Discovering Tom Waits

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

I was long aware of Tom Waits as that guy with the gruff voice and the hobo persona. I also knew that he worked with some high-class people like Gavin Bryars and Robert Wilson, and had seen him in a couple of films. However, only this year did I start exploring his music in a serious way.

So far I've been listening to the following albums:
Rain Dogs
Franks Wild Years
Swordfishtrombones
Closing Time

...while also YouTubing various individual songs, some in the original Waits versions, some covered by other performers.

My verdict: the guy is is a genius. No qualification necessary - he's one of the greatest singer-songwriters I've ever come across, up there with Dylan, Lennon/McCartney, and a few others. And he can assimilate a wider range of styles and inhabit more personas convincingly than any other "pop" musician I know. (I hesitate to use the term "pop" for him, it just doesn't seem to fit.) He's a true Great American Artist.

Credit for his songwriting genius also belongs to his wife Kathleen Brennan, who has been his collaborator since the 1980s. As I understand it, she got him sober and helped him re-invent himself musically, which is why he's had such a long run of success.

I know we have some Waits fans here, and I'm surprised he doesn't yet have his own thread. So I'm creating one, and I hope you'll join in. Meanwhile, I'm starting a musical love affair like the ones I've had with my favorite composers. Thoughts, suggestions, experiences - all welcome here.

[TheGSMoeller]

I have a list of three performers on my bucket list to see live...Bjork, Philip Glass and Tom Waits. Unfortunately Waits is the only name not crossed off, I missed a show in Dallas years ago by three days.
But yes, Waits is a unique talent, with a style and voice that has ranged, and transformed, over several decades.
All the albums mentioned above are incredible, unlike anything out there. I've long cited Frank's Wild Years as his overall best. I would like to add Bone Machine and Blood Money to the list as some of Waits more recent albums that have struck a chord with me.

Thanks for starting a thread, I'll frequent this one for sure.

[chasmaniac]

Let's put a new coat of paint on this lonesome old town...

I envy you the joy of discovery. I'm a longtime fan of his.

[Drasko]

I love Waits, and especially the period that you've been listening to, the 80s.

Wait's 70s albums, and there's been a few, have a number of great songs but his then straight balladeering with the piano/strings style is not something that I'm particularly interested most of the time.

His 80s sharp shift into some sort of grotesque cabaret style ( Kurt Weill + blues + some latin influences + folk + east European stuff) with experimental orchestrations and vocal delivery was what made me go wow, where did this come from (his wife most likely)! Incredible! That started with Swordfishtrombones (my favorite Waits album), then Rain Dogs, Frank's Wild Years, The Black Rider. All fantastic albums.

Haven't heard all of 90s and post 90s stuff, but I liked Bone Machine and Mule Variations even though I find them bit over-produced. His last album was also very good.
   

[Karl Henning]

Sobriety is the key!

Big fan of Rain Dogs and Swordfishtrombones.

[Sef]

May I also suggest:

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This is a favourute of mine. The guy is a genius.

[Bogey]

May I also suggest:

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This is a favourute of mine. The guy is a genius.

And if you have Amazon Prime, this album is a free MP3 download.  Check that....not free, unless you play it in your library.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

After I digest these first 4 albums, I'm planning to get others. Right now, these are the ones I'm looking at:

Small Change
Alice
Mule Variations
Blue Valentine

That should give me a good representation of both Waits Mark I (pre-Brennan) and Waits Mark II. So far I love both of them, but I can see how Mark I was becoming a dead end for him.

[AnthonyAthletic]

Alice, is my favourite Tom Waites album.  Humour, happiness, melancholy & madness.  It really has everything.  A really beautiful album.

"Tell me, who puts flowers on a flowers grave"?, always brings a tear.

Fish and Bird, another beauty.... No duds on this album.

[Sergeant Rock]

Small Change

Small Change includes one of my favorite Waits' songs in his maudlin, barfly mode: "Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)" ...it makes brilliant use of "Waltzing Matilda" (the song's about a night he spent with a woman actually named Matilda).

Alice, is my favourite Tom Waites album.  Humour, happiness, melancholy & madness.  It really has everything.  A really beautiful album.

Alice is one of the few Waits' albums I don't own. I do like it's companion from 2002, Blood Money.

Sarge

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Small Change includes one of my favorite Waits' songs in his maudlin, barfly mode: "Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)"

That's one of those great, heart-breaking songs from his early period, along with "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis," "Kentucky Avenue," "Martha," and "Ruby's Arms." So far that's what I love most about his early work: that luxurious melancholia and sense of loss.

[chasmaniac]

O man, Kentucky Ave...

Then we'll spit on Ronnie Arnold and flip him the bird
And slash the tires on the school bus now don't say a word
I'll take a rusty nail and scratch your initials in my arm
And I'll show you how to sneak up on the roof of the drugstore
I'll take the spokes from your wheelchair and a magpie's wings
And I'll tie em to your shoulders and your feet
I'll steal a hacksaw from my dad and cut the braces off your legs
And we'll bury them tonight out in the cornfield

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

  Very interesting and articulate guy on other things too.

Speaking of which, this book looks interesting:

http://www.chicagoreviewpress.com/tom-waits-on-tom-waits-products-9781569763124.php

[Karl Henning]

Separately, he is a wonderful on-screen element in Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King, and plays a major role in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Separately, he is a wonderful on-screen element in Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King, and plays a major role in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

I liked his performance in Jarmusch's Down by Law. In fact, viewing that film was the proximate cause of my current exploration, as it features 2 songs from Rain Dogs on the soundtrack.

He was also good in Altman's Short Cuts, but he didn't provide music for that one.

[Ken B]

I agree. I'd say Waits is my favourite living non-classical musician.

[Daverz]

His first record is probably still my favorite:

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However, there's at least one Waits album that I find unlistenable:

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[Sergeant Rock]

His first record is probably still my favorite:

[asin]B000002GXS[/asin]

That's his second record. Closing Time was his first.

Sarge

[Daverz]

That's his second record. Closing Time was his first.

Ah, OK.  I really like that one, too, except that the Eagles ruined Ol' 55 for  me.   I'd say my second favorite is Small Change.

[vandermolen]

Tom Waits features on this album which is hypnotic, haunting and moving. Not to be missed:
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