Same Old Man

I went to hear one of my all time favorite songwriters, John Hiatt, perform. Hiatt recently released a new CD, "Same Old Man" that is one of the better CDs I've heard this year- another solid set of songs from one of our most dependable writers.

I quite enjoyed the show- hearing five songs from 1988's "Slow Turning" took me back to the 1989 cross country road trip I took with Stephanie Jane (wow! that's almost 20 years ago) and the music from that tape was one of the many that gave our trip a soundtrack. This evening's performance of "Drive South" ("C'mon baby drive south, with the one you love...") was juxtaposed with a new song- the terrifically clever "Old Days" with its refrain "I had nothing to live up to and everywhere to be, old days are coming back to me..." The song also has my favorite line of the year, "They were smoking something in the audience that night that smelled exactly like cat pee."

Ironically Hiatt also played a couple of old songs that will have relevance to me later on in the year. M- and I are going on another Amtrak trip- this time to Memphis and New Orleans. Hiatt gave nice performances of "Memphis in the Meantime" and "Walk On." The former updated with the line about how Kenny Chesnutt will never sing the song and not the original reference to Ronnie Milsap- the latter being a meditation that takes place in New Orleans.

Unfortunately Monday night I'm going to miss another one of my all time favorite songwriters- Lucinda Williams- who is playing a show at the Minnesota Zoo. I bought tickets but had to give them away because I have a meeting that night. Drat.

Fortunately I just bought a remastered version of one of my all time favorite CDs- Liz Phair's "Exile in Guyville." The CD was recently re-released to celebrate its 15th(!) anniversary. It's been great listening to that seminal disc all over again...