"Heartattack And Vine" by TOM WAITS – October 1980 US Seventh Album on Asylum Records featuring Roland Bautista (Guitars), Michael Lang and Ronnie Barren (Keyboards), Plas Johnson (Horns), Jim Hughart, Greg Cohen and Larry Taylor (Bass), "Big John" Thomassie (Drums) with Victor Feldman (Chimes and Percussion) and Strings Conducted and Arranged by Bob Alcivar and Jerry Yester (March 2018 UK Anti Records CD Reissue in Digipak Packaging – Tom Waits, Kathleen Brennan, Karl Derfler and Peter Lyman Remaster) - A Review by Mark Barry...

 

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LET'S GO CRAZY - 80ts Music On CD

Your All-Genres Guide To Exceptional CD Reissues and Remasters

Classic Albums, Compilations, 45s

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"...Billy Joe Remarkable Looks On In Disbelief..."

 

Last reissued May 1993 in the UK by Elektra Records in a CD jewel case with reasonable Terry Dunavan Mastering (Elektra 7559-60547-2) – this new March 2018 variant of "Heartattack And Vine" by Tom Waits (originally issued October 1980 on Vinyl) now comes at us on Anti Records with a brand new Waits/Brennan Remaster – Anti Records being home to his music since the much-praised "Mule Variations" album in 1999.

 

You get a matt card digipak, a 16-page booklet and best of all - a new upgraded Remaster (with artist involvement) done at Infrasonic Mastering in California by Tom Waits, Kathleen Brennan, Karl Derfler and Peter Lyman that gives this brilliant album a genuinely improved audio scrub-up. Everything on here is magnificent – structurally and sonicaly. "Heartattack And Vine" is his usual mishmash of ragged guttural vocals with fantastic street-hustler lyrics running alongside pretty ballads that will floor you. I loved to death (and still do) his "Blue Valentine" album on Asylum Records in 1978 – but October 1980's "Heartattack And Vine" was equal to it in every way - his last album for Asylum Records before he went to Island Records for "Swordfishtrombones" in 1981.

 

Of the nine cuts - Bob Alcivar arranged and conducted the strings on two genuine masterpieces - "Saving All My Love For You" (legendary sessionman Victor Feldman adds Chimes and Percussion to this gut-wrenching beauty) and on the Billy Joe Remarkable "On The Nickel" – a song Waits wrote for a movie of the same name done by Ralph Waite. The other arranger on the album is Jerry Yester of The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Association and the much-revered "Farewell Aldebaran" album with Judy Henske in 1969 on Straight Records – he does strings on two as well – the magnificent double-whammy of "Jersey Girl" and "Ruby's Arms".

 

In fact 1980’s "Heartattack And Vine" is probably the album that made Tom Waits more money from famous cover versions than its actual LP sales did. Bruce Springsteen has almost made "Jersey Girl" his own (people believe he wrote it – Soul singer Corrine Bailey Rae also did a version) - while Screaming Jay Hawkins ripped the title track "Heartattack And Vine" that was used in a Levi's advert. Country singers Nancy Griffiths and Patty Griffin have both done "Ruby's Arms" – a song that was also featured on the Asylum Years Best Of CD compilation "Used Songs" from November 1981 on Rhino. Brilliant - let's get to the details...

 

UK released Friday, 23 March 2018 - "Heartattack And Vine" by TOM WAITS on Anti 7571-2 (Barcode 8714092757125) is a straightforward CD Remaster of the 9-track 1980 LP and plays out as follows (44:29 minutes):

 

1. Heartattack And Vine [Side 1]

2. In Shades

3. Saving All My Love For You

4. Downtown

5. Jersey Girl

6. 'Til The Money Runs Out [Side 2]

7. On The Nickel

8. Mr. Siegal

9. Ruby's Arms

Tracks 1 to 9 are his seventh album "Heartattack And Vine" (sixth studio set) - released October 1980 in the USA on Asylum Records 6E-295 and October 1980 in the UK on Asylum K 52252. Produced by BONES HOWE - it peaked at No. 98 in the USA but didn't chart in the UK. Track 7 "On The Nickel" written for the motion picture "On The Nickel" by Ralph Waite.

 

TOM WAITS –Vocals (All Tracks), Piano (Tracks 3 and 9), Electric Rhythm Guitar (Tracks 1, 2 and 4), Electric Guitar (Tracks 5 and 8)

ROLAND BAUTISTA – Electric Lead Guitar (Tracks 2, 4, 6 and 8), 12-String Acoustic (Tracks 5 and 9)

PLAS JOHNSON – Tenor and Baritone Saxophone (Track 1)

HAROLD BATTISTE – Piano (Tracks 7 and 9

RONNIE BARRON – Hammond Organ (Tracks 2, 4 and 6) and Piano (Track 8)

MICHAEL LANG – Piano (Track 7)

LARRY TAYLOR – Bass (Tracks 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8)

GREG COHEN – Bass (Tracks 5 and 9)

JIM HUGHART – Double Bass (Track 3)

VICTOR FELDMAN – Chimes, Keyboard Glock and Percussion (Tracks 3 and 5)

"Big John" THOMASSIE – Drums (Tracks 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 8)

BOB ALCIVAR – Conducted and Arranged Strings (Tracks 3 and 7)

JERRY YESTER – Conducted and Arranged Strings (Tracks 5 and 9)

 

The 16-page booklet gives you those all-important and all-consuming lyrics as if it’s a newspaper reporting different articles that ends in two pages of musician credits - no new photos or critique unfortunately. But we do get a new Remaster supervised by TOM WAITS, KATHLEEN BRENNAN and KARL DERFLER with mastering done by the award-winning PETER LYMAN at his Infrasonic Mastering Studios in California. In keeping with the lush production values Bones Howe gave the album in the first place - this transfer sounds beautiful in every way. There's very little hiss (if any at all) but loads of presence and body and at times the intimacy is spine tingling - a gorgeous job done...

