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(More customer reviews)Unlike the previous two reviewers I didn't have any issues with static or other noise on my downloaded copy of the Open Road by John Hiatt. The sound quality isn't as crisp as on some of John's earlier outings from the "Slow Turning" era but I think the rugged sound of this album is intentional. Everything sounds okay to my ears. Hiatt recorded this album in his garage studio with his current touring band, guitarist Doug Lancio, bassist Patrick O' Hearn and drummer Kenneth Blevins. Lancio's stellar guitar playing deserves special notice.
John Hiatt has one of the meatiest song books of any American musician. John is in the rarified class of songwriters with Bob Dylan, Steve Earle, Townes Van Zandt and John Prine who are prolific in the number of time tested songs of enduring quality they've given to the world. At the age of 57, John's voice is showing well earned signs of wear but those great songs keep on coming.
John Hiatt had his demons and his return to the land of the living is well documented on his middle period albums. Over the 20 years since, Hiatt has produced consistently good albums with suprisingly few falls from artistic grace. Hiatt's best songs are sublime and even his less inspired music qualifies to be somebody else's "great album." John's music will always be judged against the impossibly perfect standards he set for himself on "Bring the Family" (1987) and "Slow Turning" (1988) which were forerunners of the Americana, No-Depression (or whatever you want to call it) revival of roots music in the 90s. Hiatt had a big impact on the younger vanguard roots rock bands like Uncle Tupelo, Whiskeytown and the Blood Oranges.
With his current album Hiatt is well past his early wild years, and his middle period where he sang homage to his family life with his daughters Lilly and Georgia who are now adults. Lilly and Georgia Rae were poetic muses for some of Hiatt's best songs. On "The Open Road", John is in search of a personal legacy, his place in the world, and his roots. It's an introspective album about life on the road in the homeland he claims as his own. Hiatt's passion for life still burns like a blue flame. Hiatt writes on the song "Homeland":
I call this place my homeland and I claim this land I own
It belongs to another people, they possess it in their bones
There's a double edged statement about Hiatt's feeling of alienation in his homeland and it's also an acknowledgement that the Native Americans and even the early settlers who are bones in the boneyard share a common legacy of ownership of the land with the living. Like Woody Guthrie told us: "This land is your land" and no matter how many fences build are built, everyone is a short term tenant on this planet for the fleeting moment of a human life span.
There isn't as much wry humor on The Open Road but Hiatt's gift for turning a clever phrase is undiminished with the passage of years. The music is solid country music with a solid rock and roll backbeat. This may not John's best album but fans of Hiatt will love the familiar comfort of his exquisite songs and the haunting and organic quality this album. I think Mr. Hiatt still has quite a few more tricks up his sleeve and I don't think he's planning on spending his golden years sitting in a front porch rocking chair watching the world pass by.
SONGS OF NOTE: Homeland, What Kind of Man, The Open Road, Carry You Back Home
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Looking at life through the rearview mirror was the inspiration for John Hiatt s brand new album, The Open Road. A classic Hiatt record, the rockin songs sizzle with the heat from two-lane blacktop on a summer s day. Hiatt and his touring band (Kenny Blevins on drums, Patrick O Hearn on bass and Doug Lancio on guitars) recorded a set that gives Garage Rock a new meaning. All the other years, my songs are about coming home, Hiatt says. But within these 11 new songs including Haulin and the title track The Open Road home is never the destination.
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