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Monday, May 12, 2003

By John Hayes, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

With The Goners gone, John Hiatt was freed of the constraints of a steady band, free to take his songwriting and performances in new directions.

With The Goners back to back him again, Hiatt is freed of the responsibility of coming up with all the big ideas, free to slip back into a comfortable musical telepathy.

	John Hiatt and the Goners, with John Eddie Where: Rosebud, Strip District. When: 8 tonight. Tickets: $45, 412-323-1919.

Technically, Hiatt reunited with his former road band -- Kenneth Blevins, Sonny Landreth and Dave Ranson -- during the 2001 studio sessions for his CD "The Tiki Bar is Open."

"I love 'Tiki Bar,'" says Hiatt, "but it was not strictly a Goners record. There were a lot of little things going on that were not Goner-like. ... [It] was kind of easing back into it, kind of gussied up a little."

But by the time Hiatt began assembling songs for his new album, "Beneath This Gruff Exterior," the Goners were back in his blood.

"This is just plain unadulterated four old dogs doing the only three chords they know over and over again," says Hiatt. "This is the real thing."

Critics love the way Hiatt turns a phrase. Pop and country fans love the way familiar artists turn his songs into hits ("Riding with the King," Eric Clapton and B.B. King; "A Thing Called Love," Bonnie Raitt; "Angel Eyes," Jeff Healey; "Drive South," Suzy Bogguss; "The Way We Mend a Broken Heart," Rosanne Cash). Royalty checks from those and other songs give Hiatt the financial freedom to avoid chasing celebrity. In an industry were artists can spend careers repaying record companies for recording advances, Hiatt is happily unsigned.

"I'm now a free agent for three albums," he boasts. "I have the freedom to record what I want, and I play with people who I love playing with. I pay for my own records and lease them to whoever puts up the most marketing money ... for a limited amount of time, and then the rights revert to me."

"Gruff Exterior" is on loan to New West Records, an indie out of Los Angeles and Austin.

"I could write mainstream songs," he says, "call in some hot-shot producer and pay him half a million dollars and spend another million in the studio, and what would I have? Me with some other sound attached."

With The Goners back, Hiatt seems reinvigorated. After two decades of trading the demo process for studio immediacy, he demoed the songs of "Gruff Exterior" to give The Goners, and himself, more time with the songs before walking into the studio. The result is a particularly vibrant batch of songs (including "The Most Unoriginal Sin," first recorded in the early '90s by Willie Nelson) performed live in the studio by four gifted friends. For the first time and for good reason, this album is official by John Hiatt and the Goners.

"With guys who play this well live," says Hiatt, "I didn't want to be the one who messed up on vocals because I knew we'd never get a take that good again. These guys, they know all of my tricks that I use over and over again. For once in my life, I took the Boy Scout motto: Be prepared."