Celebrating Tom Waits

Celebrating Tom Waits

This week we’ll spend our two hours in a shroud of barroom musk, out-of-tune brass, and painted ladies all spent before the tunes of an American treasure. We speak of Tom Waits. The New York Times, in a review of Barney Hoskyns’ 2009 biography of Tom Waits, Lowside of The Road describes our subject today thusly: “He is as potent and unpredictable a musical force as most of us have witnessed in our lifetimes, and that’s not faint praise. The graveyard croak of his gravelly, bellowing baritone is righteous, paint-scraping, unmistakable; it scatters small animals and slaps your synapses to startled attention. With what’s left of your adrenalized wits, you can attend to his mordant lyrics, which he packs into songs he divides (as his wife, Kathleen Brennan, put it) into two primordial categories: “the grand weeper” and “the grim reaper”. He’s our neighbor here in Sonoma County and we could not be more proud of the boy…really.

No.
1Artist Title Album Buy
2John Hammond, Jr. Clap Hands Wicked Grin Amazon
3Courtney Marie Andrews Downtown Train Come On Up To The House – Women Sing Waits Amazon
4Tom Waits Tom Traubert's Blues Small Change Amazon
5Willie Nelson;Sheryl Crow;Lukas Nelson Come On Up To The House Heroes Amazon
6The Blind Boys Of Alabama Way Down In The Hole Spirit Of The Century Amazon
7The Holmes Brothers Train Song Promised Land Amazon
8King Ernest House Where Nobody Lives Not The Same Old Blues Crap, Vol. 2 Amazon
9The Blue Hawaiians Jockey Full of Bourbon Savage Night Amazon
10Tom Waits Dead & Lovely Real Gone Amazon
11Tom Waits Ice Cream Man Closing Time Amazon
12Holly Cole (Looking For) The Heart Of Saturday Night Temptation Amazon
13Norah Jones The Long Way Home Feels Like Home Amazon
14Tom Waits I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You Closing Time Amazon
15Hayes Carll I Don't Wanna Grow Up Trouble In Mind Amazon
16Eagles Ol' '55 The Very Best of the Eagles [2003] Disc 1 Amazon
17Willie Nelson Picture In A Frame It Always Will Be Amazon
18Tom Waits On The Nickel Heartattack And Vine Amazon
19Marc Ribot Bella Ciao (Goodbye Beautiful) (feat. Tom Waits) Songs of Resistance 1942 – 2018 Amazon
20Tom Waits The Soul Of A Man God Don't Never Change: The Songs Of Blind Willie Johnson Amazon
21Solomon Burke Diamond in Your Mind Don't Give Up on Me Amazon
22Tom Waits Whistlin4 Past The Graveyard Used Songs 1973-1980 Amazon
23Tom Waits Georgia Lee Mule Variations Amazon