This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Bring the Family" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR(January 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
1987 studio album by John Hiatt
Bring the Family
Studio album by
John Hiatt
Released
May 29, 1987
Recorded
February 17–20, 1987
Studio
Ocean Way (Hollywood)
Genre
Heartland rock, Americana[1]
Length
45:26
Label
A&M
Producer
John Chelew
John Hiatt chronology
Warming Up to the Ice Age (1985)
Bring the Family (1987)
Slow Turning (1988)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source
Rating
AllMusic
[1]
Chicago Sun-Times
[2]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music
[3]
Los Angeles Times
[4]
The Philadelphia Inquirer
[5]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
[6]
The Village Voice
B−[7]
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 1992. "Thing Called Love" later became 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 sing in the shower and they'd put it out," Hiatt says. He later told the Rocky Mountain News that Demon would release an album "if I farted in a bathtub").[8] 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 over four days, using direct metal mastering. 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's prediction turned out to be correct. Bring the Family is one of the cornerstones of Hiatt's career, a critical and financial success, and not a Hiatt performance goes by without a generous helping of its songs.
"Alone In The Dark" was featured in the 1994 James Cameron film True Lies, in a memorable scene where Jamie Lee Curtis dances to the song.
^ abDeming, Mark. "Bring the Family – John Hiatt". AllMusic. Retrieved August 12, 2011.
^McLeese, Don (June 1, 1987). "Wit, backup band put bite into John Hiatt's 'Family'". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on February 13, 2018. Retrieved February 12, 2018.
^Larkin, Colin (2011). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th concise ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-85712-595-8.
^Cromelin, Richard (June 28, 1987). "A Hiatt Coming On". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved February 12, 2018.
^Tucker, Ken (June 14, 1987). "John Hiatt records with a dream band". The Philadelphia Inquirer.
^Coleman, Mark; Harris, Keith (2004). "John Hiatt". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. p. 378. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
^Christgau, Robert (July 28, 1987). "Christgau's Consumer Guide". The Village Voice. Retrieved August 12, 2011.
^2001 Liner Notes from John Hiatt: Anthology, Hip-O Select
BringtheFamily 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...
vocalist Jamie Catto, featuring the band’s transcendent live shows, and helped bring Faithless’ live prowess to the attention of music fans. They were...
Bring Our Families Home (BOFH) is a campaign by family members of American hostages and detainees advocating for their immediate release. The James Foley...
Bring Me the Horizon are a British rock band, formed in Sheffield in 2004. The group currently consists of lead vocalist Oli Sykes, drummer Matt Nicholls...
released BringtheFamily. For the album, Hiatt had a backing band consisting of Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe, and Jim Keltner. Two of the songs on the album have...
vocal) and Jim Keltner (drums). Each of the group's members had previously worked on Hiatt's 1987 album BringTheFamily, and formed in 1991 while on a break...
Proud Family: Louder and Prouder trailer brings a gorgeous update to the familiar characters". Polygon. Retrieved January 14, 2022. "Kids & Family Viewing"...
The Kapoor family is a prominent Indian show business family with at least 4 generations of thefamily over 95 years being active in the Hindi film industry...
"Bringthe Noise" is a song by the American hip hop group Public Enemy. It was included on the soundtrack of the 1987 film Less than Zero; the song was...
Gloria (April 22, 2005). "Cult fans bring 'TheFamily Guy' back to TV". The Christian Science Monitor. Archived from the original on June 24, 2012. Retrieved...
(April 22, 2005). "Cult fans bring 'TheFamily Guy' back to TV". The Christian Science Monitor. p. 12. Archived from the original on June 24, 2012. Retrieved...
Bring Up the Bodies is an historical novel by Hilary Mantel, sequel to the award-winning Wolf Hall and part of a trilogy charting the rise and fall of...
reported to be a diabetic. Kamalmaz's family is a part of theBring Our Families Home campaign which advocates to bring home wrongful detainees and hostages...
Bringthe Jubilee is a 1953 novel of alternate history by American writer Ward Moore. The point of divergence occurs in July 1863 when the Confederate...
the original on January 17, 2023. Retrieved February 19, 2017. Goodale, Gloria (April 22, 2005). "Cult Fans Bring 'TheFamily Guy' Back to TV". The Christian...
the house and takes them for herself. Wang Lung uses this money to bringthefamily home, buy a new ox and farm tools, and hire servants to work the land...
Bring Them Down is an upcoming thriller film written and directed by Christopher Andrews (in his directorial debut), starring Barry Keoghan, Christopher...
Shaurya), the son of Suman who loves his Ammamma Seetha Maha Lakshmi (Sumithra) very much, makes it his personal mission to bringthefamily closer in...
'the family'. 'All thefamily turned up for the funeral... But of course, my brother didn't bring his family along— they're much too young.' Here the reference...
Richard Conte, and Diane Keaton. It is the first installment in The Godfather trilogy, chronicling the Corleone family under patriarch Vito Corleone (Brando)...
togetherness, and that eating tangyuan or yuanxiao may bringthefamily harmony, happiness and luck in the new year. Yuanxiao and its fillings Yuanxiao Yuanxiao...
that appears on his 1987 album BringtheFamily. His version of the song has also appeared on the soundtracks of the movies Look Who's Talking Now (1993)...
The Von Erich family is an American professional wrestling family. Originally from Texas, their actual surname is Adkisson, but every member who has been...