As well, it nearly took him that long to find his own style. Hiatt began his solo career in 1974, and over the next decade he ran through a number of different styles from rock & roll to new wave-esque pop before he finally settled on a rootsy fusion of rock, country, blues, and folk with his 1987 album 'Bring the Family'. Though the album didn't set the charts on fire, it became his first album to gain some major commercial success, and several of the songs on the record became hits for other artists, including the aforementioned Raitt and Milsap. Following its success, Hiatt became a reliable hit songwriter for other artists, and he developed a strong cult following that continued to gain strength into the mid-90s.
While he was growing up in his hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana, Hiatt played in a number of garage bands. Initially, he was inspired by the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, and the music of those two artists would echo strongly throughout his work. Out of all the bar bands he played with in the late 60s, a group called The White Ducks was the one that received the most attention. Following his high-school graduation, he moved to Nashville, Tennessee at the age of 18, where he landed a job as a songwriter for Tree Publishing.
For the next several years, he wrote and performed at local clubs and hotels. Within a few years, his songs were being recorded by several different artists, including Conway Twitty, Tracy Nelson, and Three Dog Night, who took Hiatt's "Sure as I'm Sittin' Here" to number 16 in the summer of 1974. Eventually, his manager secured him an audition at Epic Records, and the label signed him in 1974, releasing his debut album, Hangin' Around the Observatory, later that year. Despite their critical acclaim, neither Hangin' Around the Observatory nor its 1975 follow-up Overcoats sold many copies, and he was dropped by the label. By the end of the year, Tree Publishing had let him go as well.
Following his failure in Nashville, Hiatt moved out to California. By the summer of 1978 he had settled in Los Angeles, where began playing in clubs, opening for folk musicians including Leo Kottke. With Kottke's assistance, Hiatt hired a new manager, Denny Bruce, who helped him secure a record contract with MCA Records. Slug Line, his first record for MCA, was released in the summer of 1979. Where his first two records were straight-ahead rock & roll and folk-rock, Slug Line was in the new wave vein of angry English singer/songwriters like Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, and Joe Jackson, as if Hiatt was vying for the role of the American angry young man. The new approach earned some strong reviews, yet it failed to generate any sales. Two Bit Monsters, his second MCA album, faced the same situation. Although it was well-received critically upon its 1980 release, it made no impression on the charts, and the label dropped him.
Apart from working on Two Bit Monsters, Hiatt spent most of 1980 as a member of Ry Cooder's backing band, playing rhythm guitar on the Borderline album and touring with the guitarist. Hiatt stayed with Cooder throughout 1981, signing a new contract with Geffen Records by the end of the year. Produced by Tony Visconti (David Bowie, T. Rex), his Geffen debut All of A Sudden was released in 1982, followed by the Nick Lowe/Scott Matthews & Ron Nagel-produced Riding With the King in 1983. As with his previous records for Epic and MCA, neither of his first two Geffen releases sold well. By this time, Hiatt's personal life was beginning to spin out of control as he was sinking deep into alcoholism. Around the time he completed 1985's Warming Up to the Ice Age, his second wife committed suicide. Following the release of Warming Up to the Ice Age, Hiatt was dropped by Geffen. By the end of 1985, he had entered a rehabilitation program. During 1986, he remarried and signed a new deal with A&M Records.
For his A&M debut, Hiatt assembled a small band comprising his former associates Ry Cooder (guitar), Nick Lowe (bass), and Jim Keltner (drums). Recorded over the course of a handful of days, the resulting album, Bring the Family, had a direct, stripped-down rootsy sound that differed greatly from his earlier albums. Upon its summer 1987 release, Bring the Family received the best reviews of his career and, for once, the reviews began to pay off, as the album turned into a cult hit, peaking at 107 on the U.S. charts; it was his first charting album. Hiatt attempted to record a follow-up with Cooder, Lowe, and Keltner, but the musicians failed to agree on the financial terms for the sessions. Undaunted, he recorded an album with John Doe, David Lindley, and Dave Mattacks, but he scrapped the completed project, deciding that the result was too forced. Hiatt's final attempt at recording the follow-up to Bring the Family was orchestrated by veteran producer Glyn Johns, who had him record with his touring band, the Goners. Despite all of the behind-the-scenes troubles behind its recording, the follow-up album, Slow Turning, actually appeared rather quickly, appearing in the summer of 1988.
