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MUSiC: Closing Time 50!

Very tempting!

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.

A contemporary advert for Waits’ debut.

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.

Waits, circa ‘72.

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.

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FiLM REViEW: Coalminer’s Daughter, 1980 / Loretta Lynn, RIP.

I found out, via a pal’s FB post, that Loretta Lynn died today. I’m not a big country music fan, but I did enjoy the movie Coal Miner’s Daughter. And Loretta’s sister, Crystal Gale, recorded One From The Heart, with Tom Waits, which is a sublime album.

So, in memory of Loretta, here’s my review of Coal Miner’s Daughter (originally posted to Amazon UK, some years ago):

Exactly how near the true facts of the Loretta Lynn story this is, I don’t know. For all that some difficult moments are depicted, I suspect it’s still a somewhat sanitised version. But, gol’darn’ it, it makes for a very entertaining and moving viewing experience.

Sissy Spacek is excellent in the lead role – both she and Beverly D’Angelo, who plays Patsy Cline, sing their songs (an album was released alongside the film) – and Tommy Lee Jones, despite shockingly dyed red hair, acquits himself well as her man, known variously as ‘Mooney’ (from a stint running ‘moonshine’), and ‘Doo’, short for Doolittle. Recently deceased drummer for The Band, Levon Helm, plays Lynn’s titular coal-mining father. ‘Ted’.

The real Loretta, plus ‘Doo’ and kids.

Director Michael Apted handles the whole film very well, evoking an America that one suspects is nearly vanished. At one point in the film they receive several telephone message by the means of a neighbour, who has a ‘phone, hollerin’ the news at them from his nearby property. How real all the hillbilly shacks, honky-tonks, pie-auctions, dungarees and dancing, the “coalminin’, moonshinin’ or movin’ on down the line” really are, is hard for me to estimate. But it paints a very evocative and charming picture.

I got to this via Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle, Gayle being Lynn’s sister (the Waits/Gayle collaboration for Coppola’s One From The Heart being an instance of a pretty duff movie paired with a beyond-words-brilliant OST), and the Levon Helm connection.

Even after watching this and loving it, I’m not sure I’ll be getting into Lynn’s music too deeply. But that just shows that this Country & Western star biopic has an appeal beyond Lynn’s fan base. As told here, hers is both an interesting and at times very moving story.