Bring the Family

Release type:What's this?
studio album
First released:
May 29 1987

Overview Edit

Bring the Family is John Hiatt's eighth album. It was his first album to chart on the Billboard 200, and featured his first single entry on the mainstream rock chart with "Thank You Girl". It features Ry Cooder on guitar, Nick Lowe on bass guitar and Jim Keltner on drums. The four would later reform as Little Village and release an album in the 1990s. "Thing Called Love" would later become a hit for Bonnie Raitt, and "Have A Little Faith In Me" is among Hiatt's most popular songs, although it wasn't released as a single in America.

The album was recorded in four days after McCabe's Guitar Shop booker John Chelew convinced Hiatt that these were some of his best songs. Hiatt was recently sober but had burned so many bridges in the music industry he did not think he had a chance of continuing. He had been dropped by his label and "wondered if I was worth a damn." Hiatt had played some solo acoustic shows at McCabe's in January 1987 just prior to recording where he debuted songs such as "Lipstick Sunset," "Your Dad Did" and "Memphis in the Meantime."

Demon Records in England still loved his work and had pledged about $30,000 if he wanted to record ("Demon Records said I could fart in a bathtub and they'd put it out," Hiatt says). A&M Records in the U.S. eventually picked up the finished disc. Recording was done in Studio 2 of Ocean Way Studios, Los Angeles. These songs were all that were recorded - there were no leftovers or outtakes and Hiatt had to complete a couple of songs in the studio. "I remember Ry walking out the door on the fourth day and me coming after him and going: 'Ry, I've got one more song. Could you stay?' Literally, we'd done nine and I needed one more," Hiatt has said. Budgets were so tight that Hiatt and Lowe shared a Holiday Inn room in the San Fernando Valley during the recording sessions. Lowe, an old friend of Hiatt's, took no payment for his contribution. Chelew turned out to be correct. "Bring the Family" is one of the cornerstones of Hiatt's career, and not a show goes by without a generous helping of its songs.

The Overview appearing in this section is attributed to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bring_the_Family. Portions of this Overview may be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0 or any later version, available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. Additional terms may apply. See Wikipedia Terms of Use for details.

This particular version Edit

Record label:
unknown
Catalog number:
5158
Release dates:
  • May 1987 in United Kingdom
  • May 1987 in United States
  • 2004 in United States

Genres

Americana, Classic Rock, Country, Heartland Rock, Singer-Songwriter. Vote on Genres

What do Amazon.com customers think?

5 stars Stood up, and did it again...
There's a game called 'Desert Island Discs' where you get to nominate the 10 albums you would take if you were ever marooned on such an isle. This is one of mine. In ascending order of importance: the playing is absolutely tops - Nick Lowe and Jim Keltner is pretty much unbeatable as a rhythm section, and what band wouldn't want Ry Cooder on lead guitar? Even in this company, Hiatt proves he no slouch on the fret. Hiatt's voice took me a while to get used to, but it has a gritty soul about it th…
Written by Rob Hosking
2 stars Too text book perfect.
Go ahead and click, "review not helpful"

Sorry...but...

There are plenty of artists that are virtually unknown and have much more powerful songs than John Hiatt's, "Have A Little Faith In Me"! Look up Tim Buckley, Mickey Newbury, Red House Painters, The Innocence Mission, Nick Cave, Mary Marget O'Hara and Kristin Hersh to name a few.

At 37 in 2010, I decided to finally check out John Hiatt, a name in the music world that just keeps popping up and I swear I can never place one of his songs. I …
Written by gmfjr

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Other versions Edit

Bring the Family 10 tracks format: 1 x CD
catalog number: 5158
release dates: Oct 25 1990
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