John Hiatt struts stuff at 'Austin City Limits' taping

by Kerry Dexter

July 18, 2000, Country.com

AUSTIN, Texas — When blues superstars Eric Clapton and B.B. King wanted a title cut for their stellar collaborative album, they turned to John Hiatt's song book for his 1983 album Ridin' With the King.

Hiatt himself was riding high Friday night onstage at KLRU-TV on the sixth floor of the Communications Building at the University of Texas as he kicked off a new season of taping for the long-running "Austin City Limits" TV show.

Tearing into "Lincolntown," a rocking folk-blues tale of a man leaving a town that's done him wrong, Hiatt and his compatriots, Davey Faragher on bass and Counting Crows' David Immergluck on mandolin, set a blazing pace that only got hotter as their 11-song set progressed.

Blending a tale of sorrow, searching and bittersweet memory with an insistent rhythm and shimmering fills from Immergluck's mandolin, the trio next offered "Crossing Muddy Waters."

That's the title track of Hiatt's next record, due in September on Vanguard. Many of the songs on that album are about breaking up, Hiatt said, remarking: "I only realized that in retrospect, and I decided I had to sit down and have a little talk with my wife. ... You know, 'Honey, we're not breaking up — unless you know something I don't know,'" he said to appreciative laughter from the audience.

"There's really a kind of Walter Mitty sort of life you live as a songwriter, at least I do," he went on. "You get to try things out — you know, you have a little tiff with the wife, and you write a breakup song. People tend to take it as autobiographical, but really, it's not."

Love And Loss

Following with one of the slower songs of the evening, "What Do We Do Now?," Hiatt displayed another side to his writing style, using a series of simple, repetitive lines to draw a picture of a man at the wrenching end of a relationship. It's a change from the intricate wordplay for which Hiatt's better known.

Smiling, he dedicated it to "a record-company guy of a company I'm no longer with. He's one of the few people ever to tell me 'John, you know, you need to write more words in the lyrics.' I'm a pretty verbose guy," Hiatt said, "and usually they're telling me I need to cut it down some!"

Picking up the pace again, Hiatt launched into a surreal journey through changes in faces, places, and times called "Only the Song Survives." The journey became darker and the music hotter with "Lift up Every Stone," a gospel-infused Southern-gothic tale of truth and lies, which featured tight harmonies by the three men and had all of the 400 people in the audience clapping along.

As the "Austin City Limits" video technicians worked their magic to capture Hiatt and company (who have been touring as the Queenston Trio with this summer's Newport Folk Festival road show), the three men again let their harmonies reach the rafters on another driving tale of love lost, "Take It Down," then launched into "Gone," a lighter song with an ironic look at the same topic.

"Now I'll play you one I think you're gonna know," Hiatt, dressed simply in a short-sleeved striped shirt, dark pants, white socks and dark loafers, said before launching into "Cry Love" (RealAudio excerpt), which included a blazing electric guitar solo by Immergluck.

Reprising Hits

Hiatt, whose songs have been recorded by artists including Bob Dylan, Jewel, Rodney Crowell, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson and Paula Abdul, then offered two tunes from his back pages, "Perfectly Good Guitar" (RealAudio excerpt) and the outlaw song (with several twists) "Tennessee Plates."

With that rocking travelers' tale, featuring Hiatt's distinctive nasal voice against the harmonies of Immerglaub and Faragher, the trio left the stage to a standing ovation with the stamping its feet calling for more.

The three responded with an encore of "Thing Called Love" (RealAudio excerpt), which Bonnie Raitt took to hit status.

Using his own unique phrasing and rhythm, Hiatt gave the writer's version of the tune, featuring an extended instrumental jam which saw him dancing to Immergluck's guitar improvisations and even throwing in a bit of scat-singing to keep the groove going.

Rocking the rafters of the studio, the trio made three instruments and three voices sound like a full-out rock orchestra, and once again brought the audience to its feet in admiration.

The hour-long set, which will be edited to 30 minutes for the series, is expected to air in October when "Austin City Limits" begins its 26th season.