What's the deal with John Hiatt?

xp(Actually, maybe it was at least partially production values that made these guys new wave in '79 or so. But so what? Those were really good values then! And also, in lots of cases, they were marketed as new wave, even when -- e.g., Lowe, Hiatt, Martin, Parker, Edmunds, Gomm, etc. -- they'd clearly been journeymen since long before Seymour Stein etc. invented the term. But "new wave" was a marketing stategy in the first place. So if labels called them new wave, they were right, right?)

Not sure I get gabneb's "reality" claim, either. In 1979's reality, I don't think anybody was using the phrase "Triple A" (don't think I even heard that until the late '80s.) And the music sounded a lot different by the late '80s, too; the hard rock element had largely been excised. So where is the "parlor game"? (Also not sure I get his Brit/ American dichotomy. There was really no mid '70s American music called "pub rock," but there was clearly U.S. music that filled a similar niche here, from Springsteen and Seger and such people on down.)

wiki informs he did hang out with lowe and went in that direction when he stopped selling in the late 70s and had a euro fanbase, so i'm at least somewhat wrong. but i think placing him in that group has at least as much to do with his voice as with his content - despite the twang, he's got that semi-de-accented singing style (heavy on the stretched-out vowels and swallowing some of the consonants) that goes over well overseas.

That first Alpha Band record also explored the new wave/roots-rocks/post '60s quirkiness aesthetic. And that was before new wave, I think. I kind of put Alpha Band, T Bone, Hiatt, some Cooder, David Lindley's X-ray whatever band in this category.

xp So how was Hiatt's "content" different, then?

The Euro fanbase thing is interesting -- might help explain why Trouser Press's Anglophiles liked him so much.

Personally, in 1979 (when I was really just starting paying close attention to the music on the radio to the extent of trying to classify it in my head), my ears used to file anybody who I thought "sang like Elvis Costello" as "new wave," whether they "really" had anything else to do with new wave or not -- even guys like, say, Joe Gruschecky in the Iron City Houserockers, who in retrospect were clearly trying to sound like Springsteen. (In fact, I remember even buying a copy of Born To Run in 1979 partly because I thought Bruce sang kind of like Elvis! So I even sort of connected him with new wave at first.)

Chuck you're needed on these threads:

two rock biter qns

jefferson starship vs ac/dc vs aldo nova vs nwa

They don't quite dovetail with this one...or do they?

i guess this thread should mention then bonnie raitt's sort-of new wave record, green light. it's not as good as linda ronstadt's new wave album, but it does have a couple of good nrbq songs, including "me and the boys." (and maybe nrbq should be in the thread too, for that matter.)

even the cover is new wavey:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41ZVBG4WB0L._SS400_.jpg

From Rolling Country thread, '07:

Tonight I am too busy listening to my Ducks Deluxe LP. (Don't Mind Rockin' Tonite. Which is great. They may not rock as hard as Count Bishops, but they definitely rock harder than Nick Lowe or Dave Edmunds. And as hard as Eddie and the Hot Rods, at least.) (American equivalent of pub rock would be...Brownsville Station?)
-- xhuxk, Tuesday, March 13, 2007 9:47 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

American equivalent of pub rock would be...

Or maybe the Flamin' Groovies? (Incidentally, Leanne Kingwell tells me that Angel City//Rose Tattoo//AC/DC are still called "pub rock" in Australia, which is interesting.) (And obviously the Brit mid '70s pubnesss did have a c&w element, especially with bands like Brinsley Schwarz, which is why it makes sense on this thread, that and Elizabeth McQueen doing her tribute album in '05. On their album Ducks Deluxe cover "It's All Over Now," which has definitely also inspired country covers by John Anderson etc., plus "I Fought the Law" and Van M's "Here Comes The Night," which should have whether they did or didn't. The Rolling Stone "red" guide also says Ducks do a song called "West Texas Trucking Board," but it's not on my copy. There's definitely a hard rockabilly tinge to some stuff though.)

