Poets and Prophets: Salute to Songwriter John Hiatt

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Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

John Hiatt

Throughout his fifty-year career, John Hiatt has established himself as one of the finest singer-songwriters of his generation, as well as a composer of both country and rock hits. Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, and Bruce Springsteen are among the artists who have covered his acerbic, soul-stirring songs. Hiatt began his professional songwriting career at age eighteen, when he moved to Nashville to work at Tree Publishing. Over the next two decades, his songs became hits for Rosanne Cash (“The Way We Make a Broken Heart”), the Desert Rose Band (“She Don’t Love Nobody”), and Three Dog Night (“”Sure as I’m Sittin’ Here”). Hiatt found success as a recording artist with his landmark 1987 album, Bring the Family, which featured “Have a Little Faith in Me” and “Memphis in the Meantime,” among other enduring classics. In its wake, he went from earning cuts to being reverently covered by some of music’s biggest names, including Bonnie Raitt (“Thing Called Love”) and B. B. King and Eric Clapton (“Riding with the King”). Following a stint in Los Angeles, Hiatt returned to Nashville in the 1990s and has continued to write, perform, and record. He has released two dozen albums, most recently 2021’s Leftover Feelings, a highly regarded collaboration with the Jerry Douglas Band, recorded at Historic RCA Studio B. In 2008, Hiatt was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and received a lifetime achievement award for songwriting from the Americana Music Association. In 2019, he became the third recipient of the BMI Troubadour Award, which recognized his work as a songwriter. The Museum’s Dave Paulson will host this program. Ford Theater. Included with Museum admission. Program ticket required. Free to Museum members.