Title: Classic Waits Minus the Hound Dog Growl
Review: This is, I believe, Tom Waits' first album, and it was the first one I picked up. I had heard him sing a song on the Dick Cavett (SP?) Show on Nick At Nite and fell in love with that raspy voice (I still haven't figured out which album that was from...). That rasp is nowhere to be found on this disc. But, what is here is Mr. Waits' keen sense of language and melody. He would be equally at home laying down piano on a Coltrane tribute as he would guesting on Willie Nelson track. The songs are beautiful. Tom Waits is the only person I know who can get away with not sticking to one genre or idiom because he makes them all so much his own.The innocence on this album is somewhat lost on later efforts due to the harshness his voice picked up over the years ...but his inner voice never changes.
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