Goethe T shirt

Goethe meets John Hiatt

Authenticity is interesting. John Hiatt is the epitome of creative authenticity.

“What is uttered from the heart alone will win the hearts of others to your own.” The quote appears on our Goethe t shirt. It is the poetic part of the brief to our designers. In the context of briefing designers we are saying if the expression of admiration in the design is authentic it will be interesting regardless of the topic.

There is some dispute that John Hiatt will stand being compared with any singer songwriter you can think of. It’s clear that a good part of the counter argument might be paraphrased by the question If he is any good why hasn’t anyone heard of him?

To anyone who knows his work the fact he only has a relatively small following is a mystery. Hiatt’s is a life well lived and well observed, this is clear from his lyrics. Love, life, up, down, booze, loss, sideways motion, dancing, desire, cars, his cluster, other people’s clusters, sacrifice, generosity, artifice, spontaneity, pretension, and a lack of it, they are all there, all wittily expressed.


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So why isn’t he more successful? I will turn the question round. Why do witless boy bands for example (but no need to single them out there are plenty of others) who contrive to emote other people’s observations while typically unable to write a note themselves, make bundles? Why does the music business spend so much money and so much time promoting people with very limited talent? I think it has to do with credit. If the artist is good and sells well where does the credit lie? With the artist. If the artist is basically rubbish but sells well where does the credit lie? With the seller. Too many people in the music business get their rocks off gulling the unwary. Good musicians will not sell their soul to or at the behest of some marketing farty so their work will have to work harder for attention. It must also be the case that the best musicians will primarily concerned with the music not the commerce, they are going to be commercially hard work. We should thank them for that.

I can’t see any other explanation for the fact Hiatt is relatively unknown. You don’t believe it. Buy the albums Slow Turning, Bring The Family, Stolen Moments, Slug Line, Riding with The King, Warming Up To The Ice Age, Master of Disaster, Little Head, Crossing Muddy Waters in no particular order. listen to them for a couple of years – don’t worry you won’t get tired of them – and then get back to me about the singer songwriters you think have covered more ground or showed greater skill and observation.

Otherwise let’s hear about the class acts you think deserve more recognition and why…

What do you admire?






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