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John Hiatt's sales have never quite matched his reputation. Hiatt's songs were covered successfully by everyone from Bonnie Raitt, Ronnie Milsap, and Dr. Feelgood to Iggy Pop, Three Dog Night, and the Neville Brothers, yet it took him 13 years to reach the charts himself. Of course, it nearly took him that long to find his own style. Hiatt began his solo career in 1974, and over the next decade he ran through a number of different styles from rock & roll to new wave pop before he finally settled on a rootsy fusion of rock & roll, country, blues, and folk with his 1987 album Bring the Family. Though the album didn't set the charts on fire, it became his first album to reach the charts, and several of the songs on the record became hits for other artists, including Raitt and Milsap. Following its success, Hiatt became a reliable hit songwriter for other artists, and he developed a strong cult following that continued to gain strength into the mid-'90s.
While he was growing up in his hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana, Hiatt played in a number of garage bands. Initially, he was inspired by the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, and the music of those two artists would echo strongly throughout his work. Out of all the bar bands he played with in the late '60s, a group called the White Ducks was the one that received the most attention. Following his high school graduation, he moved to Nashville at the age of 18, where he landed a job as a songwriter for Tree Publishing. For the next several years, he wrote and performed at local clubs and hotels. Within a few years, his songs were being recorded by several different artists, including Conway Twitty, Tracy Nelson, and Three Dog Night, who took Hiatt's "Sure as I'm Sittin' Here" to number 16 in the summer of 1974. Eventually, his manager secured him an audition at Epic Records, and the label signed him in 1974, releasing his debut album, Hangin' Around the Observatory, later that year. Despite their critical acclaim, neither Hangin' Around the Observatory nor its 1975 follow-up Overcoats sold many copies, and he was dropped by the label. By the end of the year, Tree Publishing had let him go as well.
Following his failure in Nashville, Hiatt moved out to California. By the summer of 1978 he had settled in Los Angeles, where began playing in clubs, opening for folk musicians including Leo Kottke. With Kottke's assistance, Hiatt hired a new manager, Denny Bruce, who helped him secure a record contract with MCA Records. Slug Line, his first record for MCA, was released in the summer of 1979. Where his first two records were straight-ahead rock & roll and folk-rock, Slug Line was in the new wave vein of angry English singer/songwriters like Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, and Joe Jackson, as if Hiatt was vying for the role of the American angry young man. The new approach earned some strong reviews, yet it failed to generate any sales. Two Bit Monsters, his second MCA album, faced the same situation. Although it was well-received critically upon its 1980 release, it made no impression on the charts, and the label dropped him.
Apart from working on Two Bit Monsters, Hiatt spent most of 1980 as a member of Ry Cooder's backing band, playing rhythm guitar on the Borderline album and touring with the guitarist. Hiatt stayed with Cooder throughout 1981, signing a new contract with Geffen Records by the end of the year. Produced by Tony Visconti (David Bowie, T. Rex), his Geffen debut All of A Sudden was released in 1982, followed by the Nick Lowe/Scott Matthews & Ron Nagel-produced Riding with the King in 1983. As with his previous records for Epic and MCA, neither of his first two Geffen releases sold well. By this time, Hiatt's personal life was beginning to spin out of control as he was sinking deep into alcoholism. Around the time he completed 1985's Warming Up to the Ice Age, his second wife committed suicide. Following the release of Warming Up to the Ice Age, Hiatt was dropped by Geffen. By the end of 1985, he had entered a rehabilitation program. During 1986, he remarried and signed a new deal with A&M Records.
