Hello London. Photograph: PA
Attentive readers will be aware, there is an Observer Music Monthly coming out on Sunday. They will also know that we like to plug the mag be sneaking a bit of it to our loyal blog readers in advance. Because, as the Rolling Stones once memorably sang, we loooo-oove you.
This time, we have gone one better. OMM asked Tom Waits to talk about his favourite albums of all time. Which he duly did. But there wasn't room for all of them, so we caught the overspill. Here they are, exclusive to the blog:
Martinis & Bikinis Sam Phillips Virgin, 1994
Peculiar, innovative, soulful, and reasonably undiscovered, with a deeply expressive voice and challenging and unusual topics for songs. Kurt Weill with a revolver. Her cracked vocals and surreal lyrics make for an odd and familiar ride. She and producer T- Bone Burnett make her face yellow and her hair red, and give her a third eye, and together they make tough records. She's Dusty Springfield via Marianne Faithfull with a dash of Jackie De Shannon, but very much her own woman.
Shakin' the Rafters The Abyssinian Baptist Gospel Choir Sony, 1960
Tony Bennett said this is the greatest rock and roll record ever recorded. You can feel why in these wild powerful performances, produced by John Hammond in the early 1960's (John was, among other things, an avid fan of gospel). This choir is barely containable. This recording puts you in the choir with them. Astonishing, awesome. You will be saved.
Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues 'The Masked Marvel' Charley Patton Revonant, 2001
Beautiful retrospective on one of the pillars of the Delta Blues. Clearly not only a blues man but a songster as well and a teacher to all who would follow.
Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music Ray Charles ABC Paramount, 1962
I knelt at the altar of Ray Charles for years. I worked at a restaurant, and that's all there was on the jukebox, practically, that and some Patsy Cline. 'Crying Time', 'Can't Stop Loving You', 'Let's Go Get Stoned', 'You Are My Sunshine', 'What'd I Say', 'Hit The Road, Jack'. I worked on Saturday nights and I would take my break and I'd sit by the jukebox and I'd play my Ray Charles. It was just amazing what he absorbed and that voice, for years it was just 'the Genius of Ray Charles' ... I also love a record called 'Listen'. He did 'Yesterday' on electric piano and it just killed me, to hear that voice, it was like he crossed over a bridge, because he remained in R&B territory, yet there was something so timeless about his voice, and hearing him do a Beatles song was just indescribable.
Harry Partch Collection Vol 1 New World Records, 2004
The new CDs have been reissued and the sound is excellent. These are an excellent introduction to his whole oeuvre. He'd worked as a migrant worker and had been on the road for half his life, and he was one of those rogue academics who worked outside the matrix. So they feared him and pretended to admire him. Like most innovators, he becomes gravel on the road that most people drive on. So he was the first one through the door and the crowd tramples him. But nobody has done anything like that since. The idea of designing your own instruments, playing them and then designing your own scale, your own system of music. That's dramatic and particularly for the time that he was doing it. It was rather subversive. It's always fascinating to hear something being played that doesn't sound polished or evolved as an instrument. It still sounds a little bit like you're hitting tractor parts or a dumpster door. Or you're still in the kitchen, to an extent. The music has that extra texture to it. And then of course he's very sophisticated and well versed in mythology so it's got that other side to it.
Let The Buyer Beware Lenny Bruce Shout! Factory, 2004
Awesome in its scope and depth. Hal Wilner compiled this from thousands of feet of tape. It is the road that all comics of today are driving on.
Last Sessions Leadbelly Smithsonian Folkways, 1994
Leadbelly was a river, was a tree. His 12-string guitar rang like a piano in a church basement. The Rosetta stone for much of what was to follow, he died in 1949. Excellent to listen to when driving across Texas, contains all that is necessary to sustain life, a true force of nature. He died the day before I was born and I like to think I passed him in the hall and he banged into me and knocked me over.
Ompa Til du Dør Kaizers Orchestra Broiler Farm, 2001
Norwegian storm trooping tarantellas with savage rhythms and innovative textures. Thinking man's circus music. Way out.
Tom Waits
The blog rash-promise-maker-in-chief adds: We'll get the rest of Tom's selection to you before the music mag comes out on Sunday.
