Track Listing

1. Emotional weather report
2. On a foggy night
3. Eggs and sausages
4. Better off without a wife
5. Nighthawk postcards
6. Warm beer and cold women
7. Putnam county
8. Spare parts 1
9. Nobody
10. Ballad of Big Joe and Phantom 309
11. Spare Parts II (And Closing)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3577 in Music
• Released on: 1999-10-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
As tour guide on a trip through the midnight-to-dawn streets of Los Angeles that the beautiful people never see through the smoked- glass windows of their limos, Waits details the lives of hipsters, down-and-outers, and lost causes in latter-day beat poetry and small- jazz-combo arrangements. This live album from 1975 almost has the quality of standup comedy, but the routines are richer and more carefully drawn. Check out the vivid detail, low humor, and hooker- with-a-heart-of-gold emotionalism Waits brings to songs such as "Nighthawk Postcards", "Putnam County", and a memorable reading of trucker poet Red Sovine's "Big Joe and Phantom 309". --Daniel Durchholz

CD Description
A major part of Tom Waits's mystique has always been his complex, intriguing persona; part Bukowski-esque barfly poet, part Kerouac-inspired hipster, part Hoagy Carmichael troubadour. Nowhere has that persona been more fully utilised than on NIGHTHAWKS AT THE DINER. Throughout the album waits unfurls his colourful, charismatic, artfully amplified personality. It's like spending the evening with a lounge lizard/raconteur/beatnik standup comic who also happens to compose strikingly beautiful tunes that could have come from the Great American Songbook if not for their lyrical quirkiness. Though it would be a few more years before Waits would reinvent himself on SWORDFISHTROMBONES, the character who stomps throughyour brain on NIGHTHAWKS with both guns blazing is as original and impressive a character as you could want.

Customer Reviews

Tom Waits at his best
If you like the film Short Cuts you will love this. Nighthawks At The Diner is a superb album that works on may levels. It is a live recording that really does give the impression of being there. Some of the spoken intro's will have you laughing out loud even after many listens (the man has impeccable comic timing), and are backed up by a great collection of songs, with lyrics that combine great humour with amazing detail and intelligence. This is a real work of genius. Any record containing a song titled "Warm Beer & Cold Women" is onto a good thing, and this whole album really hits the mark. This is closer to listening to an exceptionally good book than "just" listening to an album, and it gets better with every play.

Have a great time!
Grab a beer and pull up your chair to Tom Waits' piano, and you're in for a treat! You're certainly among cheerful friends here, laughing in and between the songs and the spoken intros. Highly recommended!

Sprawling early masterpiece from the king of the downtrodden
Stunning collection of early Tom Waits songs, recorded live for a bunch of friends. The spoken word lead-ins are worth your money alone, and the songs themselves, well... they vary from the wonderful paeon the diner culture "Eggs and Sausage", to the soaring melodrama of "Nobody" and rambling poetry of "Putnam County". This is an album which just gives you a wonderful warm feeling inside.