Ravinia 2021 - Issue 3

DAVID MCCLISTER (HIATT); GREG VOROBIOV (DOUGLAS) PAVILION 7:30 PM TUESDAY, AUGUST 24, 2021 JOHN HIATT & THE JERRY DOUGLAS BAND HEAVY lifting to us. Leave the Wintrust chair & table RENTAL RESERVE LAWN chairs and tables when you order tickets by clicking “ADD-ON.” SCAN ME! to see examples of how you can set up rental items inside each size of reserved space on the South Lawn. Wintrust Chair and Table Rental, managed by the Ravinia Women’s Board, benefits Ravinia and its Reach Teach Play programs. JOHN HIATT Indianapolis-born roots rocker John Hiatt’s reputation as a songwriter preceded his suc- cess as a performer. While he was working in Nashville, his song “Sure as I’m Sittin’ Here” was picked up by Three Dog Night and taken to number 16 in 1974. That year Hiatt secured a recording contract with Epic Records, re- leasing his debut album, Hangin’ Around the Observatory . The albumwas a critical success, but neither it nor the 1975 follow-up generat- ed enough sales to retain the interest of the la- bel. Hiatt signed with MCA for two albums in 1979 and 1980, sporting a new-wave sound in- stead of the straight-ahead rock of his previ- ous efforts, and again didn’t experience sales in line with his critical acclaim. His three al- bums between 1982 and 1985 heavily featured country and soul influences: his song “Riding with the King” from this period later became a big hit for Eric Clapton and B.B. King, and Roseanne Cash also covered several compo- sitions to great success. Hiatt’s big break came when he signed to A&M for Bring the Family (1987)—the album’s stripped-down, rootsy sound garnered his best reviews yet, final- ly translating into a chart position of num- ber 107 and beginning a three-decade string of studio albums making the Billboard 200 chart. His songs “Have a Little Faith in Me” and “Memphis in the Meantime” have been covered extensively, and “Thing Called Love” was taken to number 11 by Bonnie Raitt. By the time Hiatt’s Perfectly Good Guitar (1993) came out, his songs had begun to be covered by an even wider range of artists, including Bob Dylan, Ronnie Milsap, Jewel, Iggy Pop, Paula Abdul, and Linda Ronstadt. His 2012 studio album, Mystic Pinball , was his high- est-charting album to date, and 2014’s Terms of My Surrender followed up on that success within the top 50. Adding to several career honors, in 2019 he became the third recipi- ent of BMI’s highest honor, the Troubadour Award. John Hiatt made his first appearance at Ravinia in 2000 and returns tonight for his 13th season, alongside Jerry Douglas and his band with music from their new album to- gether, Leftover Feelings , recording in Nash- ville’s historic RCA Studio B and released earlier this year. JERRY DOUGLAS A 14-time Grammy winner with twice as many nominations, Jerry Douglas has earned comparisons to Jimi Hendrix for his work on the resonator guitar: elevating, transforming, and reinventing the way the instrument is played and heard in the way the electric gui- tar was forever changed. Particularly known for his mastery of the Dobro resonator guitar, Douglas began learning the instrument in his native Ohio before entering his teens, and by his early 20s he had not only toured exten- sively but established himself as a top record- ing session musician, incorporating elements of country, bluegrass, rock, jazz, blues, and Celtic music across with distinctive musical vision. Following early work as a member of groundbreaking ensembles like The Country Gentlemen, J.D. Crowe & the New South, and Boone Creek, Douglas began releasing solo recordings, from Fluxology (1979) to What If (2017) on Rounder Records, with several al- bums across the MCA, Sugar Hill, and Koch labels in between. Meanwhile, he contribut- ed to the 1994 Grammy-winning album The Great Dobro Sessions , became a member of Alison Krauss & Union Station in 1998, and appeared on the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? , which won the Album of the Year Grammy in 2001. Douglas has ap- peared on more than 1,500 albums to date, contributing to discs by the likes of Garth Brooks, George Jones, Paul Simon, Little Big Town, James Taylor, Emmylou Harris, Elvis Costello, Earl Scruggs, Ray Charles, Dierks Bentley, and Tommy Emmanuel. A three- time CMA Musician of the Year award recip- ient, Douglas has also been honored with a National Heritage Fellowship from the Na- tional Endowment for the Arts (2004) and as artist-in-residence of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum (2008). Between 1995 and 2013 he was the co-music director of the acclaimed BBC Scotland series Transatlan- tic Sessions , and he is the band leader of the Grammy-winning bluegrass band The Earls of Leicester and The Jerry Douglas Band. Jer- ry Douglas has previously performed at Ra- vinia alongside such artists as Alison Krauss, in 2005 and 2014, and Elvis Costello, in 2009. RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 43