In Brief

*** 1/2 John Hiatt, “Crossing Muddy Waters,” Vanguard. This veteran rocker has always been half-blues singer, half-folkie at heart, so this acoustic outing letting loose his country folk and blues leanings isn’t a radical stylistic departure. It may, however, be his most thoroughly engrossing batch of songs since his prime, late-’80s work, full of characters moving in and out of dead or dying relationships. Hiatt shines some light into this often dark tunnel with his trenchant sense of humor as well as a pair of album-closing songs celebrating life’s hard-won victories.

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Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent). The albums are already released unless otherwise noted.