 

"Liar! Liar! Pants on fire..." he roars as the opening title track comes a mooching in like a cop with a hangover on a murder scene - and then of course you are hit (not for the first time either) with his famously funny turns of phrase - "...don't you know there ain’t no Devil, there's just God when he's drunk..." The audio is tremendous.

 

"Downtown" is typically witty Waits – Americana Rock with a twist. How many artists will have lines like these in their songs "...Montclaire de Havelin doin' the St. Vitus dance, lookin' for someone to chop the lumber in his pants..." But it’s the beauty of "Jersey Girl" where he strips it all down to an ordinary fellow looking forward to seeing his gal on the weekend – no time for the corner boys anymore – it's deeply moving to me. "On The Nickel" goes even further in sparse – just Waits singing, Michael Lang on Piano and Bob Alcivar arranged strings – the effect is balladeer magic at its most poignant.

 

I could rabbit on about Tom Waits till the proverbial cows think – it's time for home boys. Because that's what he's always felt like to me – a weird American home that tingles and thrills and makes you laugh and cry – and I love that about him and his musical legacy. I have reviewed the entire 'Anti Records' Reissue Series because they are all fabulous.

 

Start your journey into his songs – mad, moving and ultimately enriching like a Skinnybone Tree or Hobos in the Freight Yard howling at the moon...

 

TOM WAITS

March 2018 Reissue Series of CDs, LPs and Downloads on Anti Records

All 7 CDs are in Card Digipaks, come with Booklets and Pic CDs, but No Extras

 

"Closing Time" and "The Heart Of Saturday Night" released 9 March 2018 

- The others all released 23 March 2018

 

1. "Closing Time" (1973) - Anti 7565-2 (Barcode 8714092756524) - CD/LP is Anti 7565-1 (Barcode 8714092756517)

2. "The Heart Of Saturday Night" (1974) - Anti 7566-2 (Barcode 8714092756623)/LP due May 2018

3. "Nighthawks At The Diner" (1975 Live Double onto 1CD) - Anti 7567-2 (Barcode 8714092756722)/LP due May 2018

4. "Small Change" (1976) - Anti 7568-2 (Barcode 8714092756821)/LP due May 2018

5. "Foreign Affairs" (1977) - Anti 7569-2 (Barcode 8714092756920)

6. "Blue Valentine" (1978) - Anti 7570-2 (Barcode 8714092757026)

7. "Heartattack And Vine"(1980) - Anti 7571-2 (Barcode 8714092757125)

"Nighthawks At The Diner" by TOM WAITS - 1975 2LP Live Set of New Material on Asylum Records (March 2018 Anti Records CD Reissue - Waits/Brennan/Lyman Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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CAPT. FANTASTIC - 1975

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"...Precipitation Is Expected..."

Tom Waits had opened his musical account on America’s Asylum Records with two fabulous singer songwriter albums in the shape of 1973's "Closing Time" followed fast by another equally understated masterpiece - "The Heart Of Saturday Night" from 1974. Dripping with Americana – his louche barstool growl conjured up Bukowski stumbling out of some seedy 43rd Street watering hole into the harsh inner city morning glare – an emotionally-battered bum with a bottle of bourbon in one hand, a packet of Lucky Strikes in the other and some hookers initials carved into his arm with the rusty lid of an Campbell's Tomato Soup tin.

TW's next move was a clever one – an entire double-album of new material recorded live across two days in late July 1975 at NYC's Record Plant in front of an invited audience. Waits sets the scene during the Intro pretending its Raphael's Silver Cloud Lounge as the crowd is treated to the scoop Betty Boop and a Los Angelinos 'emotional weather forecast'. This live setting allowed the music a fabulous looseness – a jazzy sleaze hovering over great new songs – all crammed with his pawnshop suit persona and Gatling Gun wit shining ("...I'm so horny the crack of dawn better be careful round me..."). Although the lounge lizard slumped over a piano amidst plumbs of smoke from a well-filled ashtray routine wasn't exactly new - you can literally feel the enrapt audience both loving and discovering someone special in front of them – perhaps even hearing something and someone unique.

The album has had a limited compact disc history. To my knowledge "Nighthawks At The Diner" was reissued onto CD as far back as 1989 in the USA, Europe and the UK (WEA 960 612-2) along with the rest of his Asylum Records catalogue. Mostly non-remasters – it has remained there ever since. The 1998 version on Asylum 7559-60620-2 is essentially another reissue of that original lacklustre version. Only one track - "Eggs And Sausage (In A Cadillac With Susan Michelson)" - has ever been remastered from the 2LP set – featuring on the November 2001 CD compilation "Used Songs" (see review). This is the first time the whole enchilada has received a digital dust-off – and what a revelation it is.

March 2018 now sees Anti Records of the USA reissue his entire Asylum Records seven-album catalogue from 1973 to 1980 on Remastered CDs, DLs and 180-Gram LPs – Anti being his musical home since his "Mule Variations" set won awards galore in 1999. But even though these Remastered CDs are priced at just under a tenner in the UK (and the corresponding dollar rate in the USA) – knowing what Anti could have been given us and outside of the sound – they’re disappointingly bare bones.

Each CD is housed in a faded card digipak, has a picture disc of sorts, a booklet and new Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan/Karl Derfler supervised tape transfers – mastered in turn by Peter Lyman at his Infrasonic Mastering Studios in California (a renowned studio with Grammy award-winners on their resume). Although the disc is a picture CD (at the microphone with his hat on for Nighthawks)  – when you open the digipak you're confronted with nothing - no photo on the left and nothing beneath the tray on the right. As with the booklet for "The Heart Of Saturday Night" – there are no new liner notes, no history (not even a catalogue number for the original release) and worse not a single extra track when these reissues have been screaming out for deluxe editions for years. At least the 20-page booklet allows you to slaver over page after page of lyrics that even 40-years after the event seem amazing. The 2LP set will also to be released on 180-GRAM VINYL in May 2018 with a download code built in (see list below).

