It's time for another early Tom Waits album (his second), picked up along the way. No real story here, I've already mentioned my relatively late discovery of Waits, which gave me a huge back catalogue to explore.
This marks the start of his 'dissolute barroom singer' telling beatnik tales of the seamier side of life.
Opening with the bluesy New Coat Of Paint, an easygoing song to kick off, before the slower San Diego Serenade, a nice song, but sounding a bit too syrupy to me, with its string accompaniment. Semi Suite is much more jazz influenced, and allows Waits to indulge his rambling vocal style to great effect. It's followed by Shiver Me Timbers, a gentle piano ballad, again spoiled by the strings to my ears, but we're soon treated to Jim Hughart's magical bass taking us into Diamonds On My Windshield, and accompanying Waits' smooth vocals. Just lovely. And if you thought the first half had peaked, think again, because The Heart Of Saturday Night follows, Waits' tale of the weekend revels, with a gentle guitar and double bass backing him. This, for me, is up there with anything in Waits' early catalogue.
Fumblin' With The Blues is a pleasant jazz/blues number, but nothing remarkable, and Please Call Me Baby another over-stringed underwhelming song, while Depot Depot takes a well trodden blues route. Drunk On The Moon is a much more interesting piece, a piano ballad with a jazz accompaniment, which the production team has left quite bare to good effect, and it leads us to the finale, one man and his piano in The Ghosts Of Saturday Night, more spoken than sung, a beautiful 'end of the evening' barroom drawl.
There's a lot to enjoy here, even if at times the addition of strings seems superfluous, even detracting from the strength of Waits' songs. And while there's a couple of classics, there's much that is pleasant listening, but not much more.
3* - a good Tom Waits album, with a couple of stand out songs.
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