FRANKLIN, Tenn. - Isn't this the same guy they once called an angry young man, America's Elvis Costello?
Today, John Hiatt seems the picture of contentment on the farm he shares with his wife, Nancy. The kids are grown, the house is quiet and the empty nesters feel like newlyweds. "We're like all romantic again after 22 years," Hiatt gushes, "and it's new territory."
Which brings us to his new album, "Same Old Man," recorded at home for the first time amid the hay fields and the shady lanes.
To describe the disc as "mature" would be an understatement. It's a middle-aged man's love letter, his travelogue to a long and durable relationship.
"When we got married we each had a kid, so we never had a time together when we didn't have kids," said Hiatt, the father of three children ages 20, 24 and 30. "Now we're the kids. I'm 55 and she's 48."
Besides recording "Same Old Man" at home, he also self-produced for the first time. His daughter Lilly sings backup on two of the tracks, yet another first.
"I felt like it was time for me to take all the responsibility for a change," he said. "I think I knew what I wanted to hear. At least I had an approach I wanted to try. And I didn't want to share that. I didn't want somebody else's ideas on top of that."
It's an uncluttered record - mostly guitar, bass and drums behind Hiatt's craggy voice - that's clever and sweet without being maudlin. On the title cut he sings, "You start out tryin' to change everything, you wind up dancin' with who you bring. I loved you then and my love still stands. Honey, I'm still the same old man."
Hiatt's doing what he's always done: making music about his life and the people in it. What's different is his frame of mind. Through the '70s and much of the '80s he was addicted to drugs and alcohol - "mentally, physically, morally and spiritually bankrupt" is how he puts it.
"I'd reached that point where I couldn't get sober. I didn't know how to get sober and it had stopped working, the drugs and alcohol. In a way they didn't work anymore. It was just miserable. You were trapped. You didn't have any choice except to keep doing it."
He bounced from label to label and from folk rock to new wave to Americana. His lyrics could be cynical and darkly funny, and he was lumped with angry punk songwriters of the time like Costello and Nick Lowe.
"When I was on Geffen and MCA it was all about getting a hit, and you don't know what a hit is and they don't know what a hit is and you get discouraged because you start doubting yourself," he recalls. "I remember asking Geffen one day, 'I don't know why you signed me because I don't know what it is I do that you like, because it doesn't seem to be anything."'
Once he'd finally sobered up, he found his mark with the rootsy "Bring the Family" in 1987. The album put him on rock radio, but maybe more importantly it put him in the path of other artists who began mining his catalogue. The list of people who've covered his tunes is remarkable: Bonnie Raitt, Bob Dylan, Jewel, Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Don Henley, Kenny Rogers, Bon Jovi, Iggy Pop, Linda Ronstadt, Willie Nelson, Joe Cocker, Suzy Bogguss, Roseanne Cash, Three Dog Night and many others.
"I think he writes songs that must be personal to him but are not so personal that they're alienating to cover," said Jewel, who toured with Hiatt early in her career and also recorded his "Have a Little Faith in Me." "They're open enough that they can be about anybody's life."
Though flattered, Hiatt says he never set out to have people cover his songs; that part of his career was a happy accident.
"I'm not really good at writing for other people. It just sort of happens that I write with some regularity and I've been lucky that people want to cut the songs. If I had to rely on that, I don't know that it would work out. I'd probably go crazy after a few years."
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On the Net:
http://www.johnhiatt.com/
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