Tom Waits

Rain Dogs
$11.98
The middle album of the trilogy that includes Swordfishtrombones and Franks Wild Years, Rain Dogs is Waits's best overall effort. The songs are first-rate, and there are a lot of them--19 in all, ranging from grim nightlife memoirs ("9th and Hennepin," "Singapore") to portraits of small-time hustlers ("Gun Street Girl," "Union Square") to bursts of street-corner philosophy ("Blind Love," "Time"). The album also contains the original version of "Downtown Train," which Rod Stewart turned into a smash hit. The image of "rain dogs"--animals who've lost their way home because the rain has washed away their scent--is an appropriate symbol for the entire cast of characters Waits has brought to life over the years, and this album has thus far proved to be his most enduring effort. --Daniel Durchholz

Lead Belly: A Life in Pictures
$50.00
The influential Louisiana bluesman, Lead Belly, wrote and performed some of the best-loved songs of the twentieth century, including "The Midnight Special," "Rock Island Line" and his signature song, "Goodnight, Irene," which became an international hit in 1950, eight months after his death. John A. Lomax, the esteemed Library of Congress folk music anthropologist, discovered Lead Belly serving time (for assault and murder) at the infamous Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in 1934. He immediately saw that Lead Belly was a walking anthology of African-American music, and arranged for him to come to New York, where he created a sensation. Reporters followed Lead Belly everywhere, theaters clamored to book him and celebrities thronged to his concerts. His influence on a later generation of popular musicians was massive: Keith Richards, Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia, Van Morrison, Robert Plant and Beck have all paid their respects.
Lead Belly: A Life in Pictures is a treasure trove of rare, unpublished photographs, news clippings, concert programs, personal correspondence (including letters from Woody Guthrie), record albums, awards and other memorabilia retrieved only recently from a basement trunk in New York.

Lead Belly, born Huddie Ledbetter on a Louisiana farm in 1888, won international fame as an interpreter of African-American folk songs and blues. For 15 years he performed folk songs, spirituals, blues and ballads to enthusiastic audiences at night clubs, political rallies, universities, concert halls and private parties. In 1988 Lead Belly was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, where he was the subject of a major retrospective in 2004.

Roy Orbison: Black & White Night [Blu-ray]
$24.98
Few early rockers were more gifted or less honored in their prime than the late Roy Orbison, whose vaulting tenor and vulnerable love songs conjured heartbreak and desire with operatic intensity. This 1987 concert special, originally broadcast on Showtime, came two decades after Orbison had retreated from pop's front lines, yet neither Orbison nor his music coasts on mere nostalgia: in every respect, A Black and White Night survives as a triumphant performance and a superb video production, as well as a first-rate retrospective of Orbison's hits. Filmed in black and white against the streamlined art deco stage of the since-demolished Coconut Grove in downtown Los Angeles, the concert is buoyed by a remarkable cast of A-list Orbison fans who signed on as his accompanists. Under the direction of producer T-Bone Burnett, the stage band thus includes Jackson Browne, Burnett, Elvis Costello, k.d. lang, Bonnie Raitt, J.D. Souther, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, and Jennifer Warnes, along with the rhythm section from Elvis Presley's fabled late '60s and early '70s touring band. That astonishing lineup is all the more noteworthy for the restraint with which they collaborate--it's evident that those superstars came to honor Orbison, not upstage him, resulting in a gratifying cohesion to the performances. Orbison himself sounds as powerful as ever, his soaring falsetto cresting as dramatically as it did on the studio versions of the hits that inevitably dominate. Those songs meanwhile confirm that his blue chip admiration society came as much for the caliber of his writing as for his ravishing voice: if he remains best known for the jaunty come-on of "Pretty Woman," Orbison was first and foremost a rock balladeer, capable of bringing lumps to our throats with such classics as "Crying" and "Only the Lonely," or conjuring romantic trances through such gentle charmers as "Dream Baby." On this night, he handled all of them with fervor and finesse. --Sam Sutherland

Waits! - 12x18 Framed Print in Black Frame (17x23 finished)
$41.30
by Merry, Tom -1886