Same Old Man

iTunes Review

John Hiatt’s been cranking out songs for over thirty years, having spent the last twenty fitting in as a slightly off-kilter country-folk traditionalist. He never settles into a strict genre, and while 2008’s Same Old Man, recorded and mixed by Hiatt himself, highlights the acoustic guitar stylings of North Mississippi All-Star Luther Dickinson (on National Resonator slide guitar and mandolin), it still features plenty of prickly Hiatt lyrical concerns and that weathered threadbare wire of a voice. Hiatt balances between keeping his tongue in cheek (for the to hell-with-nostalgia of “Old Days”) and sticking it out for all the world to see (“Same Old Man” admits his failings without flnching). He’s a songwriter torn between writing what he hears as a universal love song able to be covered by anyone (“What Love Can Do” with daughter Lilly on harmony) and those other peculiar tunes littered with details that only Hiatt could pull off. (It’s his preferred Chinese food menu featured on “Our Time“.) Just as he seems to be settling into a predictable groove, he stretches his range to wring an extra dose of emotion, as the title track and “Let’s Give This Love A Try” end things with a strong finish.