LWA Blog — tom waits

Are you still stumbling into the new year and trying to find your footing? Record of the Week is here to help you sit and spend a little time with yourself and take a break from negotiating the horrors of the world outside. This week, the Randomizer is suggesting you take some comfort in a stone cold classic, Tom Waits' Nighthawks at the Diner (1975). I'm spinning this lovely red copy that I was able to pick up when ANTI Records posted when an intern apparently "found" a box of them hidden away somewhere. This album has been in my...

Tom Waits' Closing Time is hitting its 50th anniversary (6 March 1973). This album kicked off the career of an American original. He was already five albums deep by the time I found him (Blue Valentine 1978). I was 13 or 14, and I had just gotten into Rickie Lee Jones' excellent first album (self-titled 1979). I remember reading some piece in which the author called her "the female Tom Waits." So I looked into it and found out that they were even romantically entangled for a bit, and RLJ was on the back cover of Blue Valentine. I also discovered my birthplace...