Beneath This Gruff Exterior was singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

 John Hiatt

John Hiatt

John Hiatt is an American rock guitarist, pianist, singer, and songwriter. He has played a variety of musical styles on his albums, including New Wave, blues and country. Hiatt has been nominated for several Grammy Awards - although he has never won- and has been awarded a variety of other...

's seventeenth album, released in 2003. It was his first album with New West Records

New West Records

New West Records is a record label based in Los Angeles, California, Austin, Texas, and Athens, Georgia. It was established in 1998, and has been home to several indie rock and alternative country bands as well as representing the PBS show Austin City Limits...

, and it was also the only album on which backing band The Goners received front cover credit along with Hiatt (although The Goners had previously backed Hiatt on 1988's Slow Turning

Slow Turning

Slow Turning was singer-songwriter John Hiatt's ninth album, released in 1988. It provided Hiatt's only significant radio hit with the title track, which features the memorable line "I'm yelling at the kids in the back, 'cause they're banging like Charlie Watts"...

and 2001's The Tiki Bar Is Open

The Tiki Bar is Open

The Tiki Bar is Open was singer-songwriter John Hiatt's sixteenth album, released in 2001. It was his last album with Vanguard Records. It was coincidentally released on September 11, 2001.-Track listing:All tracks written by John Hiatt...

).

Track listing

All tracks written by John Hiatt

1. "Uncommon Connection" – 4:11
2. "How Bad's The Coffee" – 3:56
3. "The Nagging Dark" – 3:15
4. "My Baby Blue" – 4:35
5. "My Dog And Me" – 3:15
6. "Almost Fed Up With The Blues" – 4:36
7. "Circle Back" – 4:30
8. "Window On The World" – 3:36
9. "Missing Pieces" – 4:06
10. "Fly Back Home" – 4:44
11. "The Last Time" – 4:53
12. "The Most Unoriginal Sin" – 4:15

Personnel

• John Hiatt - Guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
  , vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
  

and The Goners:

• Sonny Landreth
  Sonny Landreth
  Sonny Landreth is an American blues musician from southwest Louisiana who is especially known as a slide guitar player. He was born in Canton, Mississippi, but soon after, his family moved to Jackson, Mississippi, before settling in Lafayette, Louisiana...
  
   - Electric Guitar
  Electric guitar
  An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
  
  , Slide guitar
  Slide guitar
  Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...
  
  , Dobro
  Dobro
  Dobro is a registered trademark, now owned by Gibson Guitar Corporation and used for a particular design of resonator guitar.The name has a long and involved history, interwoven with that of the resonator guitar...
  
  , Background vocals
• David Ranson - Bass guitar
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  
• Kenneth Blevins - drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  , Background vocals

with

• Bobby Keys
  Bobby Keys
  Bobby Keys is an American saxophone player, and has performed with other musicians as a member of one of the notable horn sections of the 1970s. He appears on albums by The Rolling Stones, The Who, Harry Nilsson, Delaney Bramlett, George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, Eric Clapton and Joe...
  
   - Saxophone
  Saxophone
  The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
  
  
• Don Smith - Production, Mixing, Engineering
• Doug Sax - Mastering
• Kimberly Levitan - Art direction, Design
• Michael "Mick" Wilson - Photography