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(transcribed by John de Vet)
 part 1: 
- voice:
- CIUP TV and the IUP Activities Board presents AB Showcase.
This evening's show feature is John Hiatt.
Now, here's your host John Esposito.
- Esposito:
- Good evening and welcome to AB Showcase.
We have tonight with us, what I would consider, a very special guest.
Someone who's been courteous to me over my experience with the Coffee House.
He's back in Indiana for a second trip through Indiana, playing at our Coffee House. Welcome, John Hiatt please.
- Hiatt:
- Hi.
- Esposito:
- Hi John.
- Hiatt:
- Hi John.
- Esposito:
- How are you doing?
- Hiatt:
- Oh, I'm all right. How are you?
- Esposito:
- We're going to let you play some music for us, as well as you and I are probably going to talk our heads off about music. So we'll be back, with John, after this.
part 2:
- Esposito:
- Welcome back to AB Showcase. John and I are gonna talk about the music and what he's been doing, et cetera. Something I didn't say before is why we call this AB Showcase. Because the Activities Board is who brings fine performances like John to the University. And they work with us in this programming to help us get this TV show done and, eh, plug them.
John I'm gonna start out with a fairly obnoxious question.
- Hiatt:
- Great.
- Esposito:
- It'll get better from here, I promise.
- Hiatt:
- Oh, okay.
- Esposito:
- Why did you start playing?
- Hiatt:
- It's a great question John, fairly obnoxious.
- Esposito:
- Were you five, were you twelve?
- Hiatt:
- I was eleven when I picked up the guitar. And Elvis Presley was the main reason.
- Esposito:
- Was he just coming out that [form?]?
- Hiatt:
- I was, I'm 25 now. When I got on to him he'd already been happened, but I had two older sisters who were in from the start. So I had all his old records around the house. And that was it, I wanted to be Elvis Presley.
- Esposito:
- Did you write a love song as your first song?
- Hiatt:
- Yeah, it was a love song for somebody else's girlfriend.
- Esposito:
- Not yours?
- Hiatt:
- No, I didn't have any.
- Esposito:
- Did she like the song?
- Hiatt:
- Oh yeah. She was delighted.
- Esposito:
- I wanna talk about Elvis a little bit. I know that he was a favorite of yours, and obviously, you just told he was what made you start. Were you really set back at all by his death?
- Hiatt:
- Well I was upset, you know. I mean, I was driving in a car. I was coming from Wyoming, I think, back from San Francisco. And it just came over the news, that he had died [August 16, 1977], and now these thousands of people were at Graceland, you know. Wanted to get in and see him. Yeah, I was real upset.
- Esposito:
- Well, tell me. Elvis, it's a fairly known fact, got very overweight.
Did that upset you? Did you loose any lighting for him because of...
- Hiatt:
- Well, I never listened to his recent things. It was pretty obvious to me that Elvis became like a parody of himself. Well I don't think, I mean, I really felt something for him, because I don't think he had a chance. I don't think he had any control over his life from there. From the first big record on, he just ... I don't think he was able to develop himself artistically. I think his whole existence was involved in protecting himself.
- Esposito:
- When did you first start publishing music, if you started writing at the age of 11?
- Hiatt:
- Well I went to Nashville when I was about 18, and I signed with a publishing company called Tree. And I wrote for them for about 6 years, so I lived in Nashville for about 6 years.
- Esposito:
- You live in a [pastel?] or dormitory thing, for a while?
- Hiatt:
- a hostel? No I lived with a bunch of people for...
- Esposito:
- Who were recording or trying?
- Hiatt:
- No, yeah, they were all musicians, you know, songwriters. When I first moved out I lived by myself in a little room for, I'd say, two months. And then I started meeting people, and moved down the street and lived in that house with about 7 or 8 other people. And I lived with them for about a year.
- Esposito:
- Is that where the song "Pass That Guitar Over" comes from?
- Hiatt:
- No, that came a lot later.
- Esposito:
- That came when you were recording your albums?
- Hiatt:
- Well, that just came from meeting a lot of songwriters. There was a group of people, we just get together and play all our new songs.
- Esposito:
- Did anybody else record your songs before you did?
- Hiatt:
- Eh, before I did, wow. Tracy Nelson did two of my songs, one of them "Thinking Of You" I think was recorded before I did that first album. And that was on an album she did for Reprise [?], called ... well I can't remember the album, but the tune was "Thinking Of You". And then she did another song of mine on her last album for MCA. The name of the album is "Time Is On My Side", and the name of the song is "An Arm And A Leg". So she did two.
- Esposito:
- Who else has recorded some of your music?
- Hiatt:
- I see, Rusty Weir, Rusty Weird.
