Riding With the King (1983)

See Wikipedia for details on John Hiatt’s checkered career. It says there his first big break came in 1974 when he wrote a #16 hit song for Three Dog Night, “Sure as I’m Sittin’ Here,” which I don’t actually recall and I thought I was still listening to the radio in 1974. Never mind, skip ahead to Riding With the King, his fifth album and maybe second change of persona (or maybe third?). I first heard this album as a backfill purchase when I was in thrall to Bring the Family. It’s probably not fair and a little too easy to file the Hiatt of Riding With the King under Elvis Costello/Graham Parker soundalikes, which were lining up behind This Year’s Model and Squeezing Out Sparks. But does it help if I say Hiatt is one of the better ones and this is one of the better albums of its kind? Does it help if I note that Nick Lowe participates and produces half the songs, with further support from Martin Belmont and Paul Carrack? Hiatt’s main claim to fame really started all those years ago with Three Dog Night. He writes songs that others cover and sometimes turn into hits, though he’s never had one himself as a performer, e.g., Bonnie Raitt doing “Thing Called Love” (from Bring the Family) or B.B. King and doofus-god Eric Clapton teaming to cover “Riding With the King,” to get back to this album. Hiatt’s heartland white soul—he’s a native of Indianapolis from a large Catholic family, later a recovering alcoholic—may be wearing the Costello mask in this period, but his gift for melody, straightforward songwriting chops, and Nashville appreciation for musicianship just never let him down here. His boyish enthusiasms are there, peeking out, and can turn it in directions that read today a little like incel messaging, for example “She Loves the Jerk” and “Girl on a String” (incel vibe a Costello feature of course) The album notably comes alive on the second side with the pub-rock crew, hitting first with the title song’s fantasy of swinging with the King’s crew. Dad jokes, a staple of Hiatt’s performance, follow with “You May Already Be a Winner,” a song about romance as junk mail. The album by then is a winner itself. The next three songs all include the word “love” and its derivations in their titles (as do two on the first side, for a total of 5 of 12), and the whole thing finishes on a lively nervous rave-up called “Falling Up.” In the brief time I was infatuated with this album I tended to play both sides, and loved it maybe because it ends on such a strong and high note. But there’s good stuff all over this, puns and dad jokes notwithstanding. Worth looking up.