So what do you get from your CD...what have the Naugahyde booths been whispering to the Stolly brunettes and Vermouth blondes...

UK and EUROPE released Friday, 23 March 2018 - "Nighthawks At The Diner" by TOM WAITS on Anti 7567-2 (Barcode 8714092756722) is a straightforward CD Reissue and Remaster of the 18-Track 1975 double-album originally on Asylum Records and plays out as follows (73:40 minutes):

1. (Opening Intro) [Side 1]

2. Emotional Weather Report

3. (Intro)

4. On A Foggy Night

5. (Intro)

6. Eggs And Sausage (In A Cadillac With Susan Michelson)

7. (Intro) [Side 2]

8. Better Off Without A Wife

9. Nighthawk Postcards (From Easy Street)

10. (Intro) [Side 3]

11. Warm Beer And Cold Women

12. (Intro)

13. Putnam County

14. Spares Parts 1 (A Nocturnal Emission)

15. Nobody [Side 4]

16. (Intro)

17. Big Joe And Phantom 309

18. Spare Parts II And Closing

Tracks 1 to 18 are his third album "Nighthawks At The Diner" (a 2LP set) - released October 1975 in the USA on Asylum Records 7E-2008 and December 1975 in the UK on Asylum SYSP 903 (reissued June 1976 on Asylum K 63002). Produced by BONES HOWE with all songs written by Tom Waits except "Big Joe And Phantom 309" by Tommy Faile and "Spare Parts 1 (A Nocturnal Emission)" by Chuck E. Weiss - it peaked at No. 164 on the US LP charts (didn't chart in the UK).

TOM WAITS - Vocals on all Tracks, Piano on Tracks 6, 8, 11, 13 and 15, Guitar on Tracks 4 and 17

MIKE MELVOIN - Piano on Tracks 2, 4, 9, 14 and 18, Electric Piano on Tracks 6, 8, 11 and 13

PETE CHRISTLIEB - Tenor Saxophone

JIM HUGHART - Upright Bass

BILL GOODWIN – Drums

The digipaks each come with a generic 'Newly Remastered with Waits/Brennan' sticker (Kathleen Brennan is his wife). But when you open this one only to be confronted by blank spaces on both sides and naught new - it all feels staggeringly lazy. Worse - instead of being a celebration of this American songwriter's magnificent catalogue – it comes across the same way the Neil Young reissues did – what could be gotten away with instead of giving fans something to get their teeth into. The inevitable 'unreleased stuff' Box Set will follow on Anti no doubt - thereby costing fans more dosh and yet another purchase. But let's concentrate on what is awesome - the amazing Audio...

Like all the others in the 2018 series - this CD is incredible sounding – Mastering Engineer PETER LYMAN having brought out every nuance of the original quality Production job done by Bones Howe back in July 1975 when the double-album was recorded in front of an invited audience. Every song feels new and up for grabs – the atmosphere tingling as he schmoozes from littered streets to boozy bars.

Waits shuffles into his seat, huffs, then the witty rapport begins and immediately the crowd are in his grasp. In "Emotional Weather Report" we're told of tornado watches issued early Saturday morning in case his heart explodes, precarious fronts coming at the northern portion of his mental health and a pressure ridge extending from his baby's cheeks down to the vice grips on his loins. The crowd whoops and hollers as "On A Foggy Night" leaves our hero stranded in nowheresville with no sign of a gas station for miles. The fantastic "Eggs And Sausage (In A Cadillac With Susan Michelson)" paints those nighthawks at the diner – Formica table, slice of toast, hash browns and refilled coffee as the singer tells us "...I'm a refugee from a disconcerted affair as the lead pipe morning falls and the waitress calls..."

The Hopper Painting personalities that fill his stories continue with "Better Off Without A Wife" where bachelors and bowery bums howl at the moon and curse trumpet players who have a way with the ladies. There are so many lyrics to the eleven and half minutes of "Nighthawk Postcards (From Easy Street)" - they take up nearly four and half pages in the booklet - more tales of hustlers over at Chubb's Pool & Snooker Hall - Tom quickly eyeballing the scene with his lips around a bottle neck and his foot on the throttle. The band has taken a break - so something by Tammy Wynette is on the joint’s jukebox in "Warm Beer And Cold Women" where the moon rises and men with tattoos drink deep as they eye the girls giggling over by the fluorescent tubing. Two-lane asphalt roads bristle with Stratocaster Guitars slung over the shoulders of small town Machiavelli types in the brilliant "Putnam County" while his cover of the countryish "Big Joe And Phantom 309" shows his love of storytelling and America's underdogs. I love it to bits...

So – storming great audio and musically the album is a stone five-star singer-songwriter winner - but naught a lot else. Fans will have to own them for sure given the sonic upgrade – but it’s just such a shame that Anti Records haven’t risen to his now legendary status and provided us with something actually worth getting giddy about - especially when it comes to an artist that so many of us have adored for so long.

Tom Waits' third "Nighthawks At The Diner" has always been the runt of his mighty litter somehow - a forgotten artefact – the kind of Seventies artistic splurge they really don't make anymore. But like so much of his fantastic output this twofer-onto-1CD is something that needs to be celebrated. Much like the great man himself. Yet another to buy and enjoy...

