Live From Austin Tx
Live performance transforms the edgy, soulful songwriting of John Hiatt into full-blown psychodrama, as this 1993 performance on the venerableAustin City Limitsseries attests. For the tour in the wake of his hit "Perfectly Good Guitar," Hiatt recruited a younger, alt-rock trio--guitarist Michael Ward fromSchool of Fishand the rhythm section fromCracker--instead of the rootsier bands with blues and country roots he typically favors. The results have a pedal-to-the-metal urgency to them, as highlights such as "Your Dad Did," "Tennessee Plates," and "Slow Turning" leave the studio recordings of those songs in the dust. Few songwriters have seen their material covered by a range of artists from Bonnie Raitt ("Thing Called Love") to Iggy Pop ("Something Wild"), yet Hiatt's signature intensity reclaims such songs as his own. For all the firepower that the brand brings, the stripped-down renditions of "Icy Blue Heart" and "Have a Little Faith in Me" distill his artistry to its bare-bones essence.--Don McLeese