-- xhuxk, Wednesday, March 14, 2007 7:08 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

American pub rock? Well, for the combination of return to rockingrollingness and oddball inventiveness, how about The Wild, The Innocent, And The E Street Shuffle? Or the original Modern Lovers? Or Mink Deville (whom I've barely ever heard, but somehow think might fit). J. Geils? Big Star, even?
-- Frank Kogan, Thursday, March 15, 2007 3:10 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

Mink Deville definitely; J Geils maybe (too hard rock? but then so were the Bishops. But if them, why not ZZ Top?) Springsteen: Maybe too much an auteur, even early on? Modern Lovers, I dunno. Big Star, I'll always be skeptical. If them, why not the Raspberries? Um....Earthquake. Greg Kihn. Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. (Can somebody make a case for them already? Were they ever actually any good? Every $1 LP I've ever bought by them in my life, my high hopes wound up being dashed.) Er... Johnny Cougar. Bobby Seger. Tommy Petty for sure. The whole Robert Gordon to Blasters to who-knows-who rockabilly revival. Lotsa folks, duh.

-- xhuxk, Thursday, March 15, 2007 7:31 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

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(By "too hard rock" for Geils and ZZ, I maybe mean "too arena rock. Arenas being somewhat bigger than pubs, last time I checked. Though I'm guessing Geils [who I love by the way], at least, may have begun in the latter.)
-- xhuxk, Thursday, March 15, 2007 7:38 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

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(And by "too much an auteur" I mean that one requirement for pub rock seems to be that it partake in a certain "I'd just as well be playing softball [or, um, cricket maybe?] right now" demeanor. [So: George Thorogood and the Destroyers, obviously! Who even wore baseball jerseys!] Which is why Springsteen's first album seems less pub rock to me than the way more hacklike Greg Kihn covering songs off of Springsteen's first album, and why Graham Parker and the Rumour seem less pub rock to me than the Rumour sans Graham Parker. And maybe what makes Dire Straits [who came from the right place at the right time, right?] seem less pub rock than the Sultans of Swing they sang about.) (Also: Were Boomtown Rats the first punk-to-pub move, when they turned kinda Springsteeny with "Rat Trap" and "Joey's On The Street Again"? Could be. Definitely a subject for future research.)
-- xhuxk, Thursday, March 15, 2007 8:50 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

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dunno, my take on pub rockery is that it's Brits imitating supposed naturalness of Americans. by the time Brinsley Schwarz made "What's So Funny 'Bout" they sounded like Pablo Cruise with a better sense of humor--white-soul-lite. the father of American pub rock has to be Doug Sahm, with Mendocino (one of my top dozen favorite records of all time, all soulful and rickety and half-assed recorded, and just great) being the ur-document. the Flamin' Groovies on their first two records; after that, I like them but regard it as somewhat unnecessary powerpop. Henry Gross would be close, seems to me.
-- whisperineddhurt, Thursday, March 15, 2007 9:59 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

I mainly know pub rock by what the pub rockers went on to do; pub rock generated quite a few oddballs - Dury, Lowe, Costello*, Parker, Strummer - which is why the early Springsteen might fit (Patti Smith too, for that matter; the 101ers covered her version of "Gloria")

*don't think Costello was along yet at the pub rock time, but he certainly worked with 'em once he showed up
-- Frank Kogan, Friday, March 16, 2007 1:56 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

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Billy Swan might've invented pub rock, come to think of it.
-- whisperineddhurt, Friday, March 16, 2007 4:23 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

Edd: I'll take your pub rock Billy Swan and raise you one Dwight Twilley. (Actually, neither of them ever made more than a single I've connected with, though people rave about the album with "I Can Help" on it. I owned it once, I'm pretty sure.) (Or maybe Creedence invented pub rock?) (As for pub rockers turning into eccentrics, as Frank says, that's a good point. And Ian Dury may be the weirdest of all those guys, but I've never heard his pub rock band Kilburn and the High Roads; how weird were they?)

