In 1973 Tom Waits released his debut studio album Closing Time. On the cover sits Waits, slumped over an old piano in the dark corner of some smoke filled bar. It’s the perfect preview of what you’ll find on the record, a collection of heart felt piano bar numbers. “Martha” is a beautiful song in which Waits reminisces about an old romance, a good example of his captivating piano work and poetic songwriting.
In 1974, Tom Waits released his raucous second album, The Heart of Saturday Night. “New Coat of Paint” invites the listener to a night on the town lit by a “bloodshot moon”. His raspy, bluesy voice is a testament to years of drinking and smoking in the shadows of back alley piano bars. Mr. Waits is a jack-of-all-trades with his crass crooner voice, his beat poetry, and his on-screen antics as an actor. Every night is a Saturday night when you play this saucy number.
The Wacky World of Rapid Transit Del Tha Funkee Homosapien
Label: Elektra
Released: 1991
Listeners familiar with the canned-humanity commute (what we bus vets call life on the MTA) will find much to appreciate in this whimsical trip from Del’s 1991 debut, I Wish My Brother George Was Here. The young rapper—Ice Cube’s cousin, incidentally, though he’s nothing like Cube at all—captures the anxieties and characters present on long-distance excursions, from the interminable bench wait with the other slaves to a bus line’s erratic schedule, to the 15-block backtrack after a missed stop. Amid the clamor of teenage bravado, wolf-whistle hotties (a knowing wink at “Transit’s” sample, Donald Byrd’s “Street Lady”), and that dude who won’t stop bragging about his cash flow is an interesting social observation on a generation of youth naturally gravitating toward the back of the bus some 30 years after Rosa Parks’ struggles toward the front. Food for thought as the city rolls past.
Warren Zevon—cynical bastard—seems to take a less than charitable view of a tragic beauty whom he observes one night in a Hollywood bar. When the lights come on at closing time he compares her suddenly stricken visage to “something death brought in in a suitcase.” But then, he never was one to mince words. This is a more acerbic but somehow more empathetic view of the perils of the Hotel California lifestyle than that offered up by its most celebrated residents, the Eagles, who chime in on harmonies here. In his songwriting career Zevon seemed to be on a quest to unearth unflattering truths about himself and others, and in this chilling offering he succeeds admirably. As the song swells to a crescendo, he implicates himself as one of the young lady’s prospective suitors and admits that he’s just as much of a phony as everybody else in the joint.
More well known for the catchy tunes he penned for the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt (“Best Of My Love,” “New Kid In Town,” “Faithless Love”), John David Souther has also cranked out some brilliantly understated solo albums throughout his career. His self-titled debut is arguably his best, and one of its standout tracks is the autobiographical “Out To Sea.” This gospel-flavored treat boasts not only an unforgettable chorus but also a killer bridge that showcases Souther’s strong, soulful tenor. When it’s repeated a second time toward the end of the track, Souther and his backup band reach a vocal and instrumental crescendo that’s downright exhilarating.
Tiki Torches At Twilight David Lindley & El Rayo-X
Label: Asylum
Released: 1988
Lindley and his band El Rayo-X recorded a series of casually infectious albums in the ’80s. A mainstay of West Coast session work, Lindley never got the following he deserved for his solo output. Thankfully, the recordings live on, and Very Greasy remains enduringly cheerful. The disc closes with “Tiki Torches At Twilight,” a song that manages to be both humorous and subtly melancholy. Lindley delights—and excels—at playing anything with strings, and here he’s on Hawaiian and slack-key guitars. The lyrics offer less a narrative than a slivered bit of reporting, describing the travails of an after-work party. It references the peculiar feeling of seeing coworkers in unfamiliar settings, behaving differently than when on the job, and covers the whole gamut, from attractions to repulsions (in this case, men from the office getting sick in their cars).
In that Bicentennial autumn, amid odes to wayward sons and disco ducks, Tom Waits escorted us to places so reeking in the truth and Chesterfield Kings, you felt like you needed a shower after listening. With “Pasties,” all he needed were 150 seconds, a drum kit, and prose. The album on which it appears, Small Change, made it as high as #89 on the Top 200 chart with little (if any) radio airplay. What Waits did have was a growing buzz on college campuses as well as recent converts who had gotten to witness music’s Bukowski—“the greatest entertainer on planet Earth,” he’d later be called by London’s Daily Telegraph—at his live shows.
You know how small, simple movies usually tell a better story than the big, loud, expensive blockbusters? From the “less is more” handbook comes “Song For Adam,” perhaps the most moving song Jackson Browne has written to date. A poignant tale of youth celebrated and friendship lost is cinematically unreeled with just acoustic guitar, bass, and cello—the brilliance of “Song For Adam,” like the best minimalist movies, is that your imagination fills in the lines between the lines. “Now the story’s told that Adam jumped,” Browne sings, “but I’m thinking that he fell.” Who is Adam? Was it suicide? Will the light from Jackson’s guiding candle be snuffed? He gives you clues but no answers, painted with pathos and exquisite melody, and that’s why Mr. Browne has always been one of our very best singer-songwriters.
After leaving The Byrds in 1966 for reasons that included a fear of airplanes (think about it), Gene Clark embarked on one of the more interesting and underappreciated solo paths of any folk-rocker who managed to escape the ’60s. The music ranges from familiar Byrds-y jangle, sprinkled with some proto-country rock moves (Gene Clark With The Gosdin Brothers) to adventures in bluegrass with über-picker Doug Dillard (The Fantastic Expedition Of Dillard & Clark and Through The Morning, Through The Night) to the barebones and lyrically poignant (White Light). The recurring theme tying all these groundbreaking albums together? Bad luck. Nothing he ever recorded managed to supersede his feathered past and, although it was followed by a handful of fine releases, 1974’s No Other, which includes this track, sounds like Clark’s last chance. Every drop of blood in his body is on this album.
Fans who purchased 1975’s The Hissing Of Summer Lawns expecting a sequel to Court And Spark were in for a surprise: Joni Mitchell’s interpolation of jazz and other genres into her songwriting had taken a quantum leap forward. There are cuts on the album that sound more startling (the Burundi drums of “The Jungle Line”), but the opening shot was fired by this ditty, featuring guitar by Steely Dan/Doobie Brothers alumnus Jeff Baxter and backing vocals from Graham Nash, David Crosby, and James Taylor. You know that magic trick where the conjurer goes to extract a single scarf out of his or her sleeve, but they just keep coming, forming an endless rainbow of fabric? The seamless fashion in which this nostalgic lyric about the early days of rock ’n’ roll, and the winding melody it rides astride, unfurls in similarly mesmerizing fashion—while seeming deceptively effortless.
Having proven himself capable of scoring big hits with singles about solitude (“Lonely Boy”) and camaraderie (“Thank You For Being A Friend”), Andrew Gold should have knocked one out of the park when he tackled the greatest of all subjects—love —on “Never Let Her Slip Away.” Warbling “I feel like a kid with a teenage crush on a school day,’’ the California troubadour sounds utterly smitten. With its handclaps-and-stomps rhythm bed, juicy synth riff, and pillow-soft backing vocals, the track is easily the equal of prime Hall & Oates, straddling a fine line between yacht rock and blue-eyed soul. Alas, this selection didn’t resonate with the American public, stalling far outside the Top 40 in 1978. Across the pond, however, British listeners embraced “Never . . .” with all the affection it exuded, and it remains a staple on U.K. oldies radio.
