Talking to John Hiatt after listening to his 20th solo album “Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns,” is a bit disconcerting. The recently released album is filled with the darkest blues rock you can imagine written and performed by one of contemporary music’s greatest songwriters. Surely the man himself, whose numerous accolades include a slot in the prestigious Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, is as somber and measured as the songs. That just shows how wrong preconceived notions can be.

“Well you have to have darkness to have light,” said Hiatt with a genuine laugh when asked why many of the songs on his album tackle many dark and somber topics. “We cut 19 songs and really [song selection] is a matter of what hangs together. We aren’t geniuses. The story emerges in a set of songs and we noticed the theme is the disparate energies between big cities and verdant rush of landscapes of the past.”