#339 - Tom Waits - The Hear of Saturday Night (1974)

MUSIC HISTORY COMPILED BY ADAM BERNARD:

TOM WAITS BIO

The American composer and musician was born in Pomona, CA in 1949. Inspired by Bob Dylan (he used to place transcriptions of his lyrics on his bedroom wall) and the Beat Generation, his music career began as a teenager in a high school band he described later on as "white kids trying to get that Motown sound". Some of his other influences include Ray Charles, James Brown, and Roy Orbison. He worked at a coffee house called the Heritage in the late 1960s in San Diego, playing Dylan covers and some original material. With only so many places to play in San Diego, he would commute to Los Angeles to play the Troubadour before moving there in 1972. He worked as a songwriter before signing a record contract with Asylum Records. He released his first album called Closing Time in 1973, but didn't achieve much success with it. The album had much more of a folksy feel to it, which would change for today's album when the producer selected for the album had more of a jazz background. 

His lyrics often focus on the underbelly of society and delivered in his trademark voice. He would go on to release 15 more albums through 2011, the same year he was inducted in to the RnR Hall of Fame.  

He was ranked #55 on RS Top 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time. *In case you were curious - Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Chuck Berry, Smokey Robinson, Mick Jagger/Keith Richards, Carole King/Gerry Goffin, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell & Stevie Wonder are the Top 10.

BACKGROUND – THE HEART OF SATURDAY NIGHT

This is the 2nd studio album released by the American singer songwriter. At this point in his career, it reflected his lyrical interest in nightlife, poverty, and criminality. Waits himself was later dismissive of the album, describing it as "very ill-formed, but I was trying". This album is considered a bridge between the singer-songwriter side of Waits and the jazzier "Small Change" (released in 1976). 

The album marks the start of a decade-long collaboration between Waits and record producer and engineer Bones Howe, who produced and engineered all Waits' recordings until the artist left Asylum. Howe recounts his first encounter with the young artist: "I told him I thought his music and lyrics had a Kerouac quality to them, and he was blown away that I knew who Jack Kerouac was. I told him I also played jazz drums and he went wild. Then I told him that when I was working for Norman Granz, and Norman had found these tapes of Kerouac reading his poetry from The Beat Generation in a hotel room. I told Waits I'd make him a copy. That sealed it." 

The album cover is based on Frank Sinatra's "In the Wee Small Hours". It is an illustration of a tired Waits being observed by a woman as he exits a neon-lit cocktail lounge at night.