Reviews W Part 7 Waits to Waters

Tom Waits
Sort of a private man, sounds like someone I would get along well with. Good taste in music, per this Guardian article. Discography here, complete with all lyrics.

Alice
music for the play, Alice which Waits, Kathleen Brenna, and Robert Wilson created, loosely based on Alice Liddell, of Lewis Carol fame/renown. I like it better than Blood Money, released at the same time.

Big Time Live album. Meh. Just get the original albums.

Blood Money For whatever reason, this album has never been one of my most played TWaits records. I'm not skilled enough as a reviewer-of-music to articulately pontificate exactly why that is, but there is a sense of staleness to Blood Money. Maybe I'm not immersed in the traditions of Weimar Germany?

Blue Valentine From Waits' so-called Tears in the Beers period. Jazzy tales of urban underworlds, like Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis. Good stuff.

Bone Machine One of the better late Tom Waits albums (and I use late somewhat tongue-in-cheek). Several quality songs (I Don't Wanna Grow Up, In the Colosseum, Earth Died Screaming, and others), good played loud.

Closing Time Debut album, composed using a different emotional palette. Quiet, melancholy, jazz with first-person lyrics, cocktail piano, bass, guitar, and the occasional strings.

Franks Wild Years Like watching a play that doesn't really make sense, but with glorious production values and great acting. I actually love this album, but what's it all about, Alphie? God-damned if I know. More Weimar culture I suppose, pump organ, accordian, lurching melodies, the infamous gravelly Waits voice, you got it.

Mule Variations More 'odd' vocals, unusual melodies, odd instrumental breaks, quirky lyrics. In others words, if you like Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs, and Bone Machine, you'll probably like this too.

Nighthawks at the Diner Live album, full of tales and jokes and patter. Waits doesn't really sing the songs as much as recite them over stand-up bass, sax, and drums. I feel like snapping my fingers in applause. B+ because some of the one liners don't bear repeat mention.

Rain Dogs Another favorite of mine. The first Waits album I ever bought. Marc Ribot adds some killer guitar bits. Standouts: Clap Hands ('Steam, steam, a hundred bad dreams/Goin' up to Harlem with a pistol in his jeans/A Fifty dollar bill inside of Palladin's hat/And nobody's sure where Mr. Knickerbocker's at.“), Rain Dogs, Anywhere I Lay My Head :

”I don't need anybody/Because I learned to live alone/And anywhere, Anywhere! Anywhere! I lay my head, boys/I will call my home.“ True to New Orleans funeral procession tradition, following a brief pause, the horns begin to swing, joined by the crash and bang of a parade drum. This peculiar jazz form is joyous in its release, as the horns take up various melodic threads, simultaneously soloing to the pulsing music, the band sauntering down the street as the music fades away.

-Allmusic

Desert Island disc for sure.

Real Gone Tis ok, but nothing seems strikingly new, or strikingly original. Not bad, just not as good of a 'weird' album as some others. Since I can't decipher more than a stray lyric or two, I have no idea what some songs are actually about, and have to rely on the music to hold my interest. Severe Captain Beefheart-itis. B+.

Small Change My favorite among the early Waits records. Step Right Up is a classic, as is Tom Traubert's Blues.

Swordfishtrombones My other favorite Waits record. I might have bought this one first, I suddenly can't remember. Anyway, there is a definite difference between Waits' music before this album, and after. Apparently had trouble getting released by a record label, for some reason. Ahem. Listening to this album is like watching an art-house movie. Strong sense of the theatric, of meanings behind meanings, of tensions only partially resolved. Great album, certainly a desert island disc.

Heart of Saturday Night Jazzy, singer-songwriter mode for Mr. Waits. Piano, strings, some horns, melancholy mood. I could do without the strings actually, but for the most part they are unobtrusive.

and I guess I could throw this in here:

Step Right Up
Tribute album, a few songs not worth inclusion, as is usually the case. The Violent Femmes version of Step Right Up pales beside the original, but is at least is not a carbon clone. Much better is the John Hammond Jr. album of Tom Waits songs. I'll get to that one in a few months or so.

Muddy Waters
Chicago Blues man, second to none, perhaps equal to a few.

Chess Box
Probably the majority of his greatest sides are contained in this set. The genius of Muddy Waters is in his emotive, expressive voice, and the strength of his side-men. Rock and Roll as a genre would not exist without McKinley Morganfield.

Folk Singer All acoustic album, ”unplugged“ as it were, with Buddy Guy and Willie Dixon, with a full, rich sound on guitar, and vocal. Great, great album. My favorite Muddy Waters album, partially due to the contrast to his loud, brash Chicago electric blues norm. If this was the only album he ever released, would I like it as much? Probably not, but it isn't, and thus, I do. Possible desert island disc.

Chicago Blues Masters
Recorded with Memphis Slim. Fair to middling.

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