Last year saw a wave of early Tom Waits re-issues of albums that had been originally released on Elektra Asylum Records in the 1970s. They included his debut album ‘Closing Time’ along with ‘Heart of Saturday Night’, ‘Nighthawks at the Diner’, ‘Small Change’, ‘Foreign Affairs’, ‘Blue Valentine’ and ‘Heartattack and Vine’. ‘Closing Time’ was released in 1973, so newcomers to the gravel-voiced troubadour have five decades of discovery to enjoy and that is clearly what they’re doing if the numbers on Spotify are anything to go by.
Visually, Waits’ music conjures all sorts of imagery. For some, it’s midnight neon lights, a water-stained paperback poetry book alongside a lone piano player, armed with a tumbler of whiskey singing to the denizens of city’s underbelly. That rasping trademark voice has increased in coarseness since his debut, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the inherent beauty of those lyrics and their fragility which have stood the test of time.
On 6th December, the day before Tom Waits reaches seventy years of age, Dualtone Music will release a special tribute album to celebrate the troubadour’s birthday. On “Come On Up To The House: Women Sing Waits”, they have gathered a group of amazing female singers to work their magic and bring the beauty of those songs to the fore – Aimee Mann, Joseph, Patty Griffin, Rosanne Cash, Phoebe Bridgers, Corinne Bailey Rae, Angie McMahon, Courtney Marie Andrews.
Come On Up To The House: Women Sing Waits features new renditions of Tom Waits’ classic songs and some under-the-radar favourites. The album is produced by artist, author, composer and lifelong Waits fan Warren Zanes, who also wrote the insightful and personal liner notes essay.
From Warren Zanes, producer: “The Waits songs I was hearing through these women were breathing differently and deeply. In just the way Dylan cuts the definitive version but never stakes out the song’s territory in a way that leaves no room for majestic covers, the recordings I was gathering were showing me the remarkable strength, the resonance of Waits’ stuff. No one took ownership of the material, it was all on loan, still belonged to Tom Waits. But what a series of loans! And that’s how it is with the very, very best songs. It all brought me back to the Tom Waits I’d begun to see an outline of as a young man, back to the Waits my mother brought into the family dining room. That strange and beautiful character who seemed to belong to no one. Who I now believe belongs to us all.”
Tracklist
01. Joseph – Come On Up To The House
02. Aimee Mann – Hold On
03. Phoebe Bridgers – Georgia Lee
04. Shelby Lynn & Allison Moorer – Ol’ 55
05. Angie McMahon – Take It With Me
06. Corinne Bailey Rae – Jersey Girl
07. Patty Griffin – Ruby’s Arms
08. Rosanne Cash – Time
09. Kat Edmondson – You Can Never Hold Back Spring
10. Iris Dement – House Where Nobody Lives
11. Courtney Marie Andrews – Downtown Train
12. The Wild Reeds – Tom Traubert’s Blues
Come On Up To The House: Women Sing Waits is released on 6th December via Dualtone Music. Pre-Order here