-- xhuxk, Saturday, March 17, 2007 9:34 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

xposts:

but yeah this whole coterie -- raitt, hiatt, emmylou, etc -- really found their later-life niche in that late '80s/early '90s boomer-rock boom, when they all got produced by don was or daniel lanois or whatever, and the triple-A format took off. (a wave that maybe started with graceland and also included steve winwood's back in the high life and then eventually all that mtv unplugged stuff. plus later fellow travelers like sheryl crow, and some country-folk crossover with people like lyle lovett, nanci griffith and alison krauss.)

i like a lot of it, because there's a lot of good songwriting scattered across those records. (plus i think raitt and emmylou and alison, e.g., are all great singers.) but i understand the borey-snorey knock on it. partly has to do with how much you like pretty tunes.

I saw John Hiatt at Radio City Music Hall (I think) touring behind Slow Turning, the only album of his I've ever owned. I can still summon up one or two of the songs off that album, a slow one and a faster one, in my head. But it's not something I'm ever gonna re-purchase or seek out again in any other way (R@p1dsh@r3). And I have never in my life had the slightest use for Nick Lowe, Randy Newman (saw him once, too - a solo piano gig opening for comedian Steven Wright - wow, did he - RN, I mean - suck), Ry Cooder, Bonnie Raitt, or Elvis Costello post-1982 or so (I had his original Greatest Hits on cassette years and years ago). I heard one Mink Deville song in Death Proof recently that kind of kicked ass, but it doesn't make me want to buy a whole album or anything.

I heard the new one Same Old Man. It has this awesome blue-eyed/southern soul song called "Hurt My Baby." He is dramatic, as someone pointed out. But I dig this song. It's one of them raspy-dude tunes somewhere between the Boss, Michael McDonald and Starbucks adult contemporary. Yet, it's a really convincing and hypnotic ballad.

anyone ever listen to that Little Village record? they were like the Asia of triple-A

"That first Alpha Band record also explored the new wave/roots-rocks/post '60s quirkiness aesthetic"

that's a great record! that band was on to something.

They were. I hear all kinds of early ideas in that album: new wave roots rock, Violent Femmes-like agit pop, an 80s-but-its-still-the-70s update of Warner Brothers circa Randy Newman, Ry Cooder, Van Dyke, etc.

Your the first Alpha Band fan I've kinda met. Cool.

I used to have a copy of their first album, but it never clicked; probably didn't give it enough of a chnce....Got rid of it when I got rid of all my solo T-Bone Burnett albums. (There's another guy on the ground floor of AAA...) Now starting to regret that; figure I should have at least kept his first three (including the Pazz & Jop-winning EP). Rebought Proof Through The Night for $2 a few weeks ago; like it a lot more than I expected to like it.

Xgau was a an Alpha Band fan, too, sort of:

http://robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=alpha+band

Yeah, T Bone is major figure in this thing. I want to hear his album pre-Rolling Thunder/Alpha Band: The B-52 Band & the Fabulous Skylarks I bet Scott has.

more people i don't ever listen to: kris kristofferson and john stewart. kris should have done a new wave version of blame it on the stones.

i do listen to gordon lightfoot though.

more people i don't ever listen to: john stewart

That's just crazy talk.

John Stewart's "Gold" - Classic or Dud?

Kris makes sense though, given he may well have the worst singing voice in the history of the human race.

more people i don't ever listen to: john stewart.

-- scott seward, Friday, 4 July 2008 22:56 (5 minutes ago) Link

this is really good:

http://members.aol.com/clackclack/bloodlin.jpg
-- scott seward, Friday, 13 July 2007 05:01 (11 months ago) Link

WHICH IS THE REAL SCOTT SEWARD????

(and california bloodlines really is pretty good.)

