Sure, John Hiatt is smart and contemplative, the very model of the grown-up songwriter, but even pushing 48 and making his debut at the tony Ravinia Festival Wednesday night, he remained an incorrigible rocker in his bones.
A streak of Hoosier feistiness probably helped account for the Indianapolis native turned Nashville tunesmith’s fiery set, but the key ingredient came from Louisiana in the form of slide guitar dervish Sonny Landreth.
A veteran of Hiatt’s band, the Goners, in the late 1980s who departed for much of the ’90s pursuing a solo career, Landreth heightened the southern roots–the sweat, lust and wild heart–in Hiatt’s thoughtful compositions.
The guitarists grinding vamps and searing slide runs replaced the lilting mandolin on a turbo-charged “Cry Love,” and his slashing leads tore through the loping groove of “Memphis in the Meantime” like a threshing machine through cotton.
With Landreth groaning, tearing, crying and sputtering alongside him, Hiatt minimized the clowning that sometimes hampers his shows, devoting his energy to matching his sideman’s fervor.
He sang the soul ballad “Feels Like Rain” for all the song and his wiry baritone were worth, and as bassist Dave Ranson and drummer Ken Blevins made like a Bunsen burner behind him, Hiatt belted out the strutting blues “Riding With the King” with a swagger worthy of Mick Jagger.
“I’m going to play that thing,” he said of his guitar during the song, “until the day I die.”
Even as Hiatt’s performance showed contempt for the idea of mellowing with age, his songs addressed mature concerns.
“Is Anybody There” found Hiatt contemplating God and mortality amid stately gospel piano chords.
The full-throttle rock blast “My Old Friend,” a new song intended for a forthcoming record, told the universal tale of an encounter with a woman he knew back when.
“You got kids, I got kids … I’m no different now, just more to show,” Hiatt sang, his paunch evident underneath his natty suit.
The song’s chorus, though, belied those circumstances, as Hiatt yowled “you make me feel young again.”
It was a sentiment worthy of the entire evening.
In an era when teen pop stars and their concerns dominate contemporary pop music, Hiatt’s performance served as a reminder that the most substantial rock artists gain depth and insight with the years, while keeping their music burning all the while.
Opening act Susan Tedeschi’s CD “Just Won’t Burn” garnered a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist this year (she lost, preposterously, to one of the teens, Christina Aguilera), and her set demonstrated that the blues-rocker is a promising talent. Tedeschi’s singing owes too much to Bonnie Raitt and Janis Joplin, but her Texas-blues guitar solos were models of economy, intelligence and tastefulness.
