Hiatt's story

by Jim Patterson

Thursday, November 30, 2000 - The Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - When John Hiatt brings up bluesman Mississippi John Hurt and Elvis Costello as influences, it makes sense. Hiatt's superb new album, "Crossing Muddy Waters," is drenched in theblues, and the wordplay on his 1980s albums earned him critical respect as an American answer to Costello. Then he starts talking about the late BoxCar Willie, the guy who dressed like a hobo and imitated a train whistle on "Orange Blossom Special." That merits an explanation.

It turns out BoxCar Willie's influence is more about business than music.

"I remember a comment BoxCar Willie made years ago," Hiatt said. "He was selling like a million records on television. A Columbia Records guy said, `We want to sign you.' "And BoxCar goes, `Well, why would I want to do that?"'

Hiatt, 48, isn't trying to sell his new album on cheesy late-night TV ads. But after building a loyal following over 25 years, he figures he doesn't need help from a major record label, or the attendant artistic interference. So he has left Capitol Records because the label's executives didn't like a rock music album he was recording earlier this year. When Internet music distributor EMusic.com (http://www.EMusic.com) asked for a song or two to sell, Hiatt and manager Ken Levitan offered an entire album. Blues-folk record label Vanguard licensed the right to distribute the album to record stores.

"Crossing Muddy Waters" is driving acoustic blues, featuring Hiatt, bass player Davey Faragher and David Immergluck on mandolin and guitar. No drums are used. Faragher provided percussion on tambourine, stomping his feet and beating a metal folding chair. "We paid for it ourselves, made it in four days," Hiatt said. "The acoustic sound I did for I don't know what reason. It's a combination of getting older, living this rural sort of lifestyle. I've been living out in the woods for the last eight years or so. The songs just started coming out in this way."

The reviews have been positive. "It's ... easily his best since 1987's `Bring the Family,"' said the Toast magazine Web site (http://www.toastmag.com). "The songs are deceptively simple and unassuming, yet full of insight and nuance - he's rarely written better." Hiatt said the acoustic blues format pushed him to write less self-consciously.

"I'm as guilty as the next guy of writing the kind of song that's like, `I know something you don't and I know a clever way of saying it that you don't know. Here it is. Aren't you impressed?' I've done that," he said. "I've just kind of lost interest in that kind of song over the years. I'm kind of writing simpler as I get older, I guess."

Hiatt, already renowned as a lyricist, has gotten even better. His cast of characters on "Crossing Muddy Waters" includes several men struggling to go on after calamities in life and love.

"Gimme back my steel/gimme back my nerve," he moans in "What Do We Do Now."

"Gimme back my youth/for the dead man's curve/for that icy feel when you start to swerve/give us back the love we don't deserve."

Born in Indianapolis, Hiatt moved to Nashville in 1971. Inspired by "a folk-singing hippie" named Bob Frank, he talked a music publishing company into the same deal Frank had: $25 a week to write songs. He recorded two unsuccessful albums for Epic Records, then moved to the West Coast in the late 1970s. When punk and new-wave rock became popular, Hiatt found a style he could fit into. "First I heard the Ramones, and then I heard the whole Stiff Records (Costello's English record label) thing and I just flipped."

Hiatt recorded two albums for MCA that earned him notice as an "American Elvis Costello." But the albums didn't sell. Three albums followed on Geffen before Hiatt was derailed by alcoholism and his wife's suicide in 1985. "I had a year-old daughter," Hiatt said. "I just figured I couldn't raise her up in L.A. I wouldn't have a chance. I don't know why I thought that, but I just thought of Nashville as like home. So I came back here in 1985, met my wife, and I've been here for 14 years."

His "Bring the Family" album featured a rougher sound, with songs inspired by his newfound sobriety and family life. "Crossing Muddy Waters" continues that artistic direction. Meanwhile, Hiatt is working on that rock record Capitol didn't like. "Vanguard would like to put the rock record out," he said. "So we're in a position of seeing how they do with this one first. "I've never been in that position before. It's kind of like the commercial where you're interviewing the bank lenders for who gets to loan you money."

On the Net:

John Hiatt: http://www.johnhiatt.com.

Vanguard Records: http://www.vanguardrecords.com.

AP-NY-11-30-00 0001EST