After the success of
Bring the Family,
John Hiatt originally intended to reunite that album's all-star backing band (
Ry Cooder,
Nick Lowe, and
Jim Keltner) for a follow-up.
Hiatt's "dream band" proved to be unavailable, and he ended up cutting
Slow Turning with his road band, the Goners, but the finished product proves he remembered well the lessons learned from
Bring the Family.
Slow Turning is a lighter and wittier affair than
Bring the Family; the outlaw rocker "Tennessee Plates" and its more subdued companion piece, "Trudy and Dave," are more rambunctious than anything on the previous album, and the tempos are sharper this time out, with a bit less blues and a touch more twang in the melodies. But
Slow Turning is also an album of hard-won lessons about life and love, placing a subtle but pronounced emphasis on the nuts and bolts of family life with the mingled joys and annoyances of parenthood dominating both "Georgia Rae" and the title cut, and the newfound maturity that made
Bring the Family so special is still very much in evidence. And while the Goners aren't quite up to the standards of the quartet that recorded
Bring the Family (and who, pray tell, is?), they're still a stronger and more empathetic band than
Hiatt usually had in the studio, with
Sonny Landreth's guitar work a standout. Following the best album of your career is no easy task for most performers, but with
Slow Turning John Hiatt made it clear that the excellence of
Bring the Family was no fluke. ~ Mark Deming