TOM WAITS - 2018 Reissue Series of CDs, LPs and Downloads on Anti Records

All CDs are in Card Digipaks, come with Booklets and Pic CDs but No Extras

"Closing Time" and "The Heart Of Saturday Night" released Friday, 9 March 2018 - the others released Friday, 23 March 2018

1. "Closing Time" (1973) – CD on Anti 7565-2 (Barcode 8714092756524)

LP released 9 March 2018 on Anti 7565-1 (Barcode 8714092756517)

2. "The Heart Of Saturday Night" (1974) – CD is on Anti 7566-2 (Barcode 8714092756623)

LP due 18 May 2018 on Anti 7566-1

3. "Nighthawks At The Diner" (1975 Live Double Album onto 1CD) - Anti 7567-2 (Barcode 8714092756722)

2LP Set due 18 May 2018 on Anti 7567-1

4. "Small Change" (1976) - Anti 7568-2 (Barcode 8714092756821)

LP due 8 June 2018 on Anti 7568-1

5. "Foreign Affairs" (1977) - Anti 7569-2 (Barcode 8714092756920)

6. "Blue Valentine" (1978) - Anti 7570-2 (Barcode 8714092757026)

7. "Heartattack And Vine" (1980) - Anti 7571-2 (Barcode 8714092757125)

"Closing Time" by TOM WAITS (March 2018 Anti Records CD Reissue and Remaster) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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"...Old Shoes And Picture Postcards..."

Virtually unnoticed in Blighty until Asylum reissued much of his Americana catalogue in the summer of 1976 (June to be exact) – Tom Waits' debut album "Closing Time" has had cover-version legs way beyond its humble Stateside beginnings in March of 1973. Marc Cohn did a gorgeous version of "I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You" as an exclusive track on the 2004 soundtrack to "The Prince & Me" - Juliet Turner and Brian Kennedy touched on the same song for her 2001 CD album "Burn The Black Suit" - Andrew Murray (vocalist with De Danaan) did "Old Shoes (And Picture Postcards)" for his fabulous "Hell Or High Water" Folk-Rock CD in 2005.

Even if the public didn't notice Waits and his battered-and-beautiful ballads at the time - other major artists did. Tim Buckley covered "Martha" on his 1973 Discreet Records set "Sefronia" - and a year after his debut was released - the Eagles did "Ol' '55" on their third album "On The Border" in March 1974 - the royalties from which probably kept TW in sausage and beer for a decade.

But when it comes to digital "Closing Time" has always been an album that has had occasional songs remastered onto well-meaning CD compilations and not the Full Monty. Here (at last) is the whole enchilada – even if the bare-bones nature of this 2018 reissue does let the side down a tad (no extras, two blank canvasses on the inside digipak, a functional booklet etc).

This new March 2018 variant now comes at us on Anti Records – home to his music since the much-praised "Mule Variations" album in 1999. You get a card digipak, a 16-page booklet that mimics the lyric-bag inner sleeve of the original 1973 American LP and best of all - a new upgraded Remaster (with artist involvement) done at Infrasonic Mastering in California by Peter Lyman that gives this under appreciated little nugget of an album a genuinely improved audio scrub-up.

There are seven titles in the reissue series covering his output on Asylum Records between 1973 and 1980 (see list below) – Anti releasing the debut "Closing Time" and his second "The Heart Of Saturday Night" on 9 March 2018 with the other five having followed 23 March 2018. All have CD and DL entries as of now with the 180-GRAM VINYL LP issues being spread out across the year. The bad news is that there’s nothing new – the booklets and digipaks are nice enough but offer no updated liner notes, no history, no photos and worse – no extras at all - when his catalogue from this period has been screaming out for Deluxe Editions for decades. But the audio is sensational. So let's deal with what we do have...

UK released Friday, 9 March 2018 - "Closing Time" by TOM WAITS on Anti 7565-2 (Barcode 8714092756524) is a straightforward CD Remaster of his 12-track 1973 Debut LP and plays out as follows (49:37 minutes):

1. Ol' '55 [Side 1]

2. I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You

3. Virginia Avenue

4. Old Shoes (& Picture Postcards)

5. Midnight Lullaby

6. Martha

7. Rosie [Side 2]

8. Lonely

9. Ice Cream Man

10. Little Trip To Heaven (On The Wings Of Your Love)

11. Grapefruit Moon

12. Closing Time

Tracks 1 to 12 are his debut album "Closing Time" - released March 1973 in the USA on Asylum Records SD-5061 and May 1973 in the UK on Asylum SYL 9007 (re-issued June 1976 on Asylum K 53030). Produced by JERRY YESTER (of The Lovin' Spoonful) - it didn't chart in either country.

TOM WAITS –Vocals (All Tracks), Piano (Tracks 1, 3 and 5 to 12), Guitar (Tracks 2 and 4), Harmonium (Track 2), Harpsichord (Track 6) and Celeste (Track 9)

PETER KLIMES – Guitar (Tracks 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 10), 6-String Guitar and Pedal Steel Guitar (Track 7)

SHEP COOKE – Guitar (Track 4) and 6-String Guitar (Track 2)

DELBERT BENNETT – Trumpet (Tracks 3, 5 and 10)

BILL PLUMMER – Bass (Tracks 1 to 5, 7, 9 and 10)

JOHN SEITER – Drums (Tracks 1, 3, 4, 5, 7 and 9)

JESSE EHRLICH – Cello (Track 12)

ARNI EGILSSON- Double Bass (Track 12)

TONY TERRAN – Trumpet (Track 12)

JERRY YESTER – String Arrangement (Track 11)

The 16-page booklet reproduces the lyrics from the single-sleeve LP – something many British fans never saw because they weren't in either of the UK issues on vinyl (the 1973 Asylum SYL 9007 pressing is incredibly rare because it sold absolute zip) and you also get musician credits and basic reissue details – but naught else.

TOM WAITS, KATHLEEN BRENNAN and KARL DERFLER supervised the new remaster with final mastering done by the award-winning PETER LYMAN at his Infrasonic Mastering Studios in California. In keeping with the simple and uncluttered production values Jerry Yester (of The Lovin' Spoonful) gave the album in the first place - this transfer sounds beautiful in every way. There's very little hiss but loads of presence and body and at times the intimacy is spine tingling - a gorgeous job done...

