Concert Preview: Hiatt and Lovett bring storyteller evening to the Orpheum
After 35 years and 19 albums, John Hiatt knows where he stands: He’s an artist with a small, but fiercely loyal fan base, and someone considered among the pantheon of great American singer-songwriters.
“I just sort of developed a career, almost in spite of myself,” says Hiatt. “Just from hanging around and building up an audience over the years and not giving up. I’m slow, but tenacious.”
John Hiatt
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Hiatt, who will perform with Lyle Lovett at the Orpheum theater on Wednesday, has built his reputation with an appealingly gruff voice, and a body of self-deprecatingly funny and ultimately affecting songs, that have earned the respect of critics and, significantly, his peers.
Despite his large catalog of albums as a solo artist, the 56 year-old Hiatt may be better known for writing tunes that have been recorded by everyone from Three Dog Night (“Sure As I’m Sitting Here”) to Bonnie Raitt (“Thing Called Love”) to Bon Jovi (“Have A Little Faith In Me”).
“Having that success with other people covering my stuff was always sort of an accident,” says Hiatt. I’ve always just written the stuff for my own projects. The fact that I got covered was just a happy, lucky addition to the career.”
That career has had numerous unexpected twists since the Indiana-bred songsmith arrived in Nashville as an 18-year-old in 1969. There were a few attempts at playing in bands like White Duck in the ’70s and the roots supergroup Little Village in the ’90s — experiments that proved to Hiatt he was destined to go it alone. “I’ve always liked my autonomy. I loved playing with bands, but I guess I’m a solo artist for a reason. That’s my preference,” he says.
For nearly two decades, Hiatt worked to find his niche in the industry — logging time on several different major labels — and battling his own problems with the bottle, before making his breakthrough in the late-’80s.
“I think I started to put things together around (1983’s) Riding with the King, in terms of figuring out who I was artistically. But unfortunately, personally, I was still pretty (messed) up. I couldn’t sustain it,” says Hiatt. “But I think by (1987’s) Bring the Family, I had been sufficiently horrified by my own shortcomings to start to get down to it, so to speak.”
Hiatt has continued to turn out high quality albums in the years since Family. Two of his best have also been his most recent efforts: 2005’s Master of Disaster — recorded with Memphis producer Jim Dickinson and his sons North Mississippi Allstars members Luther and Cody Dickinson — and Hiatt’s newly released and highly reflective collection Same Old Man.
While the process of taking tunes and turning them into full-fledged recordings can be a difficult process for some singer-songwriters, Hiatt says he relishes the studio experience. “I love that part where you get a group of players together and just seeing what happens to your song. That’s so exiting and fun,” says Hiatt. “For me, after I‘ve written a song, I’m done with the damn thing, pretty much. I still like the song, but that part of it is over. I’ve already had the thrill, now let’s do something else with it.”
A similar kind of alchemy is part and parcel of his live shows, particularly his two-man storyteller evenings with fellow songwriter Lyle Lovett. “With Lyle there is no set list. We never know what we’re gonna do,” says Hiatt. “We just trade off back and forth, and it can get silly. He’ll play something, and it’ll remind me about something else. Like, he’ll play a song about a dog, and then I’ll sing a song about a car that ran over a dog — it usually goes like that.”
As he approaches his 60s, Hiatt says finding new inspiration is the biggest challenge. “Usually, I’ve had life situations that have done that for me. But what happened is I woke up one day here recently, and realized that I’ve been on the road for the last 10 years. I’ve done at least a minimum of 80 and a max of 130 shows for a decade straight. So it’s time to not do that for a while.”
After he wraps up touring for this year, Hiatt plans to take time for a little self-improvement, including some advanced guitar lessons. “I feel like I’m in a rut as a guitar player,” he says. “I want to expand my horizons on guitar and hopefully that will have a positive effect on my writing. It’s kind of like continuing education.”
Given his standing as a songwriter, it seems almost strange that Hiatt would continue to push himself and his craft so hard at this point. “Well, I labor under this illusion — or delusion — that I still haven’t written my best stuff,” he says, chuckling. “That’s what keeps me going.”
—Bob Mehr: 529-2517
John Hiatt and Lyle Lovett
8 p.m. Oct. 15 at the Orpheum Theatre , 203 S. Main. Tickets: $37.50 to $85, available at all Ticketmaster outlets, online at ticketmaster.com or by phone at 525-1515.
Bob Mehr: 529-2517
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