The Open Road

Having followed John Hiatt's career since the early days of 'Slug Line' & bought all bar a few of the many subsequent albums, this one surprised me more than I anticipated. Like others, I have found his recent efforts dominated by one or two standout tracks, but what takes me aback here is that this is not quite the case on this record. It's not that there are no highlights to speak of, on the contrary: The Open Road is full of highlights to my ears & ranks as among his very best- up there with the likes of Bring The Family, Slow Turning & Perfectly Good Guitar. The musicianship is top class & John is not only in fine voice but has assembled one of the most compelling collections of original songs of his career. The important word there is 'collection', for these compositions are linked by interweaving narrative themes. It seems he has deliberately presented them so that they tell a story of sorts. The starter 'Open Road', for instance, tells of a lady taking to the open road in her car 'locked doin' '75' & leaving her partner behind in a quest for new hopes. This song is followed by another called 'Haulin' about a male driver doing much the same, making his way from Fort Smith to Louisville with his mind set on bedding the lady he's headed towards. These two tracks pave the way for a sequence of quality songs exploring these motivations before we arrive at the album's centrepiece, 'Homeland'. This is a major song concerning an emotional awakening in which the narrator is startled to be recognising the meaning of 'home' through his sympathetic recognition of other peoples. From hereon until the end we have five tracks of redemption from narrators who have woken up to love having previously screwed it up. Sorry, but if you're not disposed towards listening to what this man sings about you're not likely to get it but I would recommend all who have ever given John Hiatt listening space to give this one some serious airtime. It's something of a triumph from one of our most gifted performing songwriters & The Open Road is a timely reminder that he can still deliver goods of the highest quality.

This is a rockin' album that reminded me of Perfectly Good Guitar at times, but also of Bring the Family.
I've got used to only really liking about half the tracks of John's recent albums. Well, liking them enough to put them on my iPod anyway. The Open Road is no different in this respect, but none of the tracks are bad. Some are just a bit too heavy for me.
The title track is a fairly generic JH song that I found a little dull. The second track has a good bass line but is a bit long. For me the album doesn't really get going until Like a Freight Train, which is probably my favourite track. This is a very sparse bluesy track that's John Hiatt at his best. As always, the lyrics are just great (he never has let us down in this respect) and it amazes me he continues to come up with fresh phrases after all these years. Some of his lyrics still take you by surprise.
I like most of the other songs well enough. The ones going on my iPod are 'My Baby' (terrific lyrics on this especially), Homeland, Wonder of Love, and Movin' On. Movin' On deserves mention as a classic example of why JH is such a great songwriter.
Others have mentioned that the production on the album isn't great and it isn't. Having said that, if you put it on a good hi-fi and crank up the volume you can kind of see why it sounds the way it does. And it sounds fine, oddly enough, through phones on my iPod. Still, would it have done any harm to record this to at least the standard of his albums from the eighties? Perhaps it's down to money. What I can't excuse is the horrible crackling distortion on track three that renders it impossible to listen to. A bad pressing perhaps?
Well, one day John Hiatt will stop giving us this annual gift and we'll be sorry. So I can forgive many things and I'm happy that his voice is still mostly up to the task of howling out these songs. He must have vocal chords of steel.

I'm 54 and have been a John Hiatt follower for as long as I can remember. I now buy his stuff without first hearing it and usually I'm blown away. This took me a couple of times before it hit the spot, but now ..... It's typical Hiatt ! Favourites have to be Homeland and Fireball Roberts, but when he winds up that distinctive voice of his it doesn't matter which track it is - it's the business ! This is a great mix of songs and some tight guitars behind his superb lyrics. Bring on the next one, John !