Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan join luminaries such as Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry, Randy Newman, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Leonard Cohen, Lee Hazlewood, Brian Wilson and Laura Nyro in Ace Records’ long-running series of multi-artist compilations celebrating the great American songwriters of the modern era
With his longtime creative partner and wife Kathleen Brennan, Waits has dismantled and reassembled the idea of song itself, crafting works that exist as both raw expression and high art. This collection honours not only the extraordinary versatility of Waits and Brennan’s songwriting, but the importance of an artist who continues to haunt and inspire from the edges inward
Our selection is sequenced chronologically by song, opening with Bruce Springsteen’s dramatic live recording of ‘Jersey Girl’, Waits’ ode to Brennan from 1980’s “Heartattack And Vine”, and closing with folk great Joan Baez’s version of Waits and Brennan’s anti-war ‘Day After Tomorrow’ from Waits’ 2004 album "Real Gone”
1. JERSEY GIRL – BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE E STREET BAND
2. 16 SHELLS FROM A THIRTY-OUGHT-SIX – BOB SEGER & THE SILVER BULLET BAND
3. GIN-SOAKED BOY – SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY & THE ASBURY JUKES
4. JOCKEY FULL OF BOURBON – LOS LOBOS
5. HANG DOWN YOUR HEAD – LUCINDA WILLIAMS
6. TEMPTATION – DIANA KRALL
7. YESTERDAY IS HERE – BETTYE LaVETTE
8. WAY DOWN IN THE HOLE – THE BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA
9. STRANGE WEATHER – MARIANNE FAITHFULL
10. I DON’T WANNA GROW UP – RAMONES
11. DOWN THERE BY THE TRAIN – JOHNNY CASH
12. HOUSE WHERE NOBODY LIVES – KING ERNEST
13. PICTURE IN A FRAME – WILLIE NELSON
14. HOLD ON – MADISON CUNNINGHAM
15. THE LONG WAY HOME – NORAH JONES
16. 2:19 – JOHN HAMMOND
17. DIAMOND IN YOUR MIND – SOLOMON BURKE
18. TRAMPLED ROSE – ALISON KRAUSS / ROBERT PLANT
19. DAY AFTER TOMORROW – JOAN BAEZ