John Hiatt Artistfacts

August 20, 1952
Hiatt started out as a staff songwriter at a publishing company in Nashville. In 1974, Three Dog Night had a minor hit with his song "Sure As I'm Sittin' Here." That same year, he released his debut album, Hangin' Around the Observatory.
Hiatt is well respected among songwriters and musicians, with many high-profile musicians recording his songs. Bob Dylan covered Hiatt's song "The Usual" for the soundtrack of the 1987 movie Hearts Of Fire; Bonnie Raitt covered his "Thing Called Love" on her 1989 comeback album Nick Of Time. Other luminaries to record his songs include Willie Nelson ("(The) Most Unoriginal Sin"), The Everly Brothers ("Any Single Solitary Heart") and The Neville Brothers ("Washable Ink"). Rosanne Cash had a #1 Country hit in 1987 with a song Hiatt wrote called "The Way We Make A Broken Heart."
He got an early start, playing guitar in his first band when he was just 12 with kids that were all a few years older. He was so dedicated to music that he dropped out of school when we was 16 to pursue it, making his way to Nashville when he was 18.
Hiatt was overweight when he was younger - about 260 pounds when he was 12. He lost the weight when he started drinking, but that led to a host of other problems. After years as a functional alcoholic, it caught up to him in the '80s, affecting his music and his health. He finally went to rehab and got sober in 1985.
He's earned 10 Grammy nominations but hasn't won any. Early on, his nominations were in rock categories ("Cry Love" and "Have A Little Faith In Me" got nods for Best Rock Song), but his later nominations were in folk and Americana.
The backing band for his 1987 album Bring The Family was Ry Cooder (guitar), Nick Lowe (bass) and Jim Keltner (drums). In 1991, they formed their own group called Little Village and released a self-titled album in 1992 followed by a tour. The project had a lot of potential but underwhelmed. According to Hiatt, they had a lot of great ideas they worked up, but it became a slog and lost its luster. "We started out with something really great and thought it to death," he told Mojo. "It got lost in overdub hell."

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