LOS ANGELES, CA (Tom Waits PR Team) - The one and only TOM WAITS is set to release a 3CD set titled "ORPHANS: BRAWLERS, BAWLERS AND BASTARDS." It's a wide-ranging collection of 54 songs, including 30 new recordings, equaling over three hours of rare and never-before heard music with a 94-page booklet.
"Orphans are rough and tender tunes. Rhumbas about mermaids, shuffles about trainwrecks, tarantellas about insects, madrigrals about drowning," says Waits. "Scared, mean, orphaned songs of rapture and melancholy. Songs that grew up hard. Songs of dubious origin rescued from cruel fate and now left wanting only to be cared for. Show that you are not afraid and take them home. They don't bite, they just need attention."
Each of the three CDs is separately grouped and sub-titled - "Brawlers," "Bawlers" and "Bastards" - to capture the full spectrum of Waits' ranging and roving musical styles. "Brawlers" is chock full of raucous blues and full-throated juke joint stomp, "Bawlers" contains Celtic and country ballads, waltzes, lullabies, piano and classic lyrical Waits' songs, while "Bastards" is filled with experimental music and strange tales.
In addition to the new work, "Orphans" features a number of tracks finding a home on a Waits' album for the first time - songs originally recorded for the cinema, the theatre and other projects. They include Waits' unique interpretations of songs by such extraordinarily diverse talents as The Ramones, Daniel Johnston, Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht, Leadbelly, Kerouac and Bukowski.
As for his latest tour, which took him from Atlanta, Asheville, NC, Memphis, Nashville, Louisville, Chicago, Detroit, Akron to Cleveland, where Waits played his first club show in nearly 30 years at the House Of Blues, all shows sold out within minutes. Some of these cities Waits had not performed in for over 30 years and it was his first foray into Asheville. Needless to say, the audiences were nothing short of ecstatic at each and every gig and the reviews reflected the fans passion.
Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune observed: "Everything about Tom Waits is done with theatrical flair, no expensive props required... In the broadest sense, he is a singer-songwriter, but he is also a genre unto himself... Waits is a defiled saloon singer who turns songs into noirish cinema, little movies about the human condition. When he aims his magnifying glass at the shadows, he inevitably comes up with some amazing discoveries. The human race, it turns out, has a lot of dirty little secrets, unspoken passions, unrequited desires. Waits' songs give voice to them all, and he finds poetry in even the tawdriest details."
Fred Mills of Harp magazine described Waits as "a voodoo shaman," also proclaiming, "There wasn't a single aspect of the show that could be considered inconsequential." The review ended by declaring, "Yessir, we did - witness an astonishingly pure expression of artistry... And there he is in the center of the frame, Tom Waits. Jumping right off the screen and straight into our f**king laps. That's rock 'n' roll baby - the IMAX version."
Peter Gilstrap of The Tennessean noted: "Even back in the ancient pre-country days when the holy structure was an actual church, it's hard to imagine a more passionate sermonizer gracing the boards than Waits... Where more conventional musicians might use plain old numbers to count off a song, Waits has no problem with setting a tempo via huffs and snorts, sounding like a shaman with emphysema in full chant... A few songs, in the band, left the stage as a piano was wheeled out. With nothing more than 88 keys and a baby blue spotlight, Waits sat down, removed some of the gravel from his voice and turned the auditorium into an intimate nightclub. 'Tom Traubert Blues' - with its echoes of 'Waltzing Matilda' - was simply a moving thing of beauty..."
Meanwhile, marking his first release since 2004's "Real Gone," "Orphans" was again produced by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan (his wife and long time collaborator), who were recently named No 4 in a recent Paste magazine collector's edition naming the "100 Best Living Songwriters." According to the magazine, "In literature, only a handful of writers have pulled off the near impossible. In music, it happens on every Tom Waits recording."
Throughout his entire and lengthy critically acclaimed musical career - which has garnered him two Grammys, plus several other nominations, including an Academy Award - Waits and his fevered imagination have managed to keep evolving with each new disc on his more than 20 recordings. The only genre Tom could possibly be placed in would, literally, have to be his very own category - Waitsian.
For the full "Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards" tracking listing, live tour reviews, and CD art, please go to www.anti.com.