Asylum tried the opener "Ol' '55" as a lone US 7" single two months before the album's release - January 1973's Asylum AS-11014 having the LP's "Midnight Lullaby" as its flipside - but it tanked. Amazingly Waits would have to wait until April 1979 in the UK to see a 45-release - "Somewhere" b/w "Red Shoes From The Drugstore" from his masterpiece "Blue Valentine" album (Elektra K 12347) and even then word is that that release was withdrawn. What’s not in dispute here is the Audio - as he counts in one, two, three, four and the piano kicks in – the effect is fantastic. Riding with lady luck is right – lead the parade indeed. For me though his songwriting genius begins with the crowded bar song "I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You" – Tom lights his cigarette (hasn't the guts to bum one), orders another stout and tries to contain his tom-cat feelings for the girl on the next stool. The fantastic sleaze-bag poor-boy piano Blues of "Virginia Avenue" features end-of-the-night guitar licks from Peter Klimes and boozy Trumpet phrases from Delbert Bennett - both of which are now more pronounced.

I've never heard the Shep Cooke acoustic guitars of the truly beautiful TW ballad "Old Shoes (& Picture Postcards)" sound so good as TW revels in the spark, the girl with the sun in her eyes, but the call of the road is too strong - so it's tears, farewell and then - he's gone. Guy Davis does a wonderful cover of "Midnight Lullaby" on his 2007 CD set "Down At The Sea Hotel" - singing a song of sixpence with a pocket full of rye. Speaking of covers - "Martha" has been tapped by so many - Ireland's gravel-vocalist Freddie White in 1981 - Scotland's Hue & Cry in 1994 and Hell even Meatloaf had a go on his "Welcome To The Neighborhood" album in 1995. Here it’s Tom, his piano, harpsichord, a string section and unidentified vocals. Quiet evenings trembling close to you - the Remaster on "Martha" is so damn good – fans will indeed be a wee bit achy to this.

Side 2's "Rosie" is even better - a song I've never heard sound so sweet. There's a wonderful Eagles amble to the melody as Robert Klimes does some lovely understated pedal-steel guitar - Tom singing about loving Rosie of the Moon until the day he dies (if he can persuade here that is to return the compliment). The weary and eerie "Lonely" has acoustic piano notes lingering around your speakers as Tom's voice mumbles about Melanie Jane's eyes and face - both looking lonely in a lonely place. "Ice Cream Man" is the only song on the album where it sounds odd - like he's trying too hard - the fast pace and one-man-band lyrics all feel forced and unconvincing. Better is "Little Trip To Heaven (On The Wings Of Your Love)" where Tom doesn't have to go to outer space - all he has to do is gawk at her face - Delbert Bennett's trumpet playing mimicking his hoppity-skippity shoe-be-do heart. A fabulous debut closes with two winners - the no-star-shining "Grapefruit Moon" and the do-one-for-posterity instrumental "Closing Time" - both sounding utterly glorious - bigger than they've ever been. Wowser... 

Could these 2018 reissues have been Deluxe Editions with Bonus Tracks and Unreleased – of course! But given the immense Audio upgrade – I’d still say they’re worth the money and are absolute must-haves for fans.

I know I can't be rational about Tom Waits - I've always thought him God and re-listening to this forgotten nugget only hammers home that assertion with a mallet and a bullet with my name on it. Explore this man’s work – the payoff will be immense and expect to be at that shopping basket for the other six...

TOM WAITS - March 2018 

Reissue Series of CDs, LPs and Downloads on Anti Records

All CDs are in Card Digipaks, come with Booklets and Pic CDs but No Extras

"Closing Time" and "The Heart Of Saturday Night" released Friday, 9 March 2018 

- The others all released Friday, 23 March 2018

1. "Closing Time" (1973) - Anti 7565-2 (Barcode 8714092756524) - CD/LP is Anti 7565-1 (Barcode 8714092756517)

2. "The Heart Of Saturday Night" (1974) - Anti 7566-2 (Barcode 8714092756623)/LP due May 2018

3. "Nighthawks At The Diner" (1975 Live Double onto 1CD) - Anti 7567-2 (Barcode 8714092756722)/LP due May 2018

4. "Small Change" (1976) - Anti 7568-2 (Barcode 8714092756821)/LP due May 2018

5. "Foreign Affairs" (1977) - Anti 7569-2 (Barcode 8714092756920)

6. "Blue Valentine" (1978) - Anti 7570-2 (Barcode 8714092757026)

7. "Heartattack And Vine"(1980) - Anti 7571-2 (Barcode 8714092757125)

"Blue Valentine" by TOM WAITS (March 2018 Anti Records CD Reissue - Waits/Brennan/Derfler/Lyman Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

This Review Along With 300+ Others Is Available In My

SOUNDS GOOD E-Book on all Amazon sites

1960s and 1970s MUSIC ON CD - Volume 2 of 3 

- Exceptional CD Remasters

As well as 1960s and 1970s Rock and Pop - It Also Focuses On

Folk, Folk Rock, Country Rock, Reggae, Punk and New Wave

Just Click Below To Purchase for £3.95

Thousands of E-Pages - All Details and In-Depth Reviews From Discs
(No Cut and Paste Crap)

"...Take A Rusty Nail And Scratch Your Initials On My Arms..."

Last reissued February 1993 by Elektra Records on CD in a jewel case with 20-page booklet and a lovely Zal Schreiber Remaster (done at Atlantic Studios in New York) – this new March 2018 variant now comes at us on Anti Records – home to his music since "Mule Variations" in 1999. You get a card digipak, a 24-page booklet and best of all - a new upgraded Remaster (with artist involvement) done at Infrasonic Mastering in California by Peter Lyman that gives this great album a genuinely improved audio scrub-up. And man - am I one excited little 2018 Easter Bunny!

In fact between 1973 and 1980 - Tom Waits put out a string of seven fabulous albums on Asylum Records - and I've long argued a case for owning the whole damn shooting match. But if I was dragged through a thorn bush packed with wasp nests in my delightful and beautifully proportioned altogether and unless I named a meisterwerk I'd be dragged back again but this time smeared in natural honey and crushed bits of Cadbury’s Crunchie - 1978's "Blue Valentine" would be my desert island disc.

