OPINION

PHILIP MARTIN: Familiar sounds

Just us kids hangin' out today

Watchin' our long hair turnin' gray

Not so skinny maybe not so free

Not so many as we used to be

--James McMurtry, "Just Us Kids"

I wasn't going to write about the John Hiatt concert.

Heck, I wasn't even going to go to the Saturday show at Pulaski Tech in North Little Rock. Not because I didn't want to hear John Hiatt, who I've been following since his 1974 album, the country rock Hanging Around the Observatory. Both of us were sort of New Wave punk rockers enthralled by Elvis Costello's first three albums. I've got all of Hiatt's records, even a few that aren't on Spotify.

I wasn't going to go because I didn't feel like writing about the show, because I've been writing about a decent number of shows lately, and while I don't want to characterize it as a problem, sometimes I don't feel like rushing home afterward, firing up the MacBook, and bashing out a few hundred words under bantamweight deadline pressure. I reviewed a lot of concerts in the '70s and '80s -- I have seen REO Speedwagon and Foreigner and Bryan Adams more times than anybody should.

But if I just go to a show and don't write about it, I feel guilty. Like I missed an opportunity. Like I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. So I noted that the concert was coming, but I didn't put in for reviewing it because it was between the recent Todd Snider show at South on Main and the James McMurtry/Jason Isbell show at Robinson Performance Hall Sunday, and . . . I don't know. It sounds stupid now, but I just figured I'd skip it.

But Karen came through with some tickets at the last minute, so we went, with the understanding I wasn't going to write about it. We were just going to go, hang out, and listen to Hiatt play an acoustic set and lead his band the Goners, with Sonny Landreth on guitar, roar through a set based on his 1988 album Slow Turning, which validated the unexpected success of 1987's Bring the Family, which essentially saved his career.

Hiatt did the stereotypical rock 'n' roll things as a young man--drugs and alcohol and impudence--and after finishing his seventh album, 1985's Warming Up to the Ice Age, he checked into a rehab center and got sober for the first time since he was 13 years old. Then, in the tender first weeks of that sobriety, a few days shy of their daughter's first birthday, his estranged wife hanged herself. (Left me in my tears to drown/ She left a baby daughter, Hiatt sings in "Crossing Muddy Water.")

Geffen Records dropped him when Ice Age failed to chart.

Most people probably mean something else when they talk about "dad rock," but for me it's not an altogether disparaging term. And it begins with Bring the Family, a stripped-down album made on the cheap by a desperate single father who was reduced to playing clubs and uncertain about his prospects of ever recording again. It's an album about growing up late and facing responsibility squarely. It's an album to which a lot of folks in my generation might relate.

It took some believers to make a low-budget affair, financed by boutique British label Demon, who put up $30,000 to buy four days of studio time and pay for Hiatt's dream band, which included Ry Cooder on guitar and Jim Keltner on drums. (Hiatt's old friend Nick Lowe donated his bass playing to the cause.)

It was a hit--sort of. You've probably heard most of the songs on the album, but you might not associate them with Hiatt. Bonnie Raitt had a hit with "Thing Called Love." "Have a Little Faith in Me" has been in a lot of movies. Mandy Moore, Joe Cocker, Jewel, Delbert McClinton and Jon Bon Jovi all covered it.

1988's Slow Turning was a victory lap that mined the same lode of Willie Loman-ish resignation veined with sincere, confessional gratitude and a dark and impish wit.

I remember being surprised that Slow Turning featured Landreth, who was Clifton Chenier's guitar player. He was there Saturday, his glass slide screaming up and down the neck, his tech bringing out a fresh guitar for every song.

Sometimes you need to look around you, consider how lucky you are. Pulaski Tech's Center for Humanities and Arts (CHARTS) is a really great venue, one of several we've got where you can feel intimate to the performers and hear them pretty well. (Though I have to say the acoustic set sounded better than the full band.)

I recall looking around at the crowd--a graying, well-heeled bunch (their tickets weren't cheap)--and feeling kindly. I know some of them. Doctors, lawyers, business folk--a few that could fairly be called old hippies without their taking offense.

It wasn't a terribly diverse group. There was maybe one 15-year-old there, checking his phone--but it was made up of mostly good people, the sort that keep the social contract. In a pinch, I'd trust them to do the right thing.

I don't imagine that 30 years ago any of us could have imagined being at Pulaski Tech on a cold Saturday night, listening to the same songs we listened to back then. After all, we were the ones who sang along when Roger Daltry declared he'd rather die than get old. But every generation, boys and girls, is a generation of hypocrites. No matter what syllogisms we design, we're all making it up as we go along. We're all of us exceptional.

Besides, Roger may have meant what he was singing, but the writer--Pete Townshend--probably meant something different. Maybe he meant he hoped he'd die before he became incurious and hard to the world, before he became the sort of guy who would decide to skip a John Hiatt show because he didn't want to write about it, which he didn't have to do anyway.

And which I guess I can safely say I have avoided.

For lots of us, these have been tough and stressful days marred by ugly words and gestures. It's nice to have a few sweet and simple nights that foment beauty. (With dancing optional.)

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Philip Martin is a columnist and critic for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at pmartin@arkansasonline.com and read his blog at blooddirtandangels.com.

Editorial on 01/16/2018

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