TOM WAITS – SWORDFISHTROMBONES 180g LP – Nr MINT UK 2001 SIMPLY VINYL

Tom Waits – Swordfishtrombones
(Simply Vinyl/Island Records  2001  SVLP183)
180 gram UK Pressing

Sleeve in Nr MINT conditiion
Insert in Nr MINT condition

180 gram Vinyl in Nr MINT condition

Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, composer and actor. His distinctive voice was described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding as though “it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car”. Waits has built up a distinctive musical persona with his trademark growl, his incorporation of pre-rock music styles such as blues, jazz, and vaudeville, and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music.

Born to a middle-class Euro-American family, Waits was raised in Whittier, California, and then San Diego. Inspired by Bob Dylan and the Beat Generation, as a teenager he began singing on the San Diego folk music scene. Relocating to Los Angeles, he secured work as a songwriter before gaining a recording contract with Asylum Records and producing his first album, Closing Time, in 1973. He has worked as a composer for movies and musicals and has acted in supporting roles in films, including Paradise Alley and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. He also starred in Jim Jarmusch’s 1986 film Down by Law. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his soundtrack work on One from the Heart.

Waits’ lyrics frequently present atmospheric portraits of grotesque, often seedy characters and places, although he has also shown a penchant for more conventional ballads. He has a cult following and has influenced subsequent songwriters despite having little radio or music video support. His songs are best-known through cover versions by more commercial artists: “Jersey Girl” performed by Bruce Springsteen, “Ol’ ’55” by the Eagles, “Downtown Train” by Rod Stewart, and “Come On Up To The House” by Sarah Jarosz. Waits’ albums have met with mixed commercial success in his native United States, although they have occasionally achieved gold album sales status in other countries. He has been nominated for a number of major music awards and has won Grammy Awards for the albums Bone Machine and Mule Variations. In 2011, Waits was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He is also included among the 2010 list of Rolling Stone‘s 100 Greatest Singers, as well as the 2015 list of Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time.

Waits lives in Sonoma County, California with his wife and frequent collaborator Kathleen Brennan (married August 1980) and their three children.

Swordfishtrombones is an album by American singer-songwriter Tom Waits, released in September 1983. It was the first album that Waits produced himself.

Stylistically different from his previous LPs, the album moves away from the piano and string orchestra arrangements of the late 1970s, replacing them instead with unusual instrumentation and a somewhat more abstract songwriting approach.

The cover art is a TinTone photograph by Michael A. Russ showing Waits with the actors Angelo Rossitto and Lee Kolima.

The album peaked at #164 on the Billboard Pop Albums and 200 albums charts. In 1989, Spin named Swordfishtrombones the second greatest album of all time. In 2006, Q placed the album at #36 in its list of “40 Best Albums of the ’80s.”

Pitchfork Media listed Swordfishtrombones as 11th best album of the 1980s. Slant Magazine listed the album at #26 on its list of “Best Albums of the 1980’s”.

Track listing

All tracks written by Tom Waits. Arranger Frances Thumm. Recorded by Tim Boyle and Biff Dawes. Mixed by Dawes at Sunset Sound Studios, Hollywood, CA.

Side one

1. “Underground” – 1:58
2. “Shore Leave” – 4:12
3. “Dave the Butcher” (instrumental) – 2:15
4. “Johnsburg, Illinois” – 1:30
5. “16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought-Six” – 4:30
6. “Town With No Cheer” – 4:22

Side two

1. “In the Neighborhood” – 3:04
2. “Just Another Sucker on the Vine” (instrumental) – 1:42
3. “Frank’s Wild Years” – 1:50
4. “Swordfishtrombone” – 3:00
5. “Down, Down, Down” – 2:10
6. “Soldier’s Things” – 3:15
7. “Gin Soaked Boy” – 2:20
8. “Trouble’s Braids” – 1:18
9. “Rainbirds” (instrumental) – 3:05

Personnel

• Tom Waits – Vocal (1:1-2, 1:4-6, 2:1, 2:3-8), Chair (1:2), Hammond B-3 Organ (1:3), Piano (1:4, 2:9), Harmonium (1:6, 2:2), Synthesizer (1:6), Freedom Bell (1:6)
• Victor Feldman – Bass Marimba (1:1-2), Marimba (1:2, 2:4), Shaker (1:2), Bass Drum with Rice (1:2), Bass Boo Bams (1:3), Brake Drum (1:5), Bell Plate (1:5), Snare (1:5, 2:5), Hammond B-3 Organ (2:1), Snare Drum (2:1), Bells (2:1), Conga (2:4), Bass Drum (2:4), Dabuki Drum (2:4), Tambourine (2:5), African Talking Drum (2:8)
• Larry Taylor – Acoustic Bass (1:1-2, 1:5, 2:1, 2:3, 2:5, 2:7-8), Electric Bass (2:4)
• Randy Aldcroft – Baritone Horn (1:1, 2:1), Trombone (1:2)
• Stephen Taylor Arvizu Hodges – Drums (1:1-2, 1:5, 2:5, 2:7), Parade Drum (2:1), Cymbals (2:1), Parade Bass Drum (2:8), Glass Harmonica (2:9)
• Fred Tackett – Electric Guitar (1:1, 1:5, 2:7), Banjo Guitar (1:2)
• Francis Thumm – Metal Aunglongs (1:2), Glass Harmonica (2:9)
• Greg Cohen – Bass (1:4), Acoustic Bass (2:4, 2:6, 2:9)
• Joe Romano – Trombone (1:5), Trumpet (2:2)
• Anthony Clark Stewart – Bagpipes (1:6)
• Clark Spangler – Synthesizer Program (1:6)
• Bill Reichenbach – Trombone (2:1)
• Dick “Slyde” Hyde – Trombone (2:1)
• Ronnie Barron – Hammond Organ (2:3)
• Eric Bikales – Organ (2:5)
• Carlos Guitarlos – Electric Guitar (2:5)
• Richard Gibbs – Glass Harmonica (2:9)