Tom Waits Mix

Thomas Alan Waits has been around for a while. He is not as old as rocks, but he undoubtedly could produce some very interesting music by banging a couple together. Since the 1973 release of Closing Time on Asylum Records, Waits has grown more and more primal, using sound in a unique and eccentric fashion to create his music.

In the beginning 'Young' Tom Waits had a smoky voice, but one that changed as time passed; decomposing and seemingly fertilizing the growth of his journey into the very marrow of his creativity. It's as if he grabbed that voice like a pack of Old Gold non-filtereds and crammed it through the narrow neck of a Jack Daniels bottle. Letting it marinate, and maybe even stew, in the tea shaded whiskey for a year or two. Now when he lights up that throat, it's shredded tobacco and aged whiskey, it's oak barrels and chest x-rays. It's 'old' Tom Waits.

Here's a mix of mostly earlier Waits, I disovered Mr Waits in the seventies when he made an appearance on an afternoon TV talk show, The Dinah Shore Show, in early 1976. I went out and bought The Heart of Saturday Night and followed it with Small Change. If you only know Waits from the Bone Machine/Swordfishtrombones sound, and can't get into it, you should listen to these mp3s, they range from 1979's Blue Valentine to 2004's Real Gone.

+ romeo is bleeding - Blue Valentine
+ kentucky avenue - Blue Valentine
+ whistlin' past the graveyard - Blue Valentine
+ gun street girl - Rain Dogs
+ 16 shells from a thirty-ought-six - Swordfishtrombones
+ How's It Gonna End - Real Gone
+ Another Man's Vine - Blood Money
+ Alice - Alice
+ Hold On - Mule Variations
+ Buzz Flederjohn


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