Everything about this record is magical to me (the trio of "Small Change", "Foreign Affairs" and "Heartattack And Vine" gave it a good run for the money too) because this is where his Bukowski persona gelled in every way. The whimsical tunes - the jagged rhythms - the astonishing and knowing lyrics - even finding space to evoke beauty amidst the rubble, used needles and down-at-heel street types ("Kentucky Avenue"). I love this album and as the vinyl has become a known rarity since its release - this remastered CD, DL and Vinyl LP reissue gives me another excuse to extol its divinity-like healing properties. Here are the red shoes at the drugstore...

UK released Friday, 23 March 2018 - "Blue Valentine" by TOM WAITS on Anti 7570-2 (Barcode 8714092757026) is a straightforward CD Remaster of the 10-track 1978 LP and plays out as follows (49:37 minutes):

1. Somewhere (From "West Side Story") [Side 1]

2. Red Shoes By The Drugstore

3. Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis

4. Romeo Is Bleeding

5. $29.00

6. Wrong Side Of The Road [Side 2]

7. Whistlin' Past The Graveyard

8. Kentucky Avenue

9. A Sweet Little Bullet From A Pretty Blue Gun

10. Blue Valentines

Tracks 1 to 10 are his fifth studio album "Blue Valentine" (6th LP overall) - released November 1978 in the USA on Asylum Records 6E-162 and December 1978 in the UK on Asylum K 53088. Produced by BONES HOWE - it peaked at No. 181 in the USA but didn't chart in the UK (the lady slumped over the Thunderbird car on the rear sleeve is his then girlfriend Rickie Lee Jones).

TOM WAITS –Vocals (All Tracks), Acoustic Piano (Tracks 3 and 8), Electric Guitar (Tracks 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 10)

GERGE DUKE as DA WILLIE GANGA – Yamaha Electric Piano (Track 2) and Yamaha Electric Grand Piano (Tracks 3 and 5)

ROLAND BAUTISTA – Electric Guitar (Tracks 2, 5)

“Shine” ROBINSON – Electric Guitar (Track 9)

RAY CRAWFORD – Electric Guitar (Tracks 4, 6 and Solo on Track 10)

CHARLES KYNARD – Organ (Tracks 4, 6)

HAROLD BATTISTE – Piano (Tracks 7 and 9

FRANK VICARI – Tenor Saxophone (Tracks 4, 6)

HERBERT HARDESTY – Tenor Saxophone (Tracks 7 and 9)

JIM HUGHART – Double Bass (Tracks 4, 6)

BYRON MILLER – Bass (Tracks 2, 5)

SCOTT EDWARDS – Bass (Tracks 7 and 9)

RICK LAWSON - Drums (Tracks 2, 5)

CHIP WHITE – Drums (Tracks 4, 6)

EARL PALMER – Drums (Tracks 7and 9)

BOBBYE HALL – Congas (Track 4)

BOB ALCIVAR – Conducted and Arranged Orchestra on Track 8

The 1993 CD reissue comes with an unusually classy 20-page booklet filled with those all-important and all-consuming lyrics but no photos unfortunately. Here we don’t really get much more (24 pages), except of course a slightly different re-issue credits page and the centre-page spread reflecting the photograph on the LP’s inner gatefold. But we do get is a new Remaster supervised by TOM WAITS, KATHLEEN BRENNAN and KARL DERFLER with mastering done by the award-winning PETER LYMAN at his Infrasonic Mastering Studios in California. In keeping with the lush production values Bones Howe gave the album in the first place - this transfer sounds beautiful in every way. There's very little hiss but loads of presence and body and at times the intimacy is spine tingling - a gorgeous job done...

It opens with Bernstein's "Somewhere" from West Side Story - strings and his gargled-gravel-for-breakfast vocals - a perfect start to this lounge lizard of an LP. "...There's a dark huddle at the bus stop...umbrellas arranged in a sad bouquet..." - the lyrics to "Red Shoes By The Drugstore" are typical of his observational brilliance - scenes are full of rain-washed sidewalks - dogs baying at the moon and Santa Claus drunk in the ski room. Even better is "Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis" which gives us a pregnant 'lady of the night' living on 9th street above a dirty book store who has quit drinking whiskey (while her old man works out down at the track) but has misplaced her Little Anthony and The Imperials album. Waits songs are like this - you laugh one moment - but the next you think about that someone with all their hopes and dreams and how his conduit music has chronicled their shot at happiness - not laughed at them - but told their story with heart and an admiration that isn't some politician condescending.

"…They all know they could be like Romeo…if they only had the guts…" - Waits croaks admiringly on a sleazy "Romeo Is Bleeding" – a tale about a street rat who puts out cigarettes in his hand but comes a cropper when he tackles the law. Bleeding now in his car – Romeo finally ends up on the balcony of a local movie house that has Jimmy Cagney doing his tough guy Mobster routine on an oldies re-run. Romeo watches in admiration and dies without a whimper. Side 1 ends on a long slow jazz-shuffle masterpiece – all caressed high-hats and rolling piano notes - the barroom slink of "$29.00". Waits sets-the-scene with lyrics like "...it's cold back in Chicago...but in Los Angeles it's worse...when all you got is $29.00 and an alligator purse..." And then rubs sand in the ointment when a shyster convinces the girl of the story that he knows a good hotel in West Hollywood – smiling like a good Samaritan as he plays Pharaoh Sanders on his 8-track thinking about his future financial reimbursements...

