Read Online Wild Years by Jay S. Jacobs - Free Book Online

could have been lumped together in such a way: Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen?
Closing Time
and
Greetings from Asbury Park NJ
? Then everyone started trying to figure out which of the two would be the next rock superstar. Waits dismisses the whole thing. “They always try to create scenes — just making connections so that they can create a circuitry. It all has to do with demographics and who likes what. If you like that, you’ll like this. If you like hair dryers, you’ll like water heaters. Then you try to distinguish yourself in some way, which is essential — you find your little niche. When you make your first record, you think that’s all I’m gonna do is make a record. Then you make a record and you realize now I’m one of a hundred thousand people who have records out. Okay, now what? Maybe I oughta shave my head.” 16
    Closing Time
’s producer didn’t buy into the hype, either. Yester was convinced that they’d created a great album — “I knew that for an absolute fact” — and that’s all that mattered. He didn’t have to be told by the cultural pundits that Tom Waits was here to stay: “I knew it the first time that I met him and he was in my living room, playing the stuff. You’d have to be a dummy to miss it. All I had to do was keep out of the way. That was the whole point of the thing. That’s what I try and do with an artist. With Tom and Tim Buckley — it was the same kind of case. The talent is so big that it’s really easy to keep out of the way. I just feel very fortunate that I was there. I [only] feel that way about a couple of albums. [
Closing Time
is] definitely one, and
Goodbye & Hello
by Tim Buckley.”
    Neither
Closing Time
nor
Greetings from Asbury Park
enjoyed immediate commercial success, but both turned out to be sleepers, selling steadily for years. Springsteen, of course, did evolve into the icon the media had predicted he would become, in the process filling stadiums worldwide, selling millions of albums, and spawning countless imitations. Waits has always been quite comfortable with the way things worked out: “I saw Bruce in Philadelphia when I was about twenty-five, and he killed me — just killed me. I don’t know, no one sits down to write a hit record. I got to a point where I became more eccentric — my songs and my worldview . . . Everybody’s on their own road, and I don’t know where it’s going.” 17
    It’s evident, however, that commercial success is no barometer of influence. The list of artists who cite Waits as an inspiration is long and impressive. To name a few, there are grunge leader Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, hip-hop folkie Beck, Les Claypool and the alternative pop-rock funk-metal band Primus, Paul Westerberg of the pioneering Minneapolis band The Replacements, and punk-Irish traditionalists Shane McGowan and The Pogues. Also identifying Waits as one of the best singer/songwriters around are rock experimentalists Sparklehorse, country singer/songwriter and producer Rodney Crowell, alternative chanteuse P. J. Harvey, rapper Everlast of House of Pain, and even actor/singer Mandy Patinkin.
    Multiplatinum Canadian singer/songwriter Sarah McLachlan, founder of the all-woman Lilith Fair tour, says that
Closing Time
touched her deeply when she was growing up, and it still has a hold on her imagination. “I don’t get an opportunity to listen to music too much,” she admits, “so when I feel the need to listen to music, I put on my old faithful [albums] that I know are going to work for me. I have ten cds I’ve had for years and years . . . like Tom Waits’s
Closing Time
. I’ll never, ever tire of that record. It’s timeless.” McLachlan covered “Ol’ 55” on her EP
The Freedom Sessions
.
    David Geffen envisioned building Waits’s reputation by offering his songs to other artists. Creating