- Esposito:
- That's the song with the NAC convention. That's the first tune.
- Hiatt:
- Cowboy Rusty. He did the tune ... What's the name of the song, I'm spacing out, I can't remember my own songs ... "Sing Me" was the name of the tune.
And Three Dog Night did a song.
- Esposito:
- Yeah, I was familiar with that song. That in fact was on your first album, Hanging Around The Observatory. And it was played a lot in the Pittsburgh radio, "Sure As I'm Sitting Here".
- Hiatt:
- Their version of my version?
- Esposito:
- Their version, yeah. They made that song famous, they made "Mama Told Me Not To Come" famous. No one knew who Randy Newman was.
- Hiatt:
- They were famous for making songs famous...
- Esposito:
- .. that other people did.
- Hiatt:
- Yeah
- Esposito:
- I gotta tell you something. I'm really in love with Rose. Do you know all the people you write songs about? ... Did you make up Rose?
- Hiatt:
- Well I do, I have to tell you John, did I do a [???] for you?
- Esposito:
- I'm interested.
- Hiatt:
- I made it up. I mean, I don't know any old woman named Rose, but you know, you draw stuff from people you know. So, I can see some of my mother in it. A woman I knew in Tennessee, her grandmother, part of the song came out of her.
- Esposito:
- Sure. Did your parents, were they very upset when you decided you were gonna take off from Highschool?
- Hiatt:
- O no. My mother was glad to get me out of the house at that point. I was 18 and I wasn't doing anything.
- Esposito:
- I'd be curious about something. What kind of jobs have you held in your life?
- Hiatt:
- Mmm, you're becoming dangerous John. Let's see, I was a stock boy at an insurance company.
- Esposito:
- What do you stock for an insurance company?
- Hiatt:
- You stock paper and propaganda for all the guys in the field who go out and sell insurance to people that are worried about their lives, I guess.
- Esposito:
- I bet you have a real fun picture of insurance people after doing something like that.
- Hiatt:
- Well, I don't have anything against them. This was like the main office for a national insurance company. This was in Indianapolis. That was the longest job I'd ever had. I think I worked for eleven months, which for me was incredible. And the reason I did it was to buy a decent guitar.
And eh, let's see, I worked at a car wash three or four different times.
Worked as a stock boy in a jewelry store.
And eh, what else have I done?
I was an assistant to the head a dairy department at a grocery store which was interesting.
- Esposito:
- A great experience.
- Hiatt:
- Yeah, putting cheese on shelves. Making sure the milk, the oldest milk was moved to the front, which I felt very guilty about.
- Esposito:
- I did the very same... One advantage of knowing that is that when you go and buy your own milk ...
- Hiatt:
- ... you go to the back...
- Esposito:
- you go to the back. I'm sorry, we just let the trade secret out. Now everybody who's watching this show is gonna grab milk from the back.
- Hiatt:
- I'll always look at the dates, and go to the back of the milk bin.
- Esposito:
- You were spacing out on the name of the song earlier. And I imagine the reason for that is you've written a phenomenal amount of songs. Do you have any record of how many you've written to date?
- Hiatt:
- Pfff..
- Esposito:
- I remember seeing 129 in some press quote. Don't remember when that was, but ...
- Hiatt:
- I started what I consider writing seriously, I started writing a lot when I was about 15. So from then to now there's probably 250, maybe 275 songs. Maybe a hundred of which I can recall, and maybe fifty of which I would consider singing, that I think are decent songs.
- Esposito:
- I noticed you don't use song lists. You don't sing to when you're up on the stage. You play whatever song feels right?
- Hiatt:
- Most of the time. Like playing, being on the road for the last couple of years, you sorta get an idea of like what to start with and what to end with. And then little sourages, leave it open, and see what feels right. Cause there're so many tunes, you know, you can get bored with a song. Cause if I had to do the same set every night, which a lot of people do, I wouldn't be able to do it. It would drive me nuts. So I'm trying to stay away from that. Although, like the first set last night would be an example, the first four or five tunes, with one or two exceptions, is basically how I would generally start.
- Esposito:
- Sure.
- Hiatt:
- Because I'm comfortable with those particular songs.
- Esposito:
- Do you get nervous anymore from an audience?
- Hiatt:
- I don't know what you call what I get.
- Esposito:
- You get some feeling?
- Hiatt:
- Yeah, I'm not as scared as I used to be. It used to terrify me, you know, when I played. I think I've gotten over that.
- Esposito:
- Well, I noticed one thing last night. Not just last night, it's something I think you're noted for. You open your eyes really wide when you sing sometimes. But I was watching your eyes last night and you really don't seem to look at anything. It's almost as though your eyes are not even seeing anything. Do you see anything when you open your eyes like that?