> Kris makes sense though, given he may well have the worst singing voice in the history of the human race.

I'll see your Kristofferson and raise you Bruce Cockburn - or Jimmie Dale Gilmore, your choice.

i like california bloodlines! i just never want to listen to it.

another person i never listen to: john hammond (the younger)

when i was a kid i had a john hammond album with a cool cover. he was on a motorbike and wearing a leather coat. never listened to it though.

i like this cover too:

http://www.wirz.de/music/hammond/grafik/mirrors4.jpg

this is the one i had when i was a youngster:

http://popsike.com/pix/20060307/4846121947.jpg

my favorite singer-songwriter in 1975:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rSUh2b1ufi4

wore that 45 OUT, lemme tellya.

John Hiatt always sounded like Costello to me, who also sounded like Graham Parker. Except John Hiatt sang worse than Costello. I guess I would put him in the tradition of successful Nashville songsmiths who are also you know troubadors and performers in they own right, and everyone lets them get by on vocal personality. I like "Memphis in the Meantime" and I believe I have an excellent Carl Perkins cut on that one around here somewhere. John Hiatt was "new wave" in Nashville, as I remember, and a cause celebre so to speak--in that sense of "what a great songwriter and what a personality! and yet he doesn't sell that many records! Fortunate he's a successful songwriter in his own right.." that kind of thing, and of course, he's quite skillful as a songwriter, no doubt about it. But I'll take Prine any day--or, for that matter, Squeezing Out Sparks, which goes beyond pub rockery, right?

I mean Alfred, Riding with the King, '83, is the only one you need own...

sounds like it!

"Thing Called Love" at the cafeteria; it reminded me of this thread. Good one! (the thread, that is)

Just finished playing Riding With The King from 1983, which I found for a quarter over the weekend, and though there's a remote possibility it might take a couple listens to sink in, right now I can't figure out for the life of me why Christgau gave this album an A- and Warming Up To The Ice Age a B. I'd reverse those grades exactly, I think. Riding just sounds anemic and slick and bleh in comparison; Warming, which I've liked since the year it came out, has groove and riffs and an almost ZZ Top chunkiness at points. And while it's not like the guy's songwriting has ever killed me, Warming has way more memorable lines, not to mention hooks, as far as can tell. On Riding I guess "She Loves The Jerk" stands out a little on the first side, and "Falling Up" at the end finally gets the album off its ass a little and gets some Diddley going, but honestly I always assumed Hiatt didn't sound this bland 'til the late '80s. Will say so if my mind changes on next go round, but I doubt it will. Still curious about the guy's '70s and new wave era albums, though.

Ha, just noticed above that Edd says "Riding with the King, '83, is the only one you need own..." Sorry, I don't get that at all.

And looking back over this thread, I should mention that (1) I also found Ry Cooder's Bop Til You Drop for a quarter over the weekend; (2) this morning, by a bizarre coincidence, I mentioned both Kris Kristofferson (negatively) and John Stewart (positively) in the same post on Rolling Country; and (3) I determined this year that I think the first Alpha Band LP is okay but Burnett's B-52 Band one isn't.

We had Hiatt's Best Of playing in the store this morning and it sounded sort of meh - mostly late 80's stuff, the re-recording of Have A Little Faith In Me being a particularly low point.
Still, I would like to hear his early albums, if they're actually somehow comparable to Garland Jeffreys or Mink Deville's first.

He's imperfect, this is typical of Midwest songwriters...I bought some of his old stuff and I found I couldn't listen to 10 John Hiatt songs in a row. I think it's good for the mp3 era.

Eventually decided I like the first two songs and the last song on Riding With The King. But of those three (the other two being "I Don't Even Try" and "Faling Up"), only "Death By Misadventure" sounds like it would've been tough enough for Ice Age. And what's in between mostly sounds as weak-kneed as I suggested -- reminds me, more than anything else, of '80s-and-later Nick Lowe. Which I know some people might consider a compliment, but I never really got him either, post-Labour Of Lust.

