainly about life on the road. The compliments about his “children” are likely to keep on coming once people hear Hiatt's latest release, The Open Road, which follows such primo discs as 2008's Same Old Man and 2005's Master of Disaster. “It's like somebody sayin' something nice about one of your kids or something, you know.” “It just makes you feel proud,” he continues. Of course BB and Eric doing ”˜Riding With the King' was a big thrill. Buddy Guy singin' ”˜Feels Like Rain' was great. But Emmylou Harris did a great job on a song of mine, ”˜Icy Blue Heart', and this guy Johnny Adams, soul singer from New Orleans, cut a couple of my tunes 10, 15 years ago that I love. “I mean, shit, we could talk for ages about that. “There's been a lot that I've been really tickled by,” Hiatt points out. But when the Straight tracks the prolific tunesmith down at a California hotel before a gig in San Juan Capistrano-or “Dick Nixon's hometown”, as he puts it-he's reluctant to pick a favourite among all the covers he's heard. When Canuck blues-rocker Jeff Healey blasted onto the scene in 1988 he doubled up on the Hiatt material, using both “Confidence Man” and “Angel Eyes” to showcase his smokin' guitar licks. John Hiatt is a songwriter's songwriter, which is why such esteemed artists as Bob Dylan, Ry Cooder, and Bonnie Raitt have recorded his tunes.
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