Tom Waits Nighthawke at The Diner

"What's Orphans? I don't know. Orphans is a dead end kid driving a coffin with big tires across the Ohio River wearing welding goggles and a wife beater with a lit firecracker in his ear." (Tom Waits)………

In 1998, after Island Records released the compilation, Beautiful Maladies: The Island Years, Tom Waits left the label for ANTI- , whose president, Andy Kaulkin, said the label was "blown away that Tom would even consider us. We are huge fans." Waits himself was full of praise, saying "Epitaph is rare for being owned and operated by musicians. They have good taste and a load of enthusiasm, plus they're nice people. And they gave me a brand-new Cadillac, of course." Waits' first album for his new label, Mule Variations, was issued in April 1999. Billboard described the album as musically melding "backwoods blues, skewed gospel, and unruly art stomp into a sublime piece of junkyard sound sculpture. The record was Waits' first release to feature a turntablist, and it won a Grammy in 2000; as an indicator of how difficult it was by then to classify Waits' music, he was nominated simultaneously for Best Contemporary Folk Album (which he won) and Best Male Rock Vocal Performance (for the song Hold On ), both different from the genre for which he won his previous Grammy.

Backed by a jazz trio comprising of tenor sax player Lew Tabackin, bassist Jim Hughart, and drummer Shelly Manne, Waits finds the most sympathetic backing of his career to that point and creates his early masterpiece. Small Change is the home of Waits’ favorites like "The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me),” the moving soldier’s ballad “Tom Traubert’s Blues,” and the manic slide-show of “Step Right Up.”

"Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards" is a limited edition three CD set by Tom Waits, originally released in November 2006. The album is divided into three sections, with each disc being a separate collection in its own. It borrows from Tom Waits’ rock sound, with the first disc being blues and rock-based, the second centred on slow-tempo, melancholic ballads, and the third on more experimental compositions. Additionally, the record contains influences of other genres, including folk, gospel, jazz and roots music. Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards received universal acclaim from critics, who lauded its experimentation and composition, as well as Waits' vocals. It was listed as one of the highest-scoring albums of the year in Metacritic, and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Furthermore, it was a fair commercial success, charting in the United States Billboard 200, as well as in Australia, Switzerland and Austria, reaching the top twenty in the latter.

Tom Waits dug deep to find this one - and he dug all over the place. Visceral, vivid and jarring, 'Bone Machine' is a boisterous celebration of all things nocturnal. Unfolding like a bad dream, the album careens from track to track as Waits assumes roles varied roles: narrator, spectator, prophet, grim reaper. In "black wings," a sinister cowboy ballad, Waits is a wizened storyteller; in "in the colloseum," an ugly ode to carnage, he's an unabashed participant…….

Blood Money is up there with Waits's best albums from the mid-'80s, veering as it does from sexy insomniac circus music to gorgeously heart-tugging lullabies to woozy zigzag bluesy romps to what can only be described as Oscar the Grouch singing out of tune on top of the soundtrack to an old French film…….

Tom Waits, as usual, has produced another classic. It should be noted, however, that "Real Gone" is a really gritty, avant-garde effort. The sonic texture of the album is akin to some of the tunes on "Bone Machine" with a tinge of the sweaty grit of the more raucous parts of "Mule Variations" (e.g., the texture found on the rough and funky "Filipino Box Spring Hog"). If you are a fan of Waits' last few albums, you will enjoy "Real Gone." If what you enjoy about Waits' music is his piano playing, well, this is one you can skip–there is no piano whatsoever on this CD…….

Few artists ever seek to completely re-invent themselves on record, and fewer still make the transformation as completely successfully as did Tom Waits. His 70's albums are revered for their delicate, string-landen piano work with Waits croaking out lyrical strands of barstool philosophizing in a pseudo-Louis Armstrong growl. These albums are good, strong efforts, but they had become somewhat predictable by the time of 1980's Heart Attack & Vine (although that album, and it's predecessor, Blue Valentine, had started to introduce new elements into Waits's music.)……