Have you watched his videos from this period? On YouTube. Typical overstatement.

"cry love" is so... i dont know, <em>something</em>, that i cant help but like it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvXhPKRyr7c

dig the mandolin player

Liking Two Bit Monsters from 1980, which I found a copy of for $1 last week, at least as much and probably more than Warming Up To The Ice Age, even. Just seems obvious to me that Hiatt started (or at least started the '80s -- still have heard none of his '70s stuff) sounding much tougher and more rock than he wound up, and a few cuts here ("Face The Nation," "Cop Party," "String Pull Job") have him and his band stretching out some and getting more hard-boiled than I've heard him elsewhere. Overall vibe variously reminds me of not just This Year's Model, but also the first couple Graham Parker and Joe Jackson and Moon Martin albums, and Zevon's Excitable Boy. But unlike all those other guys, I seem to have a real problem grasping what Hiatt's singing about -- I'll catch cool lines here and there, but his voice muffles as often as not, and I almost never get a clear idea what the words add up to. Only real exception on this album is "I Spy (For The FBI)," a song about stalking an unfaithful woman which turns out to be the only one he didn't write. That's followed by a couple ("Pink Bedroom," "Good Girl, Bad World") that I take it have something to do with the travails of teenage girls, but I'm not exactly sure what. (The line about the girl mixing Coca Cola with valium in "Pink Bedroom" always jumps out, though.) Might just take 10 or 20 more listens for me to figure it all out. (By the way, I'm pretty sure Trouser Press voted either this one or 1979's Slug Line their album of the year when it came out.)

And "I Spy (For The FBI)" shouldn't be confused with "Spy Boy," his song from 1980's Crusing that reminded me of AC/DC when I saw the movie (I mention it way upthread). Don't think that's on any of his LPs; need to keep hunting around for the soundtrack.

i would probably rather listen to later richard thompson albums that i would never listen to.

don't hiatt albums come with lyric sheets? i would think they would.

he's no tonio k. that's all i know.

i own 11 jj cale albums. and i listen to all of them. and he never bores me! even when it sounds like he's singing in his sleep.

i own 10 jackie deshannon albums. ditto.

jackie deshannon shits on john hiatt from a great height. (alex in nyc memorial post)

I was actually going to say that Two Bit Monsters is just about the only album I've heard lately that I wish came with a lyric sheet! (Usually I don't have much use for those things. Of the other two Hiatt albums I own, Riding With The King has one, and Warming Up To The Ice doesn't. But I bought all these used, so maybe they disappeared somewhere along the line.)

Also: Cruising I meant, duh.

Just checked The New Trouser Press Record Guide, and Ira Robbins definitely prefered Slug Line (Hiatt's "rawest and most powerful" album) to Two Bit Monsters ("repeats Slug Line's style, but with less bite"), so I'm guessing the former is the one T.P. named Album of the Year. (Also, the latter would've had to beat London Calling, which is unlikely.)

Should probably also mention that the Hiatt stuff I've heard is never really as catchy as Costello or Joe Jackson were on their first couple LPs. (But those were real catchy records, obviously. And he's as catchy as the first two Graham Parkers.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTiDJd62y-A

I have no real Jackie DeShannon opinion, strangely enough. But Scott and I definitely see eye-to-eye on the great Tonio K.

JJ Cale always bores me. (Or always has, whenever I've tried.)

She's rad.

I like her pop's turn of the 80s album string where he was in a very Costello/Graham Parker mold.

He just cancelled the rest of his shows this year after taking a bad fall off a hiking trail. He's expected to make a full recovery though.

He had to smash a perfectly good guitar to break his fall though.

Emmylou Harris is useless, always has been!

This board seems to have been populated in its early days by people who took contrarian opinions just because.

lol that's xhuxk. Must have been having a grumpy day.