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Beneath This Gruff Exterior

John Hiatt & the Goners - Beneath This Gruff Exterior Audio CD

A fair review of the John Hiatt & the Goners "Beneath This Gruff Exterior" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all John Hiatt & the Goners reviews here, or go back to the John Hiatt & the Goners tabs.

Band: John Hiatt & the Goners
Title: Beneath This Gruff Exterior
Rating:

Release Date: 2003-05-06
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Uncommon Connection 2: How Bad's The Coffee 3: Nagging Dark 4: My Baby Blue 5: My Dog And Me 6: Almost Fed Up With The Blues 7: Circle Back 8: Window On The World 9: Missing Pieces 10: Fly Back Home 11: The Last Time 12: The Most Unoriginal Sin

Sheer Genius (As Usual)
I own and I'm familiar with maybe a ten of them; he's been around for years now, has tons of records out there. I'm a big Hiatt fan, ever since I first saw him years ago on Austin City Limits, but I don't yet have all his albums.

I am convinced he is incapable of doing a bad recording. Some musicians focus on lyrics, some on melody, some on technical expertise, some on singing, some on making lots of money (or at least enough money to not have to work 9 to 5!); it's tough for one person to attain decent results in all of those categories. I would say Hiatt has reached excellence in most of those.

He's one of our greatest songwriters, a lyricist of phenomenal ability, capable of making you laugh and making you cry. Other performers are always recording his stuff, which is a pretty good gauge of a songwriter's ability.

He's always got a great group of musicians playing on his records, another indicator. If you have any doubt, look at the Amazon reviews; most of them go on and on about how great his recordings are; seems like most of the reviews are at about the four-star+ level.

Some reviews for Gruff Exterior were lukewarm, which I totally do not get. This is a real solid Hiatt album; you cannot go wrong with it. Hiatt always sounds like he's just having so much fun, and he never seems to take himself very seriously. I laughed my a** off at the first song, "Uncommon Connection"; "Me and My Dog" brought tears to my eyes; I can't get enough of the hard blues of "The Last Time" and "Almost Fed Up With the Blues". You're guaranteed to run the gamut of emotions in the other tunes. Hiatt is a poet, and his words will touch your heart.

One big plus here is the presence of the masterful slide guitarist Sonny Landreth. Sonny's playing is a perfect compliment to JH: Sonny, like JH, is incredibly versatile. In one "slow" song he's coaxing out the sweetest and most delicately beautiful notes you've ever heard, but in the next he's making the guitar scream for mercy with smoking hot blues. And he is always perfectly tasteful in his support of Hiatt's vocals; Sonny's playing is always "spot on", a perfect accompaniment. Truly a guitar genius of the highest order.

I love JH's singing: so full of emotion, so raw, like the album, gruff, a perfect amalgamation of southern down-home country and urban grit. This guy is one of a kind. He is a national treasure.

Do yourself a big favor and pick this one up. .

John Hiatt rocks out

Following 2001's "The Tiki Bar is Open", which was dominated by swinging folk-rock shuffles, he put out the harder-edged "Beneath This Gruff Exterior" in 2003, a tough rock n' roll album which again sees Hiatt backed by The Goners, including slide guitarist Sonny Landreth. You can usually trust John Hiatt not to make the same album twice in succession.

The guitars are tuned up on "Exterior" - just listen to the down and dirty blues grind of "Almost Fed Up With The Blues" - and John Hiatt pushes his growling, throaty voice to the limit. There are couple of less memorable songs here, sure, but the vast majority of these 12 tracks are no less than excellent, partly due to the wonderful band.
Highlights include "My Window On The World", the aforementioned "Almost Fed Up With The Blues", the melodic, mid-tempo swagger of "My Baby Blue", and the stomping up-tempo rocker "The Nagging Dark". And a few more, actually; this album has really grown on me.

"Exterior" starts off rough and tough, but the second half of the album is slightly mellower, with more mid-tempo songs and even a ballad, the lovely "The Most Unorginal Sin". Hiatt's lyrics may be a bit more on the "let's just have fun"-side of things than on albums like "Bring the Family" of "Slow Turning", but if you know him you'll know that he never dumbs down too much.
The band is tight, and Sonny Landreth's characteristic gritty fills and liquid slide leads are everywhere; check out "Fly Back Home", "Circle Back" or "How Bad's The Coffee".
"Beneath This Gruff Exterior" is a really good album, filled with mostly great songs conceived by a great singer-songwriter and played by a top-notch band. 4 1/2 stars.

True Confession
I've been a JH fan for twenty years, so I was excited as always when this new release came out. Here's my true confession: I'm a litterbug. Unfortunately, I was listening in the car. Threw it out the window.

GRUFF!
All of my friends who have heard this really feel the same way as I do. Great album ! Some of the best guitar licks I've heard in a long time , combined with some of Hiatt's best vocal performances (he really does have that gruff voice that sticks to your ribs!) make this one of the best recordings I have in my music collection . . . also has my new theme song , "Window on the World" . This recording sounds like a very tight live jam session.

Killer!
Perhaps unfairly, I picture them stubbornly dressed in the frumpiest of late `60's hippie gear, subsisting on a diet of macrobiotic rice (punctuated by guilt-laden red meat binges which account for their not having died of malnutrition long ago) and home-schooling their homely child (or children -- but never more than two, save for the occasional birth-control slip-up). Some folks (or should I say folkies?) seem to be dyed-in-the-wool singer/songwriter aficionados who prefer their intense, socially relevant lyrics served up on a bed of flavorless musical pabulum -- all the better, I suppose, to forestall distraction from the deep nuance of the libretto. These people never have forgiven Dylan for going electric.

If you are such a person, then skip to the one-star reviews and steer clear of this particular John Hiatt offering. He has done other work which is probably more to your liking (albeit that none of it actually embodies the Platonic ideal of bland musicality hinted at above).

If, on the other hand, you prefer your intense, edgy lyrics balanced by equally intense, bluesy, kick-butt rock & roll, then take this album home and cozy up for some really first-rate listening. Without meaning to disparage John's lyrics, I have to say that Sonny Landreth's nasty slide guitar was the element which catapulted me out of my chair to crank up the volume (could that be David Lindley???) and rummage around for liner notes to learn more about what I was listening to. And if the bass and drums are kind of loud, then more power to them. Neither was so heavy as to obscure any of the wry lyrics or virtuoso guitar, and the overall offering is a rich gumbo, each of whose ingredients retains its distinctive flavor, yet contributes to a whole much greater than the sum of its parts.

As for the alleged synthesizer??? Excuse me, but whoever thinks he hears synthesizer on this album needs his ears cleaned or needs professional help to deal with his hallucinations.

You can see a complete list of all John Hiatt & the Goners discography, or go back to the John Hiatt & the Goners tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.