Perfectly Good Guitar
Discovering a new musical artist that you really enjoy can be like catching lightening in a bottle. A sometimes serendipitous occurrence that brings something magical into your life. I stumbled upon the wonderful Patty Griffin, a contemporary folk singer, while channel surfing one night and stopping on Sessions at West 54th, a now defunct live musical series on PBS. That week, I bought her first CD, Living with Ghosts, and have been hooked since. Other discoveries have come from listening to the radio at just the right time.
The one artist I will be forever grateful for having found is John Hiatt. Anything but a household name, Hiatt is one of the most respected musicians in the industry. His songs have been covered by artists ranging from Bob Dylan to Iggy Pop to Bonnie Raitt. When Raitt made her comeback in 1990, she did it on the strength of a Hiatt song: "Thing Called Love," which first appeared on his album, Bring the Family.
My first experience with John Hiatt came at a Robert Cray concert at Manhattan's Pier 84 in the late 1980s. Hiatt was the opening act for the then-popular blues guiatarist. While most opening acts fade from memory almost immediately, Hiatt made such an impression that almost twenty years later, I still listen to him, but don't even own a Robert Cray CD.
Hiatt's strength lies in his ability to craft a good story. Make no mistake, he is a talented musician whose sound has matured over time to encompass a range of different genres. From the straight-ahead rock of Stolen Moments and Perfectly Good Guitar to the blues-tinged Crossing Muddy Waters to the roosty, bluegrass sound of Beneath this Gruff Exterior, he has succeeded with evolving styles while always managing to sound like himself.
More than his music, it his stories that have attracted other artists to his songs and kept me as a fan all these years. He has a terrific sense of humor and irony that shines in songs like "Your Dad Did," an irreverant look at how sons take after their fathers. You can't help but smile at lines such as:
As the two year old says grace/She says help the starving children to get well/But let my brother's hamster burn in hell/You love your wife and kids/Just like your dad did
In other songs, he is brutally honest and introspective. Unafraid to tell the stories of his own life as a struggling artist who finally made it and found love after his first wife tragically killed herself.
On Stolen Moments, he tells the story of "Rock Back Billy," a musician who endured years of bad gigs and a battle with drugs and alcohol to rise from the ashes with a "red hot sound/They could not defeat." The song seems an echo of Hiatt's life. It took him thirteen years before he finally scored with 1987's Bring the Family, a time in which he struggled with alocholism, depression, and being dropped by one record label after another.
Bring the Family is full of songs that seem dedicated to the memory of his first wife - on "Tip of My Tounge," he writes, "I broke your heart/With the back of my mind/From the tip of my tounge/To the end of the line" - and written for his second wife, whom he married shortly before the album came out. The songs "Thank You Girl" ("You stood by me baby/When I didn't think we'd ever see the daylight") and "Learning How to Love You" ('Cause I only got to where I am right now/Learning how to love you") sound like unmistakable expressions of gratitude to her for helping him out of the abyss.
Here is one person who thanks John Hiatt for the beauty in such songs, for all the wonderful music over the years. The stories and sounds that are as fresh, fun, and touching today as they were the first time around.