John Hiatt - Walk On

After finishing the '80s on the top of his game as one of the best singer-songwriters in captivity, John Hiatt has spent much of this decade playing the court jester on adult contemporary stations, a sort of comic-relief sideshow to slip in between the unremitting earnestness of cuts by Natalie Merchant, Melissa Etheridge and unplugged Eric Clapton.

In the process, though, he marginalized himself and trivialized his music. Little Village was a fun gathering that had plenty of good grooves but none of the high-stakes passion that fueled the same players on Hiatt's 1987  resurrection album Bring the Family. Perfectly Good Guitar's most memorable track was the crack-up rocker The Wreck of the Barbie Ferrari. Then Hiatt released an undistinguished live album whose one-joke (okay, two-joke) premise was its title, Hiatt Comes Alive at Budokan. One wondered whether his next L.A. gig would be at the Roxy or the Comedy Store.

The extended gag is up on Walk On, Hiatt's best - and most serious - record in years. From the pensive shots on the album cover to the sharp, focused playing on the record, Hiatt seems to have rededicated himself to the sort of serious themes that were left unresolved after the uneven reception of 1990's Stolen Moments album.

Which isn't to say that he can't still fire off a zinger whenever he wants. "Some men will drive to the edges of nothing/ So they can take a peek at the great abyss," he sings on the jaunty love ode Ethylene. "Some men avoid love like it was the plague or something/ So they can leave the seat down when they piss."

The new record finds Hiatt pulling back from the over-mannered vocal stylings of his earlier work. His tight band, anchored by the crisp drumming of Michael Urbano, remains at the service of the songs throughout, a nice departure from previous efforts, where all-star musicians have wandered self-indulgently over Hiatt's compositions.  

This time around, the guests spots work smartly. Heartbreaker Benmont Tench's pump organ adds an ethereal air to "The River Knows Your Name;" Bonnie Raitt does a guest duet on the sweet love letter "I Can't Wait," which finds Hiatt crooning in a fragile falsetto.

At its finest moments - on the searing break-up opener "Cry Love" and the chugging lament "Native Son" - Walk On approaches the quality of Hiatt's very best work. But some of the more formulaic "story songs" - a rich girl gone bad on Good As She Could Be, a tale of sinister desire called Write It Down and Burn It - don't complement the core material, either musically or lyrically. And Hiatt literally doesn't know where to end things. After the elegiac finale Friend of Mine, don't touch that CD player - there's one more cut, a smoky ballad that comes a good 20 seconds later. As hidden tracks go, it's no "Train in Vain," but it still sounds like a better way to end the album. Why the big mystery?

A bigger problem is the album's too-frequent tone of tortured self-condemnation. Like Steve Forbert's recent album, Mission of the Crossroad Palms, Hiatt's latest collection sounds like the work of a man whose touring schedule has wrecked his home life. It's is a real problem, but not a particularly resonant one. And after the keen insight Hiatt provided on Bring the Family and Slow Turning, too much of Walk On sounds like rationalization rather than revelation. 

On the other hand, the record has more hooks than punchlines, so Hiatt might be getting back on track.