Listen: Heartattack And Vine / Tom Waits TomWaitsHeartattack.mp3
Listen: Frank's Wild Years / Tom Waits TomWaitsFrank.mp3
Dilapidated Hollywood motels like the long gone Sunset-Orange, where the vacancy sign’s on/off flicker kept you from sleeping all night (I tried it once), hookers doubling as strippers clothed only in pasties and G strings (check out the sleeve of his SMALL CHANGE album), the hangover after taste of a night in the French Quarter, that grizzly homicide in the Mohave desert near Las Vegas, the freeform delivery of The Last Poets, the acquired taste for Louis Armstrong’s voice, the romantically inviting booze, pills and dope cocktail. Just some of the images he conjures up in my pea sized brain. It must sound like I’ve just taken a continuing education class in creative writing. No, I’m just putting into words they way I hear Tom Waits, most of them are his. A more cinematic songwriter/performer I can’t really think of. Can you believe this recipe could make it onto several 7″ singles……what a great world we live in.