Songs like "Whistlin Past The Graveyard" and "A Sweet Little Bullet From A Pretty Blue Gun" gives us more of the same - but the tune that genuinely moves me to tears is "Kentucky Avenue". Our family has a son with Autism who is 25 now – each of us having clocked up a lifetime of hurt and pain that is part and parcel with this impenetrable condition. And somehow hooking into that - there's something about the lyrics to this cry for understanding "...I'll steal a hacksaw from my Dad...and cut the braces from your legs...and we'll bury them tonight in the cornfield..." that slaughters me every time. This is a song where someone take the spokes from a young boy’s wheelchair and then "... we'll hop a freight train in the hall...and we'll slide down the drain...all the way to New Orleans in the fall…" Beautiful and poetic – like TW’s soul.

A rare and precious talent - mad as a camel on LSD that spits twice as much - Tom Waits is all these things. But what gets me is that he does just that - all the greats do - they get to you - and his 1978 album "Blue Valentine" still does.

Could these 2018 reissues have been Deluxe Editions with Bonus Tracks and Unreleased – of course! But given the immense Audio upgrade – I’d still say they’re worth the money and are absolute must-haves for fans.

Explore this man’s work – the payoff will be immense and expect to be at that shopping basket for the other six...

TOM WAITS - March 2018 

Reissue Series of CDs, LPs and Downloads on Anti Records

All CDs are in Card Digipaks, come with Booklets and Pic CDs but No Extras

"Closing Time" and "The Heart Of Saturday Night" released Friday, 9 March 2018 

- The others all released Friday, 23 March 2018

1. "Closing Time" (1973) - Anti 7565-2 (Barcode 8714092756524) - CD/LP is Anti 7565-1 (Barcode 8714092756517)

2. "The Heart Of Saturday Night" (1974) - Anti 7566-2 (Barcode 8714092756623)/LP due May 2018

3. "Nighthawks At The Diner" (1975 Live Double onto 1CD) - Anti 7567-2 (Barcode 8714092756722)/LP due May 2018

4. "Small Change" (1976) - Anti 7568-2 (Barcode 8714092756821)/LP due May 2018

5. "Foreign Affairs" (1977) - Anti 7569-2 (Barcode 8714092756920)

6. "Blue Valentine" (1978) - Anti 7570-2 (Barcode 8714092757026)

7. "Heartattack And Vine"(1980) - Anti 7571-2 (Barcode 8714092757125)

"Small Change" by TOM WAITS (March 2018 Anti Records CD Reissue - Waits/Brennan/Derfler/Lyman Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

This Review Along With Almost 300 Others Is Available In My

SOUNDS GOOD E-Book on all Amazon sites

1960s and 1970s MUSIC ON CD - Volume 3 of 3

- Exceptional CD Remasters

As well as 1960s and 1970s Rock and Pop - It Also Focuses On

Blues Rock, Prog Rock, Psych, Avant Garde, Underground

Folk-Rock, Singer-Songwriter, Country Rock and more

Just Click Below To Purchase for £3.95

Thousands of E-Pages - All Details and In-Depth Reviews From Discs

(No Cut and Paste Crap)

"...Drive It Away Today...Step Right Up!..."

As I said in my review of the 2018 CD reissue for "The Heart Of Saturday Night" - DAMN and DOUBLE DRAT! What you get here folks is fantastic audio (really, really great) for the albums but bare bones anything else – and all of it housed in very lacklustre even (in some cases) sloppy packaging.

Like so many lifetime fans I've been waiting just that for decent affordable Remasters of Tom Waits stunning Asylum Years catalogue stretching from 1973 to 1980. And here they are in March 2018 on Anti Records CDs, DLs and LPs – his musical home since "Mule Variations" won awards galore in 1999. But even though the CDs are priced at just under a tenner in the UK (and the corresponding dollar rate in the USA) – knowing what Anti could have been given us and outside of the sound – they’re hugely disappointing on almost every other front.

Each reissue is housed in a faded card digipak, has a picture CD of sorts, a booklet and new Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan/Karl Derfler supervised tape transfers – mastered in turn by Peter Lyman at his Infrasonic Mastering Studios in California (a renowned studio with Grammy award-winners on their resume). The 20-page booklet provides lyrics and album credits but bugger all else. In a booklet with only lyrics on offer - instead of actually giving you the myriad words to the witty "Step Right Up" – we get the original album credit that asks you to send off an SAE and get the lyrics by return from a Young Tom Waits! You open the digipak to "Small Change" and you're confronted with nothing - no photo on the left and nothing beneath the tray on the right. As with the booklet for "The Heart Of Saturday Night" – there are no new liner notes, no history (not even a catalogue number for the original release) and worse not a single extra track when these reissues have been screaming out for deluxe editions for years. It's hugely disappointing. But at least the first four Remastered titles are also to be released on 180-GRAM VINYL with a download code built in (see list below). So what do you get from your CD...what has the piano been drinking (and not me)...

UK and EUROPE released Friday, 9 March 2018 - "Small Change" by TOM WAITS on Anti 7566-2 (Barcode 8714092756821) is a straightforward CD Reissue and Remaster of the 11-Track 1976 album originally on Asylum Records USA (1977 UK release) and plays out as follows (49:57 minutes):

1. Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets To The Wind In Copenhagen) [Side 1]

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)

6. Invitation To The Blues [Side 2]

7. Pasties And A G-String (At The Two O'Clock Club)

8. Bad Liver And A Broken Heart (In Lowell)

9. The One That Got Away

10. Small Change (Got Rained On With His Own .38)

11. I Can't Wait To Get Off Work (And See My Baby On Montgomery Avenue)

Tracks 1 to 11 are his fourth album "Small Change" - released October 1976 in the USA on Asylum Records 7E-1078 and May 1977 (belatedly) in the UK on Asylum K 53050. Produced by BONES HOWE with all songs written by Tom Waits - it peaked at No. 89 on the US LP charts (didn't chart in the UK).

