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Sound Advice: John Hiatt to Bring Earthy Blend of Folk-Rock to Cincinnati's Memorial Hall

Indiana has spawned its fair share of first-class music artists, from Hoagy Carmichael to the Jackson Five to John Mellencamp, but its best music export may just be John Hiatt.

Sep 6, 2023 at 5:04 pm

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Photo: Fotopersbureau De Boer, Wikimedia Commons

John Hiatt will perform at Memorial Hall on Sept. 22.

This story is featured in CityBeat's Sept. 6 print edition.

Indiana has spawned its fair share of first-class music artists, from Hoagy Carmichael to the Jackson Five to John Mellencamp, but its best music export may just be John Hiatt. The Indianapolis-born singer-songwriter has been delivering stellar roots rock since the mid-'70s, with countless records to his name. He's considered a songwriter's songwriter, and his material has been covered and championed by Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Nick Lowe and Willie Nelson, for starters; he has also been inducted into the Nashville Songwriter Hall of Fame.

Often compared to Elvis Costello for his prolific output and witty songcraft, Hiatt keeps pumping out his earthy blend of folk-rock with rarely a dip in quality. Leftover Feelings, his latest from 2021, expands his perennial hot streak with a bluegrass-inspired collaboration with Jerry Douglas, Nashville's resident dobro master, and his band.

One of Hiatt's core strengths is his robust, expressive voice, and new songs underscore that like the record's opening, double-shot combo of “Long Black Electric Cadillac” and “Mississippi Phone Booth,” which fuse Hiatt’s love for the South, the past, and roadtrip romps; you can feel the backroads blur by in his dreams of eight-cylinder escape. “I’m in Asheville” traces a wanderer’s regret for leaving his partner behind, and Hiatt’s acoustic fingerpicking plucks the poignance in six-string cadence.

Summing up his career with Glide Magazine in 2021, Hiatt says, "I've gone beyond my wildest dreams. I mean, I've played with people I've wanted to play with, I've had songs recorded by people I'm just flabbergasted they would even record one of my songs. It's all gravy."

John Hiatt plays Memorial Hall at 8 p.m. Sept. 22. Info: memorialhallotr.com.