Ry Cooder, John Hiatt & Nick Lowe - A Thing Called Love (2022)

EXCEPTIONAL BROADCAST RECORDING FROM AN OCCASIONAL QUARTET John Hiatt’s Bring The Family album, released in 1987, introduced the veteran minstrel to a new generation of fans. Choc- Full of supreme compositions, it also featured one-hell of a line-up. Hiatt of course did most of the singing and strummed a sad acoustic, the mighty Ry Cooder handled electric guitars and a little sitar on one number, Nick Lowe played his signature bass and the man who banged the drum for everyone from Bob Dylan to The Manhattan Transfer, , the wholly underrated Jim Keltner, kept time superbly. The easy way this quartet clicked was what led to the album Little Village in 1992, but the group’s one and only album together, while it didn’t take off commercially, certainly hasn’t dated since. In the album’s wake the Villagers hit the road; veterans to a man of the live circuit, the shows were a magnificent spectacle.

And when the tour bus pulled up in San Fran and the fancy gear was unloaded into the Fox Warfield Theatre, the whole affair was broadcast across the greater Frisco area by local FM radio. The resulting broadcast can be heard in all its glory on this CD, as tracks from the sole LV record rub shoulders with a triumvirate of numbers from Bring The Family, and a further brace from the pen of Monsieur Lowe - including the hilarious ‘Half A Boy & Half A Man’. ‘Little Sister’ a la the splendid late-70s Ry Cooder version makes an appearance too, although the highlight for the writer of these brief notes is the near perfect ballad ‘Don’t Think About Her When You’re Trying to Drive’, succulent in its studio form.

Tracklist
[7:49] 1. Ry Cooder - Solar Sex Panel
[4:04] 2. Ry Cooder - The Action
[3:57] 3. Ry Cooder - Fool Who Knows
[6:08] 4. Ry Cooder - Do You Want My Job
[4:57] 5. Ry Cooder - She Runs Hot
[5:14] 6. Ry Cooder - Don't Think About Her When You're Trying To Drive
[5:54] 7. Ry Cooder - Memphis In The Meantime
[5:01] 8. Ry Cooder - Endless Sleep
[8:52] 9. Ry Cooder - Big Love
[3:38] 10. Ry Cooder - Little Sister
[3:46] 11. Ry Cooder - Half A Boy And Half A Man
[5:42] 12. Ry Cooder - Thing Called Love
[5:49] 13. Ry Cooder - Lipstick Sunset