TOM WAITS - Vocals and Piano on all Tracks

LEW TABACKIN - Tenor Saxophone

JIM HUGHART - Upright Bass

SHELLY MANNE – Drums

JERRY YESTER - String Section Arrangements and Conducting of Violins, Violas and Cellos

The digipaks are pretty - each coming with a generic 'Newly Remastered with Waits/Brennan' sticker (Kathleen Brennan is his wife). But when you open this digipak to be confronted by a smoking-cigarette picture disc with nothing else on the flap or beneath the see-through tray - it all feels staggeringly lazy. Worse - instead of being a celebration of this American songwriter's magnificent catalogue – it comes across the same way the Neil Young reissues did – what could be gotten away with instead of giving fans something to get their teeth into. The inevitable ‘unreleased stuff’ Box Set will follow on Anti no doubt - thereby costing fans more dosh and yet another purchase. But let's concentrate on what is awesome - the amazing Audio...

Weighing in at just under 50-minutes, "Small Change" was always a sonically compromised beast on original vinyl – no such problem here. This CD is incredible sounding – Mastering Engineer PETER LYMAN having brought out every nuance of the original quality Production job done by Bones Howe back in July 1976 when the album was recorded at Wally Heider Studios in California. Every song feels new and up for grabs.

The two points of CD Remaster reference for this 1976 material are Lee Herschberg and his work on the 1986 truncated CD reissue of the 1984 double-album "Asylum Years" - and then later by Elektra/Rhino's Dan Hersch and Bill Inglot on the fabulous "Used Songs 1973-1980" CD compilation from 2001 (see separate review for that release). But here the audio is so much more – amazing clarity and not uber-trebled for the sake of it. Even more prominent than the fretwork he showed on 1974’s "The Heart Of Saturday Night" - the sliding upright double-bass notes of James Hughart leap off almost every song like a dancing dervish. When you then take the near 15-piece mini-orchestra Waits used on emotional ballads like the Waltzing Mathilda song "Tom Traubert’s Blues", the whiskey-drinking pool-playing friends singing When The Saints Go Marching In during "I Wish I Was In New Orleans..." or the World War II jitterbug rhythms and sales patter in the mighty "Step Right Up" – the effect is powerful to say the least. One minute he’s ripping your broken-soldier heart out – the next making you howl with laughter at that slipper at large behind the chase lounge for months.

But what gets me about "Small Change" the album is that not only is his cigarette-ash crumpled-suit Bukowski-persona in full throttle and with devastating wit and pathos taboot – the whole record is good – Waits’ ability to move both your head and heart is on fire - like a Bursen Burner aimed at your vital areas and it ain’t gonna miss. Songs like "Jitterbug Boy" feature him growling on a piano as he sings about Mulligans, Rocky Marciano and Minnesota Fats, Fast Women and even Faster Horses and Unreliable Sources – but amidst all this gigglesome mirth is a low-life, a bum just hoping for a break and somehow Waits make you empathise with him and his huge dreams. Again in "The Piano Has Been Drinking" he manages to make his plinking notes seem Jack Daniels legless – with the balcony on the make and the carpet needs a haircut and the tuner’s got a hearing aid and the owner is a mental midget with the IQ of a fencepost...

Other mini operas include the greasy spoon images of "Invitation To The Blues" where the waitress stands by the register with an apron and a spatula and used dockets from bachelors who battle with the booze. Waits scats "Pasties & A G-String" as he eulogises Chesty Morgan and Watermelon Rose in their fishnet-stockings and spiked high-heels hustling the early-bird suckers at the burlesque show. It isn’t long before he’s melancholy again – a gargles-gravel-for-breakfast voice tells us he hasn’t got a drinking problem unless he can’t get a drink in "Bad Liver And A Broken Heart" – sat precariously on a barstool looking for quarters to call his baby – but is unable to get away from the bottom of a bottle of bargain scotch. He goes full-on easy-street sleaze with the brilliant "The One That Got Away" where shroud tailors and tired ambulance drivers and stage door johnnies and whiskey spilling Andre are singing songs and talking about the...you guessed it! The lyrics in "Small Change (Got Rained On With His Own .38)" may one day end up in textbooks as far as I’m concerned - topics include fire hydrants that plead the Fifth Amendment, furniture bargains, drugstore prophylactics and a lunatic Newsboy with questionable stains on his pants – all while a lonesome saxophone accompanies Tom and his Lucky Strike warbling. Busting your chops baby...

So – storming great audio and musically the album is a stone five-star singer-songwriter winner - but naught a lot else. Fans will have to own them for sure given the sonic upgrade – but it’s just such a shame that Anti Records haven’t risen to his now legendary status and provided us with something actually worth getting giddy about - especially when it comes to an artist that so many of us have adored for so long.

Tom Waits' "Small Change" is a forgotten masterpiece for me – the kind of Seventies album they really don’t make anymore and something that needs and should be celebrated. Much like the great man himself. Buy and enjoy...

TOM WAITS - March 2018 

Reissue Series of CDs, LPs and Downloads on Anti Records

All CDs are in Card Digipaks, come with Booklets and Pic CDs but No Extras

"Closing Time" and "The Heart Of Saturday Night" released Friday, 9 March 2018 
The others all released Friday, 23 March 2018

1. "Closing Time" (1973) - Anti 7565-2 (Barcode 8714092756524) - CD/LP is Anti 7565-1 (Barcode 8714092756517)

2. "The Heart Of Saturday Night" (1974) - Anti 7566-2 (Barcode 8714092756623)/LP due May 2018

3. "Nighthawks At The Diner" (1975 Live Double onto 1CD) - Anti 7567-2 (Barcode 8714092756722)/LP due May 2018

4. "Small Change" (1976) - Anti 7568-2 (Barcode 8714092756821)/LP due May 2018

5. "Foreign Affairs" (1977) - Anti 7569-2 (Barcode 8714092756920)

6. "Blue Valentine" (1978) - Anti 7570-2 (Barcode 8714092757026)

7. "Heartattack And Vine"(1980) - Anti 7571-2 (Barcode 8714092757125)