Rhino celebrates Tom Waits by reissuing the singer-songwriter's first four Asylum albums on vinyl. CLOSING TIME, THE HEART OF SATURDAY NIGHT, NIGHTHAWKS AT THE DINER and SMALL CHANGE are presented on 180-gram heavy vinyl and packaged with their original artwork. The LPs are pressed at RTI with mastering supervised by Gavin Lurssen.
Tom Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car." With this trademark growl, his incorporation of pre-rock music styles such as blues, jazz, and vaudeville, and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music, Waits has built up a distinctive musical persona. He has worked as a composer for movies and musical plays and as a supporting actor in films, including Down By Law and Bram Stoker's Dracula. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his soundtrack work on One from the Heart.
Lyrically, Waits' songs frequently present atmospheric portrayals of grotesque, often seedy characters and places - although he has also shown a penchant for more conventional ballads. He has a cult following and has influenced subsequent songwriters despite having little radio or music video support. His songs are best-known to the general public in the form of cover versions by more visible artists: "Jersey Girl", performed by Bruce Springsteen and "Downtown Train", performed by Rod Stewart. Although Waits' albums have met with mixed commercial success in his native United States, they have occasionally achieved gold album sales status in other countries. He has been nominated for a number of major music awards and has won Grammy Awards for two albums, Bone Machine and Mule Variations.
The great news is that the remastered sound is miles beyond the lackluster Asylum original. The soundstage literally oozes whiskey and cigarette smoke; this is Waits at his early best, and one of the last clear glimpses of the iconic hipster before he headed down the dark path of the Island years.
Features: • 180g Vinyl • Newly remastered with Waits/Brennan • Pressed at RTI • Original artwork • Mastering supervised by Gavin Lurssen
Selections: Side One: 1. Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets To The Wind In Copenhagen) 2. Step Right Up 3. Jitterbug Boy (Sharing A Curbstone With Chuck E. Weiss, Robert Marchese, Paul Body And The Mug And Artie) 4. I Wish I Was In New Orleans (In The Ninth Ward) 5. The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me) [An Evening With Pete King] Side Two: 1. Invitation To The Blues 2. Pasties And A G-String (At The Two O'Clock Club) 3. Bad Liver And A Broken Heart (In Lowell) 4. The One That Got Away 5. Small Change (Got Rained On With His Own .38) 6. I Can't Wait To Get Off Work (And See My Baby On Montgomery Avenue)