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John Hiatt – The Eclipse Sessions (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 41:56 minutes | 490 MB | Genre: Folk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © New West Records

The Eclipse Sessions, John Hiatt’s newest album, offers up his strongest set of songs in years. Long celebrated as a skilled storyteller and keen observer of life’s twists and turns, Hiatt can get at the heart of a knotty emotion or a moment in time with just a sharp, incisive lyric or witty turn of phrase. The 11 tracks presented in The Eclipse Sessions, from the breezy opener ”Cry to Me,” to the stark ”Nothing in My Heart,” the lost-love lamentation ”Aces Up Your Sleeve” to the rollicking ”Poor Imitation of God,” demonstrate that the singer-songwriter, now 66, is only getting better with age, his guitar playing more rugged and rootsy, his words wiser and more wry. Hiatt goes all in with The Eclipse Sessions. There’s a grit to these songs’ a craggy, perfectly-imperfect quality that colors every aspect of the performances, right down to Hiatt’s vocals, which are quite possibly his most raw and expressive to date. ”They ain’t pretty, that’s for sure,” he says about the creaks and cracks that punctuate his phrases in songs like ”Poor Imitation of God” and ”One Stiff Breeze.” ”But I don’t mind a bit. All the catches and the glitches and the gruffness, that sounds right to me. That sounds like who I am.” The Eclipse Sessions is the sound of an artist not only living in but also capturing the moment.
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John Hiatt – Slow Turning (1988/2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 48:32 minutes | 1,99 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © A&M

“Slow Turning” was singer-songwriter John Hiatt’s ninth album, released in 1988. It provided Hiatt’s only significant radio hit with the title track, which features the memorable line “I’m yelling at the kids in the back, ’cause they’re banging like Charlie Watts”. Though not credited on the album cover, Hiatt is backed by The Goners.
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John Hiatt – Leftover Feelings (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 41:29 minutes | 903 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © New West Records

In 1970, the very young aspiring songwriter John Hiatt moved to Nashville with a dream of launching a career there. His heart must have quickened as he walked past the RCA studios building, where all the giants of country music did their recordings. Fifty years on, and Hiatt is quite at home there now. It was in Studio B, a real historical monument of American music, that he recorded Leftover Feelings, which was his 25th album, give or take. The recording sessions were relaxed affairs, just like a jam at home, with a group of Americana-minded friends, led by steel-guitar player Jerry Douglas. There were no drums: just guitars, violin and a double bass marking time. This record is fully acoustic, unlike the long black Cadillac of the opening number, which is electric (the car, that is, not the song). Long Black Electric Cadillac kicks off another journey into the world of Americana, that timeless American sound where every song is like a tree, a stone or a ray of sunlight in a Western national park. So, yes, this is just one more Americana record: but no two are ever the same, because the devil is in the detail and in the personality of the artist. Hiatt’s voice, which resembles that of a southern Dylan; his songs, which are like scrawlings on a roadmap (Mississippi Phone Booth, I’m In Ashville…); and his taste for writing characters: bundled together all proves that he richly deserves his reputation as a grand old songwriter. Two years after the release of a big retrospective box set of his recordings for New West, this latest album shows that John Hiatt isn’t ready for retirement just yet. – Stéphane Deschamps
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