John Hiatt

[Herb]

 

[Herb]

On a spur of the moment 'date night', my wife and I went to see John Hiatt at a place in Annapolis called 'Ram's Head Onstage' last night. Ram's Head is a small venue and our table was like 4 tables from the stage.

I've been a Hiatt fan since the early 1990s when he had just cranked out "Stolen Moments" (I named my sailboat after the album title). 'Bring the Family', Slow Turning', and 'Stolen Moments' are considered his 'recovery albums' because they mark the point in his life when he put his demons behind him and started becoming the songwiter whose songs started getting covered by everyone and their uncle. (Hiatt's life spiraled out of control in the 1980s and he hit a low point after his 2nd wife committed suicide and he entered drug and alcohol rehab.)

Last night's show was a solo acoustic performance.  At 66 years old and having lived a hard life on the road, Hiatt is entering senior citizenship.  His voice was struggling a bit when he played some of his older songs (but not on all of his older songs he played). However, his guitar playing and songwriting is still very much on point and the songs from his newer albums were all written within the limits of his 'elderly' vocal range, which he handled as the veteran showman he is.

Overall it was a pretty good show.  We got tickets on StubHub and didn't pay full price but anytime you get to see a great songwriter play his songs for a couple of hours is a good time.