24 Bit John Hiatt

Roots and groove mark this teaming of John Hiatt and the North Mississippi Allstars. On Master of Disaster, legendary Memphis producer Jim Dickinson and his sons Luther and Cody (the Allstars' guitarist and drummer, respectively) team with veteran bassist David Hood to give Hiatt's music a slow simmer rather than the high voltage fans might have expected from the collaboration. Yet the airy, organic interplay of the band provides the perfect complement for Hiatt's songs of folkish simplicity and lyrical grace. With the title track, he addresses the artist's midlife crisis and finds creative renewal in the process, a theme revisited in the country balladry of "Old School." There's a ragtime spirit to "Wintertime Blues" and "Back on the Corner," the insistence of a tom-tom's thump on "Love's Not Where We Thought We Left It" and "Find You At Last," a slide guitar that slices and dices through "Ain't Ever Goin' Back." With "When My Love Crosses Over," Hiatt returns to the soulful, soaring romantic balladry that remains a signature specialty, while "Cold River" tells a story that probes the coldest resources of the human heart. The result is his richest and most consistently satisfying release since the late 1980s.

John Hiatt's first live album was recorded during a 1994 winter-spring tour of the U.S. (the title is a joke) and finds the singer/songwriter backed by the Guilty Dogs, a guitar-bass-drums trio. He doesn't need any more ammunition than that, not when he's got a set of 15 songs drawn from his last four critically acclaimed albums, including "Thing Called Love" and "Tennessee Plates."…

John Hiatt's talents as a singer and songwriter have never been a matter of question, but for the longest time neither Hiatt nor his various record labels seemed to know what to do with him. Epic Records thought he was some sort of a folky, while MCA figured, since his songs were often cranky and angular, he could be sold as a skinny-tie new wave guy…

John Hiatt's highest-charting album yet is a step down from the dizzy heights of Bring the Family and Slow Turning, as he abandons his more acid commentaries and turns in a self-deprecating set full of promises of reformation and celebrations of marriage and family life. But the observations remain acute, and Hiatt's singing (so much camouflaged in his early days) is becoming his secret weapon.

Hiatt turned to veteran country producer Norbert Putnam here, but the result still rocked hard, with the occasional soul touch (notably those obnoxious thumb-struck basslines that are so prevalent in '80s music). Highlights here are "The Usual," later covered by Bob Dylan, and "She Said the Same Things to Me." There is also an odd duet with Elvis Costello on the old Spinners hit "Living a Little, Laughing a Little" (try and tell them apart)….

After the success of Bring the Family, John Hiatt originally intended to reunite that album's all-star backing band (Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe, and Jim Keltner) for a follow-up. Hiatt's "dream band" proved to be unavailable, and he ended up cutting Slow Turning with his road band, the Goners, but the finished product proves he remembered well the lessons learned from Bring the Family. Slow Turning is a lighter and wittier affair than Bring the Family; the outlaw rocker "Tennessee Plates" and its more subdued companion piece, "Trudy and Dave," are more rambunctious than anything on the previous album, and the tempos are sharper this time out, with a bit less blues and a touch more twang in the melodies…