As the popular phrase says, rain dogs are those who, on any given walk, on any Tuesday, leave the house of their masters and bad luck or destiny crosses them with a great storm far from their house.
Because of the rain, dogs lose the trail that would take them back to their house, and thus they become vagabond dogs overnight.
Nothing better in these times, that an idol being a vagabond dog
Something like that happened to me the first time I heard the LP "Rain dogs" by Tom Waits (Island record, 1985). In the midst of the most flowery of the new wave of the eighties, the sinister wave and other frivolities, I discovered that I liked Kurt Weill, cabaret music and the most archaic country & blues by the hand of Tom Waits ... and in between I became a rain dog from the 80's.
Tom Waits, with a huge discography spanning four decades and sixteen studio LP's, two soundtracks and two live albums, has become for me a guarantee that there is someone who does not lie to me, even if it hurts, someone who knows of dusty roads, bad times, alcohol and also of glory and redemption.
So it is my reader friends, Thomas Alan Waits born in Pomona, California on December 7, 1949, my spiritual guide in hard times... I confess.
From the difficult beginnings at the Troubadour club in Los Angeles, where, despite his clearly distinctive voice, he was treated like a Bob Dylan impersonator of whom he is a follower, since he has his own idols that have influenced him in his career: In addition to the mentioned Bob Dylan, Lord Buckley, Jack Kerouac, Louis Armstrong, Howlin 'Wolf and Charles Bukowski. Until the release of the "Nighthawks at the dinner" LP (Island Records 1975) Tom Waits drew a trail of failures, disappointments and a lot of alcohol that tanned him as a musician as a survivor and vagabond of a time that was not yet his.
And so, between low-star hotels with mini-bars and performances that sometimes approached the "one man standing show" he moved to the 80s where he met his current wife, at that time Francis Ford Coppola’s screenwriter, Kathleen Brennan, while our friend Tom composed the soundtrack for Francis's "One from the heart"... and miraculously Thomas Alan Waits regained his sense of smell.
The story from that moment is known, from "Swordfishtrombones" and followed by the already mentioned "Rain Dogs", Tom Waits has received the respect and recognition of both the critics and the public that were denied in the tortuous beginnings of his career, thanks to his continuous experimentation, mixing and sometimes invention of sounds and instruments that reaches his last LP of 2011 "Bad as Me".
Waits has flatly refused to allow the use of his songs in advertisements and has made fun of other artists who do, with comments like: "If Michael Jackson wants to work for Pepsi, why not get a suit and an office in the company and end the problem?
On February 9, 2011, the admission of Waits as a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was made public. The ceremony took place at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel on March 14 and was presented by Neil Young, Tom accepted the recognition with his usual humor, replying to Young: "They say that I don’t have successes and that it is difficult to work with me ... As if that was a bad thing »
That's my Tom ... and the story of music idol.