- Hiatt:
- [laughs] I see everything John.
- Esposito:
- Do you? You must, the way you open them.
- Hiatt:
- No, I'm sort of half-unaware of doing that. I think it's to make another aperture, for something to come out of, besides my big mouth. I think I open my eyes big so I can ... I think I'd open up my head too if I could, sometimes, you know.
- Esposito:
- So John, we're gonna be back in a few minutes. Well in a minute probably and listen to a couple of more songs you are gonna play for us.
- Hiatt:
- Okay.
- Esposito:
- Okay, so stay tuned please.
part 3:
- Esposito:
- Once again, welcome back to AB Showcase.
John and I are gonna talk for just a few more minutes to sorta wrap things up, as they say.
- Hiatt:
- Or work things up, as they say.
- Esposito:
- Tight wrap things up...
- Hiatt:
- Or tight work
- Esposito:
- Okay, I wanna talk about your albums, just briefly.
I know one thing unusual. You didn't tour really before you made albums, which is an unusual thing.
- Hiatt:
- Yeah. It proved not only unusual, but unrewarding as well. Cause neither of the albums sold very well at all.
- Esposito:
- But you've been touring steadily for a while since then.
- Hiatt:
- Yeah, the last couple of years.
- Esposito:
- Have you been making tapes to get another album out?
- Hiatt:
- Well, I made a lot of demos, you know, over the years. But we're trying, you know, we're just kicking around with a few different record companies. There's some interest, and we're just trying to see if we can get one we can get behind us.
Those two albums were very premature, I feel.
- Esposito:
- You were nineteen when you were recording the first album.
- Hiatt:
- ... the first album.
- Esposito:
- Were there many nineteen-year-olds in Nashville at the time?
- Hiatt:
- O sure, according to the population there were plenty, but I don't know if there were that many playing. I don't know what nineteen-year-olds were up to in Nashville.
- Esposito:
- Well, what I meant was, were there any other nineteen year olds in the studio doing that. I think that's the question.
- Hiatt:
- There was some young people, you know, probably not that young.
- Esposito:
- Is it really costly to be making these demos? Is it costing you a lot?
- Hiatt:
- No, that's, you can find a fair studio for fairly cheap.
- Esposito:
- Do you have to have to find musicians, or you bring your own?
- Hiatt:
- Just recently I've got in and redone. You know, I have tons of demos, from when I was a songwriter at Tree, right. And a lot of those are used as representations of the songs. But there's a lot of them I would like to do over. I've been doing some of that when I've got the time. Go in and re-demo old songs. Mostly just up and doing it solo.
- Esposito:
- Not that it wouldn't be important to keep up with the current music trends, but do you find touring so extensively, you can't, you don't have the chance to listen to other people's music a lot?
- Hiatt:
- Well I hear a lotta people, you know. I get to open for some good players and good singers and good writers. And playing up in Canada some, I met some incredible songwriters and singers and players. So I think I feel like I'm keeping up with the real music, which is not necessarily that which is being recorded, but these people that are out, playing it, doing it.
- Esposito:
- The people in Canada, I understand, have a better feeling for music than what you find around here.
- Hiatt:
- Well, I mean, that's a real generalization. It just seems that they're more, it's just slower pace, that's all, than the States. And there's a lot less people and a lot larger area, so they're not that bombarded with music as we are in the States. You know, there're so many albums out in America today. I mean I would hate to be 15 or 16 and go in and trying to decide what to buy.
- Esposito:
- For sure.
- Hiatt:
- Because I would have no idea what to buy.
- Esposito:
- There aren't many recording artists left who are doing the Randy-Newman-one-album-every-three-years-or-so thing. Everyone's trying to get them out the same time every year over and over.
- Hiatt:
- Sure.
- Esposito:
- That's very unusual. It's really hard to keep up with music, even working as a disc jockey I find it near impossible.
- Hiatt:
- You're flooded with albums.
- Esposito:
- One more thing, we have some books back there. And I thought you might wanna look at some of 'm. There's some interesting reading, I think you noticed that a little bit earlier.
- Hiatt:
- Let's see. Job Power ... poisons.
- Esposito:
- Get one of those books.
Well thank you for watching AB Showcase this evening.
- Hiatt:
- I would like to say that television is as real as it seems.
- Esposito:
- And with that note I want you to tune in again the next time AB Showcase will be on.
I want to thank you John for spending some time down here.
- Hiatt:
- Thank you very much.
- Esposito:
- And enjoy music! Good evening.
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IUP Activities Board Showcase 1977
WIUP-TV