Slow Turning, like Bring the Family before it, received nearly unanimous positive reviews and it was fairly well-received commercially, spending 31 weeks on the U.S. charts and peaking at 98. Within the next year, Hiatt successfully toured throughout America and Europe, strengthening his fan base along the way. Inspired by the success of Hiatt's two A&M albums, Geffen released the compilation Y' All Caught? The Ones That Got Away 1979-85 in 1989. That same year, other artists began digging through Hiatt's catalog of songs, most notably Bonnie Raitt, who covered "Thing Called Love" for her multi-platinum comeback album, Nick of Time.
In 1990, Hiatt returned with Stolen Moments, which was nearly as successful as Slow Turning, both critically and commercially. "Bring Back Your Love to Me," an album track from Stolen Moments that was also recorded by Earl Thomas Conley, won BMI's 1991 Country Music Award. By the time "Bring Back Your Love to Me" won that award, it had become a standard practice for artists to cover Hiatt's songs, as artists as diverse as Bob Dylan, Ronnie Milsap, Suzy Bogguss, and Iggy Pop all covered his songs in the early '90s. In 1993, Rhino Records released Love Gets Strange: The Songs of John Hiatt, which collected many of the cover versions that were recorded during the '80s and '90s.
During 1991, the group that recorded Bring the Family — Hiatt, Cooder, Lowe, and Keltner — re-formed as a band called Little Village, releasing their eponymous debut in early 1992. Based on the success of Bring the Family and Hiatt's A&M albums, expectations for Little Village were quite high, yet the record and its supporting tour were considered a major disappointment. Later, the individual members would agree that the band was a failure, mainly due to conflicting egos.
Hiatt decided to back away from the superstar nature of Little Village for his next album, 1993's Perfectly Good Guitar. Recorded in just two weeks with a backing band comprised of members of alternative rock bands School of Fish and Wire Train, the album was looser than any record since Bring the Family, but it didn't quite have the staying power of its two predecessors, spending only 11 weeks on the charts and peaking at number 47. The following year, he released his first live album, Hiatt Comes Alive at Budokan? Hiatt left A&M Records after the release of the record, signing with Capitol Records the following year.
Walk On, Hiatt's first Capitol album, was recorded during his supporting tour for Perfectly Good Guitar and featured guest appearances by the Jayhawks and Bonnie Raitt. Walk On entered the charts at 48, but slipped off the charts in nine weeks, indicating that his audience had settled into a dedicated cult following. Fittingly, after 1997's Little Head quickly came and went in the marketplace, Hiatt parted ways with Capitol, and his next album, 2000's Crossing Muddy Waters was released on the established independent imprint Vanguard Records. After a second album with Vanguard, The Tiki Bar Is Open, Hiatt alligned himself with another independent label, New West, for the release of his 2003 set Beneath This Gruff Exterior. Master of Disaster, along with CD and DVD versions of Live from Austin, TX followed in 2005.
Same Old Man followed in 2008; then The Open Road in 2010.
