Notes & Personnel Info |  | Personnel: Tom Waits (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, piano); Bette Midler (vocals); Roland Bautista (electric & 12-string guitars); Alvin "Shine" Robinson, Peter Klimes, Ray Crawford (guitar); Murray Adler, Israel Baker, Harry Bluestone, Nathan Kaproff, George Kast, Marvin Limonick, Alfred Lustgarten, Nathan Ross, Sheldon Sanov (violin); Sam Boghossian, Allan Harshman, David Schwartz (viola); Jesse Ehrlich, Ray Kelley, Ed Lustgarten, Kathleen Lustgarten (cello); Plas Johnson (tenor & baritone saxophones); Frank Vicari, Pete Christlieb, Herbert Hardesty, Lew Tabackin (tenor saxophone); Jack Sheldon (trumpet); Harold Batiste, Ronny Barron (piano); Mike Melvoin, DaWillie Gonga (electric piano); Charles Kynard (organ); Victor Feldman (keyboards, glockenspiel, percussion); Greg Cohen, Bill Plummer, Scott Edwards, Jim Hughart, Larry Taylor (bass); John Seiter (drums, background vocals); Chip White, John Thomassie, Bill Goodwin, Earl Palmer, Shelly Manne (drums). | | Engineers include: Richie Moore, Bones Howe, Geoff Howe. | | Includes liner notes by Charles Schwab, Hal Wilner, Jon Landau. | | Digitally remastered by Dan Hersch, Bill Inglot (Digiprep). | | While Tom Waits would come to be best known for the innovative work that followed his stylistic reinvention/deconstruction in the 1980s, that material could not have existed without the groundwork he laid down throughout his Elektra tenure of the '70s. During this period, he mastered the songwriting craft while working a Hoagy Carmichael-meets-Jack Kerouac persona that made him one of the most memorable, idiosyncratic characters of the '70s singer/songwriter crop. While peers were plucking gentle acoustic guitars and singing sweetly of tender feelings, Waits was drunkenly pounding a barroom piano, howling in a Wolfman Jack-sings-the-blues voice about the seedy underbelly of the American Dream. His musical language was rooted solidly in jazz, blues, and the Great American Songbook, while his lyrical bent showed he'd spent as much time absorbing Charles Bukowski as he had internalizing Ira Gershwin. USED SONGS covers this vital period of Waits's career in a concise manner, from the down-and-out saloon songs to the dreamy, jazz-tinged reveries and bluesy stompers. |
Producer: Jerry Yester; Bones Howe |
Musical Guests | | Bette Midler |
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