Tom Waits - Frank\'s Wild Years [1987] [Robbie60] [FLAC]

Tom Waits
Frank\'s Wild Years


Label: Island Records
Released: 1987
Source: Original CD
Size Torrent: 313 MB
Format: FLAC






This rags-to-rags tale completes the trilogy that began with 1983\'s Swordfishtrombones (featuring the song \"Frank\'s Wild Years,\" in which the protagonist torches his suburban SoCal house and heads north on the Hollywood Freeway). Then came 1985\'s Rain Dogs, which mixed Brecht-Weill drama with Captain Beefheart bizarreness for an effect that conjured up a Saturday-night fish fry in the freak show of a decrepit circus. But the down-and-out losers, boozers and life abusers of this presentation are the same folk Waits has lived with all along. The story basically follows Frank on a hazy, ill-fated Orphic journey \"Straight to the Top (Vegas)\" (as one song is titled) through \"Temptation,\" \"Way Down in the Hole\" and, finally, out on the \"Cold Cold Ground.\" At the road\'s end lies \"Innocent When You Dream ( 78 ),\" a moral that is told to Frank early on but doesn\'t hit home until the end, when it is heard in a lovely, tinnily nostalgic rendition. The songs are alternately (and sometimes simultaneously) bitter and hopeful. Everything from sleazy strip-show blues to cheesy waltzes to supercilious lounge lizardry is given spare, jarring arrangements using various combinations of squawking horns, bashed drums, plucked banjo, snaky double bass, carnival organ and jaunty accordion (the last provided by Los Lobos\' David Hidalgo on two tracks). But it\'s Waits\'s gravel-pit voice, from which he digs a number of distinct characterizations, that remains the most striking instrument.




Personnel

Jay Anderson - bass
Michael Blair - drums, conga, percussion, maracas, marimba, orchestra bells, glockenspiel
Kathleen Brennan - vocal arrangements
Angela Brown - background vocals
Ralph Carney - sax, baritone horn, violin, tenor sax
Greg Cohen- bass, alto horn, horn arrangements, Leslie bass pedals
David Hidalgo - accordion
Leslie Holland - background vocals
Lynne Jordan - background vocals
Marc Ribot - guitar, banjo
William Schimmel - piano, pump organ, accordion, Leslie bass pedals, cocktail piano
Larry Taylor - bass, upright bass
Moris Tepper - guitar
Francis Thumm - prepared piano, pump organ
Tom Waits - vocals, pump organ, Optigan, guitar, vocal stylings, rooster, piano, Farfisa, Mellotron, drums, conga, tambourine




Track Listing

1. \"Hang on St. Christopher\" 2:46
2. \"Straight to the Top (Rhumba)\" 2:30
3. \"Blow Wind Blow\" 3:35
4. \"Temptation\" 3:53
5. \"Innocent When You Dream (Barroom)\" 4:15
6. \"I\'ll Be Gone\" 3:12
7. \"Yesterday Is Here\" 2:29
8. \"Please Wake Me Up\" 3:36
9. \"Frank\'s Theme\" 1:49
10. \"More Than Rain\" 3:52
11. \"Way Down in the Hole\" 3:30
12. \"Straight to the Top (Vegas)\" 3:26
13. \"I\'ll Take New York\" 3:58
14. \"Telephone Call from Istanbul\" 3:12
15. \"Cold Cold Ground\" 4:07
16. \"Train Song\" 3:20
17. \"Innocent When You Dream ( 78 )\" 3:08