King of kings: John Hiatt, B.B. King

Alas, a recent nice run of good interview luck ran out this week -- I just could not get John Hiatt on the phone to preview his Friday night show at the NC Museum of Art. I've already been warned that my chances of getting a phone audience with B.B. King before his Nov. 30 show at the Durham Performing Arts Center are somewhere between slim and none. So I'm afraid this 2001 interview with Hiatt, talking about King scoring a hit with one of Hiatt's songs, will have to do double duty.

The thrill goes on
By David Menconi/News & Observer
Sept. 28, 2001

There are certain rules of the road. Well, maybe not "rules" so much as expectations. For example, if a big star is touring with an opening act who wrote a song that was a big hit for the headliner, you'd expect the headliner to prominently feature it in every show's set. Maybe even invite the opener onstage to do a cameo on that one.

But in the case of B.B. King and John Hiatt, you'd think wrong. Hiatt, one of the opening acts for King on the blues festival tour that plays Raleigh this weekend, wrote "Riding With the King" -- a big hit single for King and Eric Clapton two years ago. The song is, however, conspicuously missing from King's setlist.

"Man, I wish," Hiatt says when asked if King is playing the song. "I kinda got the word about it in advance. B.B. is doing what he's done the last 40 years, and at this point he's not one to add new songs to the set. So we actually close with that song every night."

Ever the gentleman, Hiatt is quick to add that touring with King and Buddy Guy is "still a thrill." And it helps that Guy is a bit less rigid than King about his onstage repertoire. One of the songs Guy has been playing on this tour is "Feels Like Rain," yet another Hiatt composition.

Then again, at this point it's kind of unusual for Hiatt to tour with someone who hasn't covered one of his songs. Some 30 years into his career, Hiatt is still better-known as a songwriter than a performer, with credits ranging from punk icon Iggy Pop to early-'70s hitmakers Three Dog Night.

He has one of the most impressive list of credits you've ever seen -- names like Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Jewel, Joe Cocker, Emmylou Harris, Don Henley, Steve Earle, Willie Nelson and Conway Twitty, to note but a few. So what was his most unexpected cover?

"Paula Abdul," he says. "She did 'Alright Tonight' on her album that Don Was produced (1991's "Spellbound"), which is the only way I can think it happened. Also those twin boys on 'Hee Haw'; the something brothers, I can't remember their name. They did a song of mine on the show and I can't remember which one, either. I was actually on 'Hee Haw' once myself. That was a big career highlight."

Providing further career highlights is Hiatt's new album, "The Tiki Bar Is Open" (Vanguard Records), which has lots of his wiseacre charm and soulful rasp. Following up 1999's all-acoustic "Crossing Muddy Waters," "Tiki Bar" is bluesy bar-band pop-soul. It's also Hiatt's first album with his '80s-vintage backup band the Goners (featuring ace guitarist Sonny Landreth) in 13 years.

"We got back together at the end of '99, and it's been great," Hiatt says. "There was no rhyme or reason as to why or when, just like there wasn't really any rhyme or reason to why we hadn't gotten back together sooner. Sonny was off doing his thing and I was off doing mine, and finally I just called Sonny. 'Man, we oughtta play together again. You think the other guys would be up for it?' 'Oh, yeah.' So here we are."

"Tiki Bar" covers a lot of ground, from the straight-ahead pop of "All the Lilacs in Ohio" to the sprawling psychedelic groove of the album-closing "Farther Stars" ("Our acid jam," Hiatt jokes, "all those acid trips finally amounted to something."). It also has one of Hiatt's more surreal songs in the title track, a rumination on Daytona Beach, Fla., that also pays tribute to the late NASCAR racing legend Dale Earnhardt (who died in a crash at Daytona in February):

Well his name was Mr. Dale Earnhardt,
And he drove the black number three.
Now the king is gone but he'll not be forgotten,
Nor his like will we ever see.

Hiatt comes by his interest in both Earnhardt and Daytona Beach honestly. One of his hobbies is driving pro-challenge race cars, and during his formative years in Indiana, the words "Daytona Beach" conjured up images of sin city.

"When I was a kid, 'Daytona Beach' was uttered in hushed tones," he says. "Like Xanadu or something. It was the place to go for spring break; everything that was good, fast, sexy and American existed there. But I never got to go back then. So there I was in my 48th year, finally in Daytona Beach. Certain elements from time gone by are still intact down there, some old mom-and-pop motels up and down the strip. And one had a sign hanging out that said, 'The Tiki Bar Is Open.' And my reaction was, 'Well, thank God!' That kinda struck me, so it's what started the song. And then Dale Earnhardt's death kinda finished it."

Taken together, "Tiki Bar" and "Crossing Muddy Waters" represent Hiatt's strongest back-to-back records since 1987's "Bring the Family" and 1988's "Slow Turning" broke him through to a modest cult following. But he made some shakier albums in the 1990s, bottoming out with 1997's forgettable "Little Head."

Hiatt attributes his mini-slump to a variety of factors, including the loss of his manager of 10 years (who quit management to go to work for a record company). The connection between a manager and the music an artist makes is not immediately obvious to an outsider, but Hiatt is a big believer in the team approach. He says that one reason his newer records have been so good is that he's back in a stable management situation.

"Being creative, you can't do this by yourself in a vacuum," Hiatt says. "You have to have people around who inspire you. They're unsung. The artists get all the 'celebrity,' but it takes a lot of people to make it go: managers, the road crew, your sound guy. I'm shocked at how many acts pay no attention to that.

"But it really is like a team, and there ain't no stars on the road. It's like a submarine crew when you tour, it's about surviving and keeping the music alive. That's the challenge of the road, not killing the music. Road travel is fraught with peril. You're exhausted from just the physical travel, and there's also interviews, in-stores, all these other things you have to do. That's all part of the job. But the whole idea is to save that one or two hours you get every night to try and make magic happen."