The absolute best album of the 70s was Tom Waits', "Small Change" - a blend of jazz, blues & rock and brilliant lyrics that surpassed Dylan. It remains his masterpiece.
The cover featured the young actress, Cassandra Peterson, who later became known as "Elvira".
You are sooo right and your post is pure nostalgia! I met Tom and
Chuck e. Weiss at the Carroliton/Clayborn street car stop in NOLA at Mardis Grass in Feb. 1976 - we shared a bottle of Mogen David on the way to the French Quarter and walked the length of Bourbon street like old friends. I was touring with the Navy Steel Band at the time (in town for 26 Parades including Bacchus which ended up in the Super Dome with 85,000 inebriated close friends on Fat Tuesday). I also worked pay gigs on Bourbon Street whenever I was in town (especially the 2 weeks leading up to Mardis Gras when musician's paydays exploded). Tom was working nights composing the
Small Change album ensconced at Jazz City Studios near Canal Street and he'd show up at Café du Monde for Beignets and coffee like clockwork every morning at daybreak along with most of the Big Easy musicians in town. Sometimes Tom would arrive in style in a limo, and other times he'd hitch a ride hanging onto a city street-sweeper.
He had a decent budget because The Eagles had covered "
Ole'55" from his first album and put him in the spotlight and Bette Midler was making a splash with "
Shiver Me Timbers" so royalties and bookings were keeping him flush with cash and I think he spent most of it on his friends - who was anyone he happened to be talking to. He told me, "
Somebody said you have you're whole life to write your first album and 6 months for the second, if you're lucky."
He took those New Orleans tapes to Hollywood (with Chuck e. and Ricki Lee Jones in tow) and re-did the songs direct to 2 track in July with Jim Hughart (who up to that time had played bass with Joe Pass, Duke Ellington, The Monkees, Edwin Starr, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Tim Buckley, Johnny Rivers, Herb Alpert & Ray Charles), Lew Tabackin (Cab Calloway, Clarke Terry, Mel Jones, Maynard Ferguson, Doc Severinsen's Tonight Show Orchestra and the Saturday Night Live Band with Paul Shaffer) and the legendary drummer Shelly Manne (whose brushwork on "
Step Right Up" and solo on "
Pasties & a G-String" is about as good as it gets this side of Steve Gadd). Producer Bones Howe hired Jerry Yester (The New Christy Minstrels, Modern Folk Quartet; The Lovin' Spoonful) to arrange, hire & conduct the strings which were added to the initial 4 piece 2 track and were (imho) on a level with George Martin's orchestration for The Beatles. I agree the album is a masterpiece to be sure and it's still stunning, every song is a joy and "
Tom Traubert's Blues " is a classic (covered by Rod Stewart a few years later it went to #3 on the charts).
BTW, "
Small Change " was a mostly true story that took place in an arcade/grill called the Bourbon Steam Boat, but he lifted the name "Small Change" from one of the despised kids who tap-danced in front of St. Louis Cathedral (working the crowds and leaching tips away from street musicians and distracting tourist from the artists around Jackson Square.) The 42nd Street and Nelson Hotel references are poetic license.
The song, "
I wish I was in New Orleans" is a part of me and I'm a proud past of it. "
Deal the cards, roll the dice, if it ain't that ol' Chuck e. Weiss and Clayborne Avenue, me and you and Sam Jones and All". Tom is an American storytelling treasure.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane FRiend.
