Here to stay

CD 1. Crossing muddy waters 4:05   2. Lift up every stone 3:14   3. My old friend 3:49   4. Everybody went low back 3:21   5. My baby blue 4:33   6. Circel back 4:29   7. Love's not where we thought we left it 5:17   8. Master of disaster 5:24   9. Love you again 4:14   10. What love can do 4:15   11. The open road 4:35   12. What kind of man 3:51   13. Damn this town 4:55   .14. Adios to California 3:48   15. We're alright now 4:22   16. Blues can't even find me 3:35   17. Here to stay 5:40   Total running time: 73:27

Note   Compilation producers: Gary Briggs, Peter Jesperson, Mike Ruthig Compilation assembled: John Golden at Golden Mastering, Ventura, CA Art direction and design: Paul Moore Photography: David McClister, Jack Spencer, Taylor Crothers Management: Vector Management   Sonny Landreth appearts courtesy of Sugar Hill Records

Press sheet

JOHN HIATT’S HERE TO STAY – BEST OF 2000-2012, OUT NOVEMBER 11 ON NEW WEST RECORDS.

ALBUM HIGHLIGHTS THE BEST SONGS FROM HIS INDEPENDENT RECORD YEARS, INCLUDES PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED TITLE TRACK FEATURING JOE BONAMASSA

ON TOUR NOW WITH LYLE LOVETT

LOS ANGELES, CA, October 28, 2013 – John Hiatt, who has been hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “one of rock’s most astute singer-songwriters of the last 40 years,” will release a Best Of compilation entitled Here To Stay – Best of 2000-2012 on November 11 on New West Records. The 17-track collection is comprised of key singles and live show favorites such as “Crossing Muddy Waters,” “Master Of Disaster,” “What Love Can Do,” “We’re Alright Now” and the previously unreleased title track, “Here To Stay,” featuring Smokin’ Joe Bonamassa on guitar. Hiatt, who has been on tour since June in support of the critically acclaimed album, Mystic Pinball, reunited with longtime friend Lyle Lovett last week for the aptly titled tour “An Acoustic Evening with Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt.” The run, which began October 22 in Vermont, will take the pair across the East Coast, Midwest and Southwest before wrapping up on the West Coast.
The dawning of the new millennium coincided with a new chapter in the career of Hiatt, one of America's most respected and influential singer-songwriters. After a quarter century of releasing records on five different major labels, the Indiana-bred musician kicked off a now-13-year run as an independent artist, recording eight albums (an initial pair of albums with Vanguard before moving to New West, his label home for more than a decade). This collection captures two songs from each of those eight albums, ranging from the pastoral “Crossing Muddy Waters” from the self-produced Grammy nominated album of the same name to the flat-out basher “Everybody Went Low” recorded with his then backing band The Goners.
Hiatt’s venerable and prolific New West years are duly represented here with tracks from each of his six releases, Beneath This Gruff Exterior, Master of Disaster, Same Old Man, The Open Road, Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns and last year’s Mystic Pinball. Among the many highlights are “Master of Disaster,” produced by iconic Southern producer Jim Dickinson and featuring his sons Luther and Cody Dickinson’s band the North Mississippi All Stars, the lilting, redemptive “What Love Can Do” with daughter Lilly Hiatt providing beautiful harmonies and the front porch twang of “Blues Can’t Even Find Me,” from Mystic Pinball, produced by Kevin Shirley (Journey, Aerosmith, Black Crowes).
Here to Stay concludes with the title song, a smoldering roadhouse blues number featuring slide guitar virtuoso Joe Bonamassa, originally recorded for Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns. Why Hiatt chose to leave it off that record is unknown but it turned out to be a prescient move. The song and performance serve as a thematically and musically perfect coda to this captivating collection — a batch of songs and recordings as artful, affecting and poignant as any in the nearly four-decade career of this distinguished American roots musician.
Hiatt has long been a favorite songwriter amongst musicians and many of his songs have been covered or recorded by artists as diverse as Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt (“Thing Called Love”), Buddy Guy, Emmylou Harris, Ronnie Milsap, Iggy Pop, the Neville Brothers, Rosanne Cash (the #1 country hit, “The Way We Make A Broken Heart”), the Jeff Healey Band (“Angel Eyes”), Willie Nelson, Steve Earle, Linda Ronstadt, and even the cartoon bear band of Disney’s 2002 film, “The Country Bears.” He earned a Grammy nomination for his album Crossing Muddy Waters, and shared a Grammy with B.B. King and Eric Clapton for their album Riding With The King, the title track from which was a Hiatt composition. Hiatt was honored with his own star on Nashville’s Walk of Fame and his legacy was even further cemented with the Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting and his induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

allmusic.com

Not many artists move into one of their most fruitful periods at the age of 48, and though John Hiatt has never been a dawdler when it comes to writing songs and making records, after leaving the major-label game with 2000's Crossing Muddy Waters, he became impressively prolific even by his own standards, cranking out eight studio albums of fresh material from 2000 to 2012. Here to Stay: Best of 2000-2012 finds New West Records following the example of nearly every other label Hiatt has worked with in putting together a collection of his highlights from their back catalog (Crossing Muddy Waters and The Tiki Bar Is Open were originally released by Vanguard, but have since been reissued by New West, who put out six subsequent Hiatt discs). If this set doesn't sound like the greatest work of Hiatt's career, Here to Stay confirms what people who have been following his work in the 21st century already knew -- John Hiatt is a consistently strong and compelling songwriter who knows how to bring his music to life in the studio, and he's been cutting a string of tough, thoughtful, satisfying records at a time when most veteran acts are running out of ideas and content to rest on their laurels. Hiatt is a working musician in the best sense of the word, a guy whose embrace of his craft and relationship with his muse is enviable as his recording career edges up on 40 years, and while Here to Stay doesn't sound like the work of a young man, these 17 songs make an advantage of Hiatt's age, experience, and vocal grit, delivering some wicked blues-shot rock that tells a lot of tales worth hearing from a life lived with a certain amount of reckless abandon. Here to Stay includes one new tune, featuring Joe Bonamassa on guitar, which should encourage Hiatt's regular customers to buy 16 tracks they probably already own, but if you lost track of John Hiatt in the '90s and you wonder what he's been up to lately, Here to Stay gives you the answer -- he's been writing songs, making albums, and quietly proving he's still one of the best things American roots rock has to offer, delivering the good like a pro and a prodigy.