For his A&M debut, Hiatt assembled a small band comprised of his former associates Ry Cooder (guitar), Nick Lowe (bass), and Jim Keltner (drums). Recorded over the course of a handful of days, the resulting album, Bring the Family, had a direct, stripped-down rootsy sound that differed greatly from his earlier albums. Upon its summer 1987 release, Bring the Family received the best reviews of his career and, for once, the reviews began to pay off, as the album turned into a cult hit, peaking at 107 on the U.S. charts; it was his first charting album. Hiatt attempted to record a follow-up with Cooder, Lowe, and Keltner, but the musicians failed to agree on the financial terms for the sessions. Undaunted, he recorded an album with John Doe, David Lindley, and Dave Mattacks, but he scrapped the completed project, deciding that the result was too forced. Hiatt's final attempt at recording the follow-up to Bring the Family was orchestrated by veteran producer Glyn Johns, who had him record with his touring band, the Goners. Despite all of the behind-the-scenes troubles behind its recording, the follow-up album, Slow Turning, actually appeared rather quickly, appearing in the summer of 1988.
Slow Turning, like Bring the Family before it, received nearly unanimous positive reviews and it was fairly well-received commercially, spending 31 weeks on the U.S. charts and peaking at 98. Within the next year, Hiatt successfully toured throughout America and Europe, strengthening his fan base along the way. Inspired by the success of Hiatt's two A&M albums, Geffen released the compilation Y' All Caught? The Ones That Got Away 1979-85 in 1989. That same year, other artists began digging through Hiatt's catalog of songs, most notably Bonnie Raitt, who covered "Thing Called Love" for her multi-platinum comeback album, Nick of Time.
In 1990, Hiatt returned with Stolen Moments, which was nearly as successful as Slow Turning, both critically and commercially. "Bring Back Your Love to Me," an album track from Stolen Moments that was also recorded by Earl Thomas Conley, won BMI's 1991 Country Music Award. By the time "Bring Back Your Love to Me" won that award, it had become a standard practice for artists to cover Hiatt's songs, as artists as diverse as Bob Dylan, Ronnie Milsap, Suzy Bogguss, and Iggy Pop all covered his songs in the early '90s. In 1993, Rhino Records released Love Gets Strange: The Songs of John Hiatt, which collected many of the cover versions that were recorded during the '80s and '90s.
During 1991, the group that recorded Bring the Family -- Hiatt, Cooder, Lowe, and Keltner -- re-formed as a band called Little Village, releasing their eponymous debut in early 1992. Based on the success of Bring the Family and Hiatt's A&M albums, expectations for Little Village were quite high, yet the record and its supporting tour were considered a major disappointment. Later, the individual members would agree that the band was a failure, mainly due to conflicting egos.
Hiatt decided to back away from the superstar nature of Little Village for his next album, 1993's Perfectly Good Guitar. Recorded in just two weeks with a backing band comprised of members of alternative rock bands School of Fish and Wire Train, the album was looser than any record since Bring the Family, but it didn't quite have the staying power of its two predecessors, spending only 11 weeks on the charts and peaking at number 47. The following year, he released his first live album, Hiatt Comes Alive at Budokan? Hiatt left A&M Records after the release of the record, signing with Capitol Records the following year.
Walk On, Hiatt's first Capitol album, was recorded during his supporting tour for Perfectly Good Guitar and featured guest appearances by the Jayhawks and Bonnie Raitt. Walk On entered the charts at 48, but slipped off the charts in nine weeks, indicating that his audience had settled into a dedicated cult following. Fittingly, after 1997's Little Head quickly came and went in the marketplace, Hiatt parted ways with Capitol, and his next album, 2000's Crossing Muddy Waters, was released on the established independent imprint Vanguard Records. After a second album with Vanguard, The Tiki Bar Is Open, Hiatt aligned himself with another independent label, New West, for the release of his 2003 set Beneath This Gruff Exterior. Master of Disaster, along with CD and DVD versions of Live from Austin, TX, followed in 2005. Hiatt's 18th studio album, Same Old Man, appeared in 2008. The Open Road arrived early in 2010, followed in 2011 by Hiatts 20th studio album, Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns, which was recorded in Nashville and produced by Kevin Shirley (Aerosmith, the Black Crowes).
from Wikipedia:
John Hiatt (born August 20, 1952) is an American rock guitarist, pianist, singer, and songwriter. He has played a variety of musical styles on his albums, including New Wave, blues and country. Hiatt has been nominated for several Grammy Awards - although he has never won- and has been awarded a variety of other distinctions in the music industry. He remains one of the most respected and influential American singer-songwriters.
