Closing Time, 50th Anniversary limited edition double vinyl release, 2 June, 2023.
Oh how I love this album! It captures Tom in a uniquely youthful and innocent mood, less gravelly, a bit more country, and utterly wonderful.
The closing title track would, on its own, make this album essential. But there are plenty of other great tunes; from the cosy bar-room sentimentality of I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You, via the Tin Pan Alley balladry of Grapefruit Moon, to the ol’ timey vibes of Ol’ 55 and Rosie.
It’s an astonishingly mature and assured debut recording. And the musical team that made it help evoke a timeless beauty drawing on a whole smorgasbord of American popular music, to craft a classic recording that’s both gently obscure and disarmingly immediate and charming.
An essential album, reissued for über fans (like me!), in a couple of deluxe twin disc vinyl formats. I can’t justify the extravagance (although it’s not actually out for a bit!), but I’m very sorely tempted.
Overall I prefer the Tom of the ‘first phase’, ie the boho-beatnik barfly romantic and philosopher, of Closing Time through to Swordfishtrombones (and maybe even Frank’s Wild Years?) to the art house carnival freak he evolved into after that.
On Closing Time, whose moody cover art is be Zappa’s buddy Cal Schenkel, we have a sweeter, softer and smoother sounding Tom. He’s already the folksy troubadour, with a big dose of jazz and blues in the pockets of his rumpled yet earnest thrift store suit.
This album is unique in that after this awaits would produce a run of amazing recordings working with Bones Howe, a former jazz drummer turned producer, who helped craft the classic early Tom sound-world I so adore, by surrounding Waits with stellar jazz sidemen (like Jacky Sheldon, Jim Hughart and the incomparable Shelly Manne).
On Closing Time Jerry Yester produced, and the band – who are brilliantly sympathetic to awaits’ material – are less familiar names, gathered together from Yester’s musical orbit. Yester also did some superb string arrangements for Tom, on this and a few of his subsequent albums.