Cold Beer On A Hot Night

Description

LATE 1970s BROADCAST RECORDING FROM SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA Having received overwhelmingly positive reviews for his 1976 album Small Change, Tom Waits next two offerings were more subdued, both musically and lyrically, but equally well received and engaging. Foreign Affairs, released in September 1977, featured a guest appearance by Bette Midler on I Never Talk To Strangers, and in completion was a bluesy/jazzy affair that continued the development of the style he began on his 1973 debut. Blue Valentine, a year later, followed similar lines and included the scat-style Romeo Is Bleeding, heavily influenced by word jazz supremo Ken Nordine. Even at this stage, change was in the air, as Waits began to move away from his typical crooning pianist motif and began focusing more on electric guitar and keyboard. This recording, captured at the State Theatre, Sydney, Australia in March 1979, features a captivating performance by Tom Waits from a time when the maverick crooner was on the cusp of a major change in the style and substance of his recorded output and his live shows. The material performed here comes largely from what were his most recent three albums at the time, with classics like Tom Traubert s Blues and Jitterbug Boy rubbing shoulders with newer cuts like Red Shoes By The Drugstore. A number of covers, including Gerswin s Summertime, a delightful Do The Hokey Pokey, and a haunting Since I Fell For You - albeit one replete with a typical amusing Waits narrative inserted - make for a nice diversion from the records, but the show hangs together perfectly as only a Tom Waits performance can, with the songs and chat part of a silky smooth delivery (Waits even jokes and I m Perry Como during band introductions) all at once making for much more than a mere gig. In September 1980 Waits would release Heartattack & Vine, his final album for Asylum and one on which the material ventured closer to the primal-blues and cabaret territories he would fully adopt for 1983 s Swordfishtrombones and its successors, by which time the barroom crooner of yore was pretty much gone for good and Tom Waits the experimental maverick mastermind had been born.