Sometimes an artist comes out of nowhere, busting fully formed onto the music scene. Other times, someone who has been around for years suddenly produces something that defies all expectations. John Hiatt and his album Bring the Family (1987) belongs very much in the second of those categories.

Hiatt had been in the industry for more than ten years, a time measured out with frequent moves from record label to record label, burned bridges and lots of alcohol. By 1987 he was newly-sober, but with a career going nowhere. After a gig at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, the venue’s booker John Chelew urged him into to the studio, telling Hiatt that his current crop of songs was the best he’d written in years. Unfortunately, Hiatt was broke and pretty much every record company saw him as a bad risk, a busted flush, or both. The one exception was the British independent Demon Records, who were willing to commit a small amount to the project. It was a shoestring budget, but Chelew managed to recruit Hiatt’s dream team of sidemen: Ry Cooder on guitar, Nick Lowe on bass and Jim Keltner on drums – and they had four days in Los Angeles’ Ocean Way Studios to make it happen. Lowe, an old friend of Hiatt’s, doubled up on production duties and refused to be paid for his contributions. Even so (and with Lowe and Hiatt sharing a Holiday Inn room to save money) they only just got it all done before the money ran out – Hiatt recalls chasing after Ry Cooder on the final day, begging him to do one more song to finish the album before heading for home.

The ten songs that make up the album represent everything that the quartet recorded. There are no outtakes in the archives, no alternative tracks stashed away for future re-releases. Everything they did is there on the album, and there’s not a weak moment.

Some of the songs – Have a Little Faith in Me, Memphis in the Meantime – have become much-covered country classics, while Thing Called Love was a US hit for Bonnie Raitt in 1989. Hiatt and the gang can rock out with the best of them, and there’s even some touches of humour such as on Your Dad Did, but what makes the album stand out is Hiatt’s maturity and his fresh perspective on his younger misdemeanours. Tracks like Alone in the Dark and Stood Up address his years with the bottle, and the veteran backing group, perhaps sharing something of Hiatt’s hard-won wisdom, provide sensitive, empathic backing. That said, the albums’ high point, Have a Little Faith in Me, features nothing but Hiatt’s piano accompanying his warm and worn voice in a towering triumph of redemptive hope.

There was magic in that studio for those four days, resulting in one of those albums where you wouldn’t want to change a note. The quartet were keen to repeat the experience, but their respective commitments put that off until 1991. The combo took the name Little Village and while their eponymous album isn’t without its moments – Big Love in particular, is worth checking out – on every level it falls short of Bring the Family. Over the years I’ve seen three of the four musicians live (I’ve never managed to see Keltner), although never sharing a stage with one another.

As for Bring the Family’s place in Dead Man Singing, I decided that the Cooder connection would have been enough to make Dave Masters aware of the album, so it makes the 100, and at one point later in the book one of Dave’s bandmates plays it on the tour bus. Musically it seemed like a great fit for Dave, but more than that, Hiatt’s new  perspective on his younger self seemed entirely apt for the journey that my protagonist was going through. The character who shines through in the lyrics of Have a Little Faith in Me is a pretty good representation of the man that Dave is trying to be by the end of the book. Most of all though, it’s just a great album that I still listen to these days. Thoroughly recommended.