Back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s I was an active musician throughout the region. For a while I lived in a college town called Pittsburg, Kansas. Around Summer 2000 I started frequenting an open mic night on Tuesday nights at a bar called Kitchen Pass. It’s called Chatters now- but way back- when they started the business, they did so after the original Kitchen Pass in Joplin. On Tuesday nights from early 2000 until late 2001 it was a really good open mic with a lot of local musicians like Dan Albertini, Jon Artz, Kendra and I remember Josh Friskel hosted it. I miss Josh a lot. Anyway, among the many talented musicians I met in this era was a guitarist and college professor named Kevin Hiatt. He played guitar phenomenally. And I don’t say that lightly. You can find his music on Apple Music, Youtube and all the other usual music apps. I got to know Kevin at this open mic and found out he was a professor at Labette Community College. At the time that college had a program for music recording. They had a studio set up in a commercial building right outside Parsons, Kansas which was twenty miles or so from Pittsburg. At that time they had a Mac with Protools, DAT and ADAT. There were instruments, sound booths, and microphones. Pretty much everything you would need to record music with at that time which wasn’t very common.
I had been in several bands and played a lot of acoustic sets by myself up until that point. I had a Tascam four track recorder with the cassette tape and by late 2000 I had recorded an entire album of demos on that four track. Kevin took me one evening to the studio with my four-track and we bounced the tracks over to ADAT and I was able to re-record some parts that I felt needed it and he showed me everything that I had been missing. Over the next couple weeks we mixed it down and mastered it. All along he walked me through the process. I made a bunch of copies of that album and shared them with all my friends. If you still have a copy please get in contact with me. Kevin was an extraordinary person and he really made a profound impact on my life. From that point on I kept recording my own song ideas. By 2007 Protools and other DAWs became that industry standard over ADAT. By then I was able to buy a cheap laptop and install Ableton Live or something similar and get high quality results.
Years ago I was friends with Kevin on Facebook then over the years through the process of life I made new accounts and lost track of him until 2025 when I looked him up and noticed he had passed in 2024. I was deeply saddened by this news especially as I found out he was living in Kansas City, not far from me. It’s very unfortunate that I was unable to connect with him in the last few years since I got sober and made all the other advancements. Regardless I am forever grateful for Kevin Hiatt’s positive impact on my life and for that reason I wanted to make some sort of eulogy for my incredibly talented friend. When Kevin passed he didn’t have any next of kin family and he doesn’t have an obituary or anything available to represent his life. My hope is that my writing here will inspire others to also share some sort of eulogy or memorial for Kevin.
Kevin Hiatt was born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1956. In 1986 he earned a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Miami after also attending UMKC. He composed over 80 works of formal concert music- spanning orchestral pieces, electronic music and string quartets. Around 1996 Kevin started performing on 6, 7 and 12 string acoustic guitars. He was using open-string tunings and started utilizing a unique two-handed tapping that was mixed with complex percussive techniques. It was really quite a sight to see him perform. His guitar work was definitely inspired by John Fahey and Michael Hedges but with a highly structured classical architecture underneath. Kevin’s discography includes the albums- Another Look At The Sunrise, Strange Ships on a Blue Horizon, and a Holiday Jazz Songs EP. All those are available on Apple Music and Spotify, I also noticed both his full length albums were available on eBay and I purchased one. Kevin also has a notable presence on Youtube. I highly recommend giving him a listen.
Jason Michael Dunnington 