An Acoustic Evening With John Hiatt

As one of America’s most respected and influential singer-songwriters, John Hiatt’s songs have been covered by artists as diverse as Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Buddy Guy, Emmylou Harris, Rosanne Cash, Willie Nelson, Steve Earle, and Linda Ronstadt. John Hiatt received a Grammy Award nomination for his album Crossing Muddy Waters, and B.B. King and Eric Clapton shared a Grammy Award for their album Riding With The King, the title track from which was a John Hiatt composition. In 2007, John Hiatt was honored with his own star on Nashville’s Walk of Fame and his legacy was even further cemented with a pair of accolades in the fall of 2008: the Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting and his induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

More than forty years into his recording career, John Hiatt released his 22nd studio album, Terms of My Surrender. “It’s my Appomattox,” he says, wryly. “Really I don’t know where it came from, that idea of trying to arrange the terms of my surrender. I don’t get to do that. It’s a labor in vain in that respect, if you think you can negotiate that with anyone, or anything. In reference to the title song, it’s in terms of love. You’ve got to give it up. The song says, ‘I can’t negotiate the terms.’”