Hiatt was working as a songwriter for Tree International, a record label in Nashville when his song "Sure As I'm Sittin' Here" was covered by Three Dog Night. The song became a Top 40 hit, earning Hiatt a recording contract with Epic Records. Since then he has released eighteen studio albums and two live albums. His songs have been covered by a variety of artists in multiple genres, including Bob Dylan, Willy DeVille, Ry Cooder, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Willie Nelson, Three Dog Night, Joan Baez, Paula Abdul, Buddy Guy, the Desert Rose Band, Jimmy Buffett, Mandy Moore, Iggy Pop, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Rosanne Cash, Suzy Bogguss, Jewel, Aaron Neville, Jeff Healey, Keith Urban, Joe Cocker, Chaka Khan and many others. Also the Dutch singer/songwriter Ilse DeLange recorded the album Dear John with nine of his songs.
Musical career
Early life and career
John Hiatt was born in 1952 to Ruth and Robert Hiatt. When Hiatt was nine years old, his 21-year-old brother Michael committed suicide. Only two years later, his father died after a long sickness. To escape from the stress of his early life, Hiatt watched IndyCar racing and listened to Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, and the blues. In his youth, Hiatt reports that he and several others stole a Ford Thunderbird, a crime for which he was caught by the owners but got away with, posing as a hitchhiker. He learned to play the guitar when he was eleven, and began his musical career in Indianapolis, Indiana as a teenager. He played in a variety of local clubs, most notably the Hummingbird. Hiatt played with a variety of bands, including The Four-Fifths and John Lynch & the Hangmen.
Hiatt moved to Nashville, Tennessee when he was eighteen years old and got a job as a songwriter for the Tree-Music Publishing Company for twenty-five dollars a week. Hiatt, who was unable to read or write scores, had to record all 250 songs he wrote for the company. He also began playing with the band White Duck, as one of three singer-songwriters within the group. White Duck had already recorded one album before Hiatt joined. He appeared on their second album, In Season (1972). Hiatt performed live in many clubs around Nashville with White Duck, and as a solo act.
Early solo career (1974-78)
Hiatt met Don Ellis of Epic Records in 1973, and received a record deal, releasing his first single, "We Make Spirit," later that year with Ellis on drums and Michael Bell, a young but powerhouse guitar player from Hampton, Virginia on second lead guitar. That same year Hiatt wrote the song "Sure As I'm Sitting Here," which was recorded by Three Dog Night, and went to number 16 on the Billboard chart in 1974. Bell, a student of Ferguson High School in Newport News, Virginia went on to play lead guitar after graduation until 1980 where he went lead for Carl Ellis and Juke Box Heros while drummer Ellis remained.
In 1974 he released Hangin' Around the Observatory, which was a critical success and a commercial failure. A year later, Overcoats was released, and when it also failed to sell, Epic released Hiatt from his contract. For the next four years he was without a recording contract. During this time his style evolved from country-rock to New Wave influenced rock in the style of Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe and Graham Parker.
The MCA/Geffen Years (1979-1986)
Hiatt was picked up by the MCA label in 1979. He released two albums for the label in 1979 and 1980, neither of which met with commercial success. He received a few good reviews for these albums by critics in the Netherlands. He performed at the Paradiso in Amsterdam for the first time in 1979 (opening for Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes) and came back often and built a solid fan base. Hiatt was signed to Geffen (which would later absorb MCA) in 1982, where he recorded three diverse albums from 1982-85. The first, All of a Sudden was produced by Tony Visconti, and featured use of keyboards and synthesisers; his future albums combined country and soul influences. Riding With the King appeared in 1983, produced by Scott Mathews, Ron Nagle and Nick Lowe. Hiatt began making 'critics choice' lists and building a large European following. The title track (taken from an odd dream Scott Mathews had) was re-recorded two decades later by Eric Clapton and B.B. King and went double platinum.
