{"id":46263,"date":"2021-11-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-30T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/the-eclipse-sessions\/"},"modified":"2021-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"the-eclipse-sessions","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/the-eclipse-sessions\/","title":{"rendered":"The Eclipse Sessions"},"content":{"rendered":"

My very first review<\/a> for The Daily Vault 24 years ago was of a typically solid-if-not-spectacular album from John Hiatt. Twenty-four years later, what could be more fitting than to choose for review number 1,001 than a recent and similarly pleasing outing from the irascible, powerfully gifted Hiatt. Welcome to The Eclipse Sessions<\/i>, so named because the first of two recording sessions for the album coincided with a lunar eclipse in August 2017.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a certain character who shows up time after time in Hiatt\u2019s massive catalog of songs, a sort of magnified version of himself, a well-intentioned, sentimental but fundamentally rascally ne\u2019er-do-well. The kind of guy who sleeps on your couch, eats your food, borrows your car, and pulls into your driveway again a week later with a big smile like there couldn\u2019t possibly be a problem, \u2019cause he\u2019s basically a nice guy, and now he\u2019s got a plan\u2026<\/p>\n

Anyway. The point is that Hiatt is both playful and wise, self-deprecating and cocky as hell, an Americana poet whose songs are so evocative and insightful that half the time you don\u2019t even notice he has ten miles of gravel road for a voice. Still, while said voice shows off more creaks and crackles than ever, Hiatt is also a better singer than ever today. Much like Springsteen or Petty, he has long since mastered his own limitations as a vocalist and figured out how to get the most of the instrument he has.<\/p>\n

More importantly, his songwriting\u2014always the core of his art and appeal\u2014remains consistently superb. The chorus of gently tuneful opener \u201cCry To Me\u201d is peak Hiatt: \u201cCome on and cry to me, baby \/ You can even lie to me, baby \/ I\u2019m probably gonna let you down, but \/ I swear I won\u2019t keep you down.\u201d That\u2019s some real talk there, all set to a swinging roadhouse arrangement.<\/p>\n

Another characteristic of Hiatt\u2019s is a certain restlessness; his catalog is rich with road songs and he\u2019s rarely employed the same supporting players more than a couple of albums in a row, though certain names continue to crop up. One of those is Kenneth Blevins, the drummer here and on several notable Hiatt albums. Another is ace session bassist Patrick O\u2019Hearn. For Eclipse<\/i>, this stellar rhythm section is matched up with brothers Kevin McKendree (producer \/ keyboards) and Yates McKendree (engineer \/ guitar), who each do double duty on the production side while completing a lineup that\u2019s a perfect match for Hiatt\u2019s earthy yet precisely crafted songs, playing loose and easy but always right on the money.<\/p>\n

From that promising start you get a nice mix of ballads, mid-tempo story-songs, and the occasional rocker. \u201cAll The Way To The River\u201d is a steady-on rumination that builds in urgency verse by verse as the protagonist goes over and over things in her mind, unable to find peace anywhere but the river. \u201cAces Up Your Sleeve\u201d then offers a gritty but tender acoustic ballad about longing and trickery in a relationship.<\/p>\n

Another moment of peak Hiatt arrives as he opens boogie-infused track four by repeating the one-line chorus \u201cI\u2019m A Poor Imitation Of God\u201d four times. Here is the man in a nutshell\u2014witty, melancholy, self-deprecating and self-aware, both sharply observant and thoroughly down to earth. The much darker \u201cNothing In My Heart\u201d presents a somber ballad about hiding your love away deep down inside. <\/p>\n

The light shines again with the Muscle Shoals-inspired \u201cOver The Hill,\u201d where Hiatt first declares that \u201cI don\u2019t know any better \/ Than to dream\u201d before putting his big-hearted brio on full display: \u201cI\u2019m long in the tooth \/ What can I say \/ I take huge bites of life \/ And I eat the bones.\u201d Kevin McKendree\u2019s gloriously greasy Hammond organ and Yates\u2019 pinpoint Delta licks give this one a strong r&b\/gospel undercurrent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t shake the feelings inside of me \/ I can\u2019t fake the man I\u2019m supposed to be\u201d sings Hiatt on the bouncy yet philosophical \u201cOutrunning My Soul.\u201d It\u2019s a tune that tests the limitations of his voice, but he\u2019s game for it, and that attitude carries the day; it\u2019s all part of the show. \u201cHide Your Tears\u201d is an impassioned acoustic-and-piano ballad that manifests both intensity and a friendly hominess thanks to the lived-in qualities of Hiatt\u2019s voice. <\/p>\n

Rascally John returns with the acoustic slide blues \u201cThe Odds Of Loving You,\u201d which finds him singing with a big old wink in his voice: \u201cOh you school me and you cool me \/ Baby don\u2019t you ever stop.\u201d It\u2019s a tune that would make <\/i>John Lee Hooker smile. Penultimate track \u201cOne Stiff Breeze\u201d is a fascinating concoction, a rather Abbey Road<\/i>-ish rocker with mystical undertones whose best feature might be the instantly memorable descriptor \u201cflashlight eyes.\u201d Finally, we close things out with the melancholy \u201cRobber\u2019s Highway,\u201d as Hiatt gives a character of a certain age a moment to look back on his life and take stock before the inevitable: \u201cOnly one way this thing ends.\u201d Hiatt also reveals exactly what it would take for him to lose hope: \u201cI had words, chords, and strings \/ Now I don\u2019t have any of these things.\u201d <\/p>\n

The good news is, the real Hiatt still has all of those things, and all the skills that make him such a memorable artist: a unique voice, a rangy musical approach, and tremendous songwriting craft. The Eclipse Sessions<\/i> might not break any new ground, but it shows John Hiatt remains a creative force to be reckoned with, a first-rate songwriter with the creative instincts of a character actor and the ability to take you on a guided tour through heartache, fury, laughter and lust in the space of 43 minutes. The world needs more John Hiatt, and so do I.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":34424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5850],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-46263","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-john-hiatt","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51912,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46263\/revisions\/51912"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46263"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46263"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}