Mississippi Phone Booth
John Hiatt Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
In the middle of the night
Bugs flying everywhere
Crazy in the gas station light
Heart pounding through my t-shirt
Pumping change in a call to you
Mississippi phone booth
Flat black 84 Camaro
Run it up from New Orleans
Everything south of I-10
I just blew it all to smithereens
Now, I'm somewhere close to Jackson
I need Memphis on the line
Mississippi phone booth
Tell Jesus I'm outta dimes
Quart of vodka, eight-ball cocaine
Not enough to change my mind
Mississippi phone booth
Please don't hang up on me this time
Mississippi phone booth
Please don't hang up on me this time
Calling from a Mississippi phone booth
Please don't hang up on me this time
Mississippi phone booth
The lyrics to John Hiatt/Jerry Douglas Band's song Mississippi Phone Booth paints a vivid picture of a troubled person making a call from a phone booth in the middle of Mississippi at night. The bugs are flying everywhere and the gas station light is casting a crazy glow on everything. The person's heart is pounding as they pump change into the phone, desperately trying to get through to someone, and begging the operator to connect them. The person has just blown everything they had south of I-10, and now they're trying to call someone from the Mississippi phone booth. They're somewhere close to Jackson and need Memphis on the line, but they're out of dimes. They've even resorted to using drugs to numb the pain, but it's not working.
The person uses symbols to talk about their life. The flat black 84 Camaro represents their life on the road. They have driven it up from New Orleans, and now they find themselves at a dead end. They have nothing left to give and nothing left to live for. The quart of vodka and eight-ball cocaine might seem like a lot, but it's still not enough to change their mind. They need someone to talk to, someone to give them hope, someone to help them through this difficult time.
Overall, the song expresses a deep sense of displacement, isolation, and desperation. The Mississippi phone booth is a symbol of hopelessness and despair, as well as a connection to the outside world.
Line by Line Meaning
Mississippi phone booth
The singer is in a phone booth in Mississippi.
In the middle of the night
The events are occurring during the nighttime.
Bugs flying everywhere
There are a lot of bugs around the phone booth.
Crazy in the gas station light
The lighting from the gas station is making everything look chaotic.
Heart pounding through my t-shirt
The artist is experiencing a strong emotional response that is causing their heart to beat rapidly.
Pumping change in a call to you
The singer is putting coins into the phone to call someone.
Mississippi phone booth
The song references the phone booth in Mississippi again.
Operator would you get me through
The artist is asking the operator to connect them to someone.
Flat black 84 Camaro
The artist's car is a Camaro from 1984 that is black and without shine.
Run it up from New Orleans
The artist drove the car from New Orleans.
Everything south of I-10
The events of the song are taking place in the southern US, below Interstate 10.
I just blew it all to smithereens
The artist destroyed something important and valuable.
Now, I'm somewhere close to Jackson
The singer is near Jackson, Mississippi.
I need Memphis on the line
The singer needs to call someone in Memphis.
Mississippi phone booth
The song title is referenced again.
Tell Jesus I'm outta dimes
The artist does not have any more money to make calls and asks the operator to pass on the message that they cannot make another call right now.
Quart of vodka, eight-ball cocaine
The artist has a quart of vodka and an eight-ball of cocaine with them.
Not enough to change my mind
Although the singer has these substances, it is not enough to alter their current state of mind.
Mississippi phone booth
The phone booth is mentioned one last time at the end of the song.
Please don't hang up on me this time
The artist is making a final request to not get disconnected while placing their call.
Lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Written by: John Hiatt
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@Tineluss
Dear Americans, this man is one of your biggest national treasures. Please, do your best to keep him warm and safe, for the sake of all mankind. Thank you
@marilpelley969
I couldn't agree with you more. Been listening and enjoying Hiatt's music for years now. A national treasure indeed!!
@picknfish
Absolutely, one of the best US songwriters, for decades!
@henriksrensen3220
Jerry Douglas 👍
@hiattriver
Yes, we’ve enjoyed his music for a long time; in fact our 21 year old daughter, Hiatt, is named after him.
@mikesangster677
Couldn't have said it better myself!
@kellykonoske91
Real Music here everybody!!
@brianwalker3828
John is sounding better than ever and the pairing with the Jerry Douglas band is fantastic. It's beautifully recorded too.
@mark1952able
Clean recording / Great song
@bman2321
Jerry Douglas n John. H.Y.