During this period, Rosanne Cash covered several Hiatt compositions, taking "It Hasn't Happened Yet" to the Top 20 on the country charts. In 1983, Cash would duet with Hiatt on his "The Way We Make a Broken Heart" produced by Mathews and Nagle. When Geffen failed to release the single, Cash re-recorded it in 1987 and it went to #1 on the US country charts. Rick Nelson also covered "It Hasn't Happened Yet" on his 1981 album Playing to Win.
Hiatt recorded a duet with Elvis Costello, a cover version of the Spinners' song, "Living A Little, Laughing A Little," which appeared on Warming Up to the Ice Age. Shortly after its release, Bob Dylan covered Hiatt's song "The Usual," which had appeared on the soundtrack to the film, Hearts of Fire. However, Geffen dropped Hiatt from the label after Ice Age failed to chart.
Success at last (1987-1989)
Hiatt finally came into success in 1987, when he released his first big hit, Bring the Family. For the album, Hiatt had a backing band consisting of Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe, and Jim Keltner. One of the cuts from the album, "Have a Little Faith in Me," would be covered by a number of artists, including Joe Cocker, Delbert McClinton, Jewel (singer), Bill Frisell, Mandy Moore and Bon Jovi. "Thank You Girl" was a moderate radio hit, but nothing that would garner Hiatt national attention. But most notably, Bonnie Raitt would bring "Thing Called Love" to #11 on the U.S. charts with her 1989 release, Nick of Time.
Following Bring the Family, Hiatt had a string of nine straight studio albums hit the Billboard 200.
In 1988, he returned to the studio to record Slow Turning, which would be his first album to hit the upper half of the Billboard 200. It also featured his only top ten chart single, the title track, which hit #8 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. As well, "Tennessee Plates", would later appear in the Ridley Scott directed and Academy Award winning film, Thelma and Louise in 1991. In 1989, The Jeff Healey Band covered the Hiatt-penned song "Angel Eyes", and took it to the Top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100.
The 1990s and beyond
In 1992, Cooder, Keltner, and Lowe again backed up Hiatt, but this time they gave themselves a band name, Little Village, a reference to a Sonny Boy Williamson II project. Expectations for the Little Village album were high, but the album failed to even chart as high as Hiatt's last solo album, and the group disbanded after an only moderately successful tour.
In 1993, Hiatt recorded Perfectly Good Guitar with members of alternative rock groups School of Fish and Wire Train. Hiatt recorded the album with producer Matt Wallace who had worked most prominently with Faith No More, a band that Hiatt's 15-year-old son Rob had recommended for him. It was Hiatt's highest peaking album at #47, but again was still not the true commercial breakthrough A&M expected. The next year, Hiatt released Hiatt Comes Alive at Budokan?, his first live album and his last album with A&M Records.
Hiatt received his first Grammy nomination in 1995 for his album Walk On. Hiatt's next few albums never gained any momentum on the charts, and he saw little change in his fanbase in the late 1990s, indicating a dedicated following. In 2000, Hiatt released his first independent album on Vanguard Records, Crossing Muddy Waters, which saw a heavy influence of bluegrass in his music. Later that year, he was named songwriter/artist of the year at the Nashville Music Awards. In 2001, Crossing Muddy Waters was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album, with Davey Faragher and David Immerglück as his only accompanists.
In 2002, Hiatt performed several songs for the soundtrack to Disney's Country Bears movie, representing the voice of the lead singer.
It'll Come To You...The Songs of John Hiatt, a compilation album of covers of Hiatt's songs was also released on Vanguard. A CD and DVD of John Hiatt's performance on Austin City Limits was released in 2005.
Hiatt's album, Master of Disaster, was released on June 21, 2005. The album was produced by Jim Dickinson, and Hiatt was backed up by the bassist David Hood and several members of the North Mississippi Allstars. The album achieved modest sales, becoming a top ten independent album, but eluded significant commercial success in the same manner that his previous albums did.
On February 12, 2008, during a concert with Lyle Lovett at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Canada, Hiatt said that his new album would be titled Same Old Man. It was released on May 27, 2008.
On July 18, 2008 Hiatt performed at Ravinia Park in Highland Park, Illinois with his daughter, Lilly.
In March 2010, Hiatt released The Open Road.
