Live Hiatt On Hip-O Select

Live at the Hiatt
John Hiatt
(Hip-O Select/A&M)

Earlier this winter, while making the rounds through my bookmarked record-label Web sites, I discovered that Hip-O Select was putting out a live John Hiatt CD. Titled "Live at the Hiatt," the limited-edition disc (5,000 unnumbered copies plus iTunes) is the first commercial release of a 1993 promo that A&M released in conjunction with Hiatt's album "Perfectly Good Guitar." "Live at the Hiatt" captures Hiatt and the Guilty Dogs, on the road in support of "Perfectly Good Guitar," performing on Oct. 30, 1993, at The Forum in London. The promo, we're told by the Hip-O site, "has been traded between collectors ever since."

As a longtime Hiatt fan, I probably was going to buy this disc anyway, so there's no way of knowing if the next piece of advertising copy influenced my decision:

"1994 would bring Hiatt's first official concert recording, but it was the previous year's promo that truly set the mark for live Hiatt. Now that purchasing an audience recording from a bootleg shop is no longer necessary, "Live at the Hiatt" � part of Hip-O Select's Performance Classic Series � is definitely essential for any John Hiatt fanatic but also for any fan of great, live music."

If I hadn't already been so eager to add "Live at the Hiatt" to my collection, I might have taken that bait. Oh yeah. Hook, line and sinker, sucker.

After receiving and listening to the disc, I began to second-guess the purchase a bit. Not because it isn't good; it is. It's more a question of content. I'm not really a completist. For artists whose work I enjoy as much as Hiatt's, I like to have all of their catalog releases. But I normally don't make it my mission to track down all of the available promos, singles and bootlegs in circulation. Sharon and I have another mouth to feed now, so there's no guarantee that I'll even buy greatest-hits packages if they comprise material already in my collection or offer only one or two bonus tracks. This one still managed to get my attention.

A live Hiatt disc isn't a hard sell to anyone who has seen him perform in person. He is energetic and engaging, and his enthusiasm for live music is infectious. Some nights you're even fortunate enough to hear a deep-album cut, a song he's yet to record, a work in progress or a cool cover. Occasionally, you might get all of the above. (A personal favorite is the time I heard him close a show at the State Theater in Portland, Maine, with a solo acoustic version of The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated.")

A live Hiatt disc is a worthy purchase for even the uninitiated. It's just that "Live at the Hiatt" isn't necessarily the starting point or the last word for live Hiatt. In the years since the original promo version of "Live at the Hiatt," there have been two live Hiatt discs: 1994's "Hiatt Comes Alive at Budokan," which was compiled from several shows on the "Perfectly Good Guitar" tour, and 2005's "Live From Austin TX," taken from Hiatt's Dec. 14, 1993, appearance on "Austin City Limits" (which, again, came during the tour for "Perfectly Good Guitar"). So there was pretty good coverage of that tour in the marketplace already. Of the 10 tracks on "Live at the Hiatt," three of them also appear on "Budokan" and three also appear on "Live From Austin TX." Two of the cuts appear on all three discs. Those of you who don't need your fingers to do that math already know that leaves only two songs on "Live at the Hiatt" that don't appear on the other two live albums.

The duplicated material doesn't really distinguish itself from the other released versions. In some cases you get more or less context in the introductions to the songs. Arrangements and instrumental breaks vary, but only slightly. The Guilty Dogs, comprising Michael Ward on guitar (later of Wallflowers fame), Davey Faragher (Cracker, Elvis Costello's Imposters) on bass and Michael Urbano (later of Smash Mouth) on drums, were fine players, and they are in fine form on "Live at the Hiatt." But they're in fine form on the other albums, too. In some cases, the band is tighter on the other recordings made later on the tour.

The tightness of the band isn't an issue. Hiatt doesn't go out and play half-assed, and his bands don't either. It's more that there's somewhat of a sameness from version to version of the songs.

Since so much is similar, "Live at the Hiatt" can largely be boiled down to what is different. "Child of the Wild Blue Yonder" is prefaced by a story about a flight attendant on the tour doing something called "the stewardess dance" that leaves you, in the way that many comedy albums do, missing the physical humor and the point of the story. Hiatt later adds, after a Ward guitar solo, "I think that's just the coolest fuckin' dance in the world," but we're forced to take his word for it."

On the other hand, "I Don't Even Try," from 1983's "Riding With the King," is a pleasant surprise and a perfect example of why Hiatt should dip into his early catalog once in a while. The rest of the songs, for the record, are "Through Your Hands," "Loving a Hurricane," "When You Hold Me Tight," "Feels Like Rain," "Something Wild," "Perfectly Good Guitar," "Slow Turning" and "Lipstick Sunset."

"Live at the Hiatt" is a fine album, which stands to reason given Hiatt's reputation as a live act. Where it falls short is as an addition to what already was in the marketplace. Hiatt has played a lot of shows, and Hip-O Select would do well to dig up some of the work Hiatt did while fronting The Goners or even more recent outings with North Mississippi Allstars. Those discs would practically sell themselves.