Riding With the King by John Hiatt

Riding with the King, John Hiatt's sixth album and his second of three for Geffen, came out in 1983, and it's really 2 records glued back to back. Side one was produced by Ron Nagle and Scott Mathews at The Pen in San Francisco, with Mathews playing every instrument except guitar and singing all the backing vocals. Side two was cut at Eden Studios in London with Nick Lowe producing and the players known as the Cowboy Outfit behind him.

So you get a one-man studio construction on one side and a band cutting loose on the other, with Hiatt's wry, knotty songwriting holding them together. The title track grew out of a strange dream Mathews had, though he never got a writing credit, and it went on to name the album by B.B. King and Eric Clapton, with Hiatt rewriting the words for them. Feargal Sharkey covered "Love Like Blood" too.

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