1990), he can "go on 'Hee Haw' and two weeks iar to me except for Little Feat's Billy Payne and later get asong cut by Iggy Pop. Or share the Ritchie Heyward on afew cuts. stage with the Neville Brothers and then sit next There's lots, lots more here that I'll leave for to Roy Acuff at the Country Music Assn. Awards." you to discover, but one thing Ican't let slip by I'm not sure I've ever heard such engaging is Hiatt's singing: phrasing often like Randy songs about an imprisoning childhood or the Newman's, nailed fast to ahuge, deep voice, recovery from an alcoholic adulthood. You utterly relaxed and never straining. The guy don't have to know what these songs are about talks to you. Once you cut through the profes- to thoroughly enjoy them, but paying close sionalism, artistry, and chops, this is what sing- attention to their lyrics will give you an hour ing is supposed to be all about anyway. Like the with a man who, unlike Steve Earle—who music of The Band, Elvis's Sun sessions, the seems obsessed with his own drama, gripping comic art of R. Crumb, and the sacred comic as it is, almost to the point of monomania— texts of the Firesign Theatre, John Hiatt's songs sounds like he could just as easily hear outyour and singing make me feel prouder to be an problems as confess his own. American than any scrap of cloth dyed red, But most of all, and like Bring the Family, white, and blue. —Richard Lchnert Stolen Moments is Hiatt's testimony to his own dumbstruck wonder at the miracle of life its THE NOTTING HILLBILLIES: Missing. .. Presumed simple self—of his wife's love for him, of his Having a Good Time own love for his children, of the fact that he's Warner Bros 26147-1 (LP), -2 (CD). Bill Schnee, eng.; even still alive—the album boils over with the , Guy Fletcher, prods. DDA/DDD. TT: 4043 sheer gratitude of someone who was sure he'd never make it. Like Family, Moments is about Following in the tracks of Paul Simon's Grace- monogamy, responsibility, life-long commit- land and David Byrne's salsa-flavored Rei ment; it's atestament to Hiatt's insight, matu- Momo, leader Mark Knopfler has rity, vulnerability, and seasoned good humor returned from amusical detour south of the that he nukes what most consider onuses sound Mason-Dixon line with an album of pre- like fun. This sensibility pervades the entire Nashville country standards. Like his cross- album, but most of it's dealt with in the title cut cultural predecessors, Knopfler stands to take as well: "Don't you know we're living in sto- some flak from purists in Opryland, but if alit- len moments /You steal enough it feels like tle foreign exchange can keep just one White- we're stopping time." There are songs about snake single off the airwaves, I'm all for it. Hiatt's Indiana childhood, and his father. There's Given the band's bornage to Jed Clampett his own passionate fatherhood in "The Rest of and kin (Notting Hill is asection of London), the Dream," shame and remorse in "Thirty and the album's tongue-in-cheek title, Ihalf- Years of Tears": "Fair women have thrown me expected asloppy, Jack Daniels-lubricated their lifelines /And Ijust pulled them in to the rave-up. What Knopfler, Dire Straits bandmate water's dark grin." "Bring Back Your Love to Guy Fletcher, and British buddies Brendan Me" is particularly naked: "I don't want no Coker and Steve Phillips give us instead is a other lover /I got too much here at stake.. . polished, even reverent, collection of little- Every night Isit and watch for you, baby /I known country-folk gems. The singing, with pray to God you haven't found somebody Phillips and Croker handling most of the leads, else" — to agreat Stax soul groove. There's a is as smooth as these four slightly gravely voices song about afellow rock'n'roll survivor ("Rock will allow, and the instrumental performances Back Billy"), an uncondescending one about have an archival feel, as though these cuts were Native Americans, and one about wisdom— being preserved for Musicology 101. now there's aword that seldom pops up in rock While this restrained album asks you to look reviews—in the remarkable mixture of Zen and elsewhere for aheapin' helpin' of hospitalitee, Christian imagery that is 'Through Your Hands": it offers something equally valuable. The Hill- "Don't ask what you are not doing /Because billies' "cool" (in the McLuhan sense) approach your voice cannot command /In time we will is the musical equivalent of seeing your toaster move mountains /And it will come through in the design collection at the Museum of Mod- your hands." ern Art. You are forced to lean in and really lis- The AAA LP is, yes, superior to the CD in ten to simple songs that could be too easily dis- warmth and depth; Glyn Johns's production missed as simplistic Forty-year-old ballads like is less bottom-heavy than for Slow 714rning, a "Weapon of Prayer" by the Louvin Brothers bit more metallic and wiry, less chunk-a-funk, and the Delmore Brothers' "Blues Stay Away but seems appropriate for this more introspec- from Me" are straightforward and declarative tive material. The Goners, Hiatt's Slow B4rn- in away that seems to have gone out of fash- ing band, are replaced here by names unfamil- ion with the Truman administration. And need-

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