Tom Waits was born on 7 December 1949 in Pomona, California. His voice can be described as a low, raw, almost growling voice, and sometimes hoarse like a whispering singer. Waits' career began in 1971 when he moved to Los Angeles and was offered a contract as a bar singer by Herb Cohen, the manager of, among others, Frank Zappa. After many aborted recording sessions, he released his first album in 1973, the melancholic Closing Time. The album received good reviews, but only really gained attention when The Eagles recorded the song Ol' '55 in 1974.
In general opinion, his work remains characterised by his rock voice, strong personality and theatrical presence on stage, and the late night smoky bars humour of his lyrics ("I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy"). During his performances, he uses many different forms. Sometimes he sings through a megaphone, or he tilts his hat in an inimitable way and throws some confetti in the air ("Fall out of a window with confetti in your hair").
By the late 1980s, Waits had transformed into a musician as brilliant as he was adventurous, whose style lay somewhere between Howlin’ Wolf, Kurt Weill and Captain Beefheart. The theatrical stage animal also successfully appeared in several feature films.
Although his songs have been performed by many famous artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Meat Loaf and Rod Stewart, Tom Waits remains a cult artist, always outside the mainstream.
In 2019, the song "Tom Traubert's Blues" was ranked number 1221 in the Top 2000. This song was also recorded by Rod Stewart and appears on the album "Small Change".
Sunday Morning Classic: Closing Time
On 4 October 2020, Tom Waits was a guest on our Sunday Morning Classics with his album "Closing Time".
Throughout his career, Tom Waits has built his reputation as a maverick in music. His reputation is legendary, his output is revered by his peers, and he has become increasingly uncompromising as his career progressed.
Closing Time has a hazy, booze-soaked, country-jazz feel, but you could probably come to that conclusion just from the artwork. The album opens with the original version of "Ol' 55". Waits didn't just write this song, he lived it.
After such a great opening track, it is completely unexpected that the second song "I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You" completely overshadows it in every possible way. It is a heartbreaking song of unspoken missed romantic opportunities and regret.
With "Virginia Avenue" the album can shift back into a more sustainable gear and although it is not as good as the songs that came before, it is at least a superior filler. The same can be said for Old Shoes. "Midnight Lullaby" flirts around a soft and smoky jazz tune and is a nod to the type of song that Waits would very much make his own throughout the rest of the '70s.
"Martha" is another heartbreaker.
The second half of the album opens with the duo "Rosie" and "Lonely", a couple of great songs that would have much more impact if they did not follow the emotional "Martha".
The same cannot be said for the moment of frivolity offered by the cover of "Ice Cream Man", but even then it is tinged with what sounds like borderline madness. It swings like mad, and comes closest to Closing Time. The tempo is slowed again by "Little Trip to Heaven (On the Wings of Your Love)", which does everything one would expect from a song with such a title.
The last great moment of the album is "Grapefruit Moon", which sounds like a strangely optimistic and lovesick lullaby that brings Waits back to the top of his game, even at this early point in his career. He leaves us with the album's title track, a beautiful instrumental that evokes the smoky jazz bar atmosphere that the whole album has had, allowing us to drift into a restless sleep after the reassuring "Grapefruit Moon".
For me, although Tom Waits has since recorded a whole series of better received and more exciting albums, he has never recorded a more beautiful and emotionally honest album than his debut.
source: Jan Liebregts and NPO photo: Asylum Records (promotion photo)
