“Exotic dancer came into my dressing room, started dancing exotically/They were smoking something in the audience that night smelled exactly like cat pee/Old days are comin' back to me.” Hiatt's travels inspired Same Old Man's opening track, “Old Days”, in which the 58-year-old troubadour recalls a long-ago show at the Commodore Ballroom. That's just the result of you're in one place, you want to be in another. But I took a year off in 2009, and I think it caused me to write more than one road kinda song. “Certainly, I do spend a great deal of time travelling, but in general it's just the idea that nothing's fixed, you know, we're constantly in a state of shovin' off, hellos and goodbyes. “I think the larger metaphor is just movin' on in general,” says the Indiana native. With choice numbers like the rollicking title track, the equally freewheeling “Haulin' ”, and the poignant, slide-adorned “Movin' On”, one might assume that the album's mainly about life on the road.
The compliments about his “children” are likely to keep on coming once people hear Hiatt's latest release, The Open Road, which follows such primo discs as 2008's Same Old Man and 2005's Master of Disaster. “It's like somebody sayin' something nice about one of your kids or something, you know.” “It just makes you feel proud,” he continues. Of course BB and Eric doing ”˜Riding With the King' was a big thrill. Buddy Guy singin' ”˜Feels Like Rain' was great. But Emmylou Harris did a great job on a song of mine, ”˜Icy Blue Heart', and this guy Johnny Adams, soul singer from New Orleans, cut a couple of my tunes 10, 15 years ago that I love. “I mean, shit, we could talk for ages about that. “There's been a lot that I've been really tickled by,” Hiatt points out. But when the Straight tracks the prolific tunesmith down at a California hotel before a gig in San Juan Capistrano-or “Dick Nixon's hometown”, as he puts it-he's reluctant to pick a favourite among all the covers he's heard.
When Canuck blues-rocker Jeff Healey blasted onto the scene in 1988 he doubled up on the Hiatt material, using both “Confidence Man” and “Angel Eyes” to showcase his smokin' guitar licks. That said, fans will buy this solid set anyway.John Hiatt is a songwriter's songwriter, which is why such esteemed artists as Bob Dylan, Ry Cooder, and Bonnie Raitt have recorded his tunes. One surprising omission, however, is breakthrough single Angel Eyes – but, since 1989 was the year it all happened for Healey and band, it was possibly too soon for this radio-friendly ballad to be brought into the live set.ĭisappointingly, Eagle haven’t bothered to give this release any contextual sleevenotes – essential, surely, with the mass of Healey product that’s hit the market from various directions since his untimely death, in 2008. By tracks four and five – versions of ZZ Top’s Blue Jean Blues and John Hiatt’s Confidence Man – the three-piece is fully functioning. The main man’s engaging personality is evident from the off when he talks over a guitar intro at unexpected length while waiting for the bass player’s amp to fire up. Five of its tracks are performed in this show from New York City’s Bottom Line Club, the remaining four selections consisting of two blues standards, a relatively unremarkable cover of Cream’s White Room and Healey’s own otherwise hard-to-find The Better It Gets. A set from late 1988, the year the Canadian blues-rock guitarist released his debut album, See The Light.
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