Nighthawks at the Diner

Tom Waits - Nighthawks at the Diner

Nighthawks at the Diner
List Price: $18.98
Our Price: $14.99
You Save: $3.99 (21%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $5.55 (click here)
Category: Music CD
See more CD details
Listen soundtracks from this album



(Click here)
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store

CD Details

Artist: Tom Waits
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1990-10-25
Music Label: Elektra / Wea
Soundtracks:
  1. Opening Intro
  2. Emotional Weather Report
  3. Intro
  4. On a Foggy Night
  5. Intro
  6. Eggs and Sausage (In a Cadillac with Susan Michelson)
  7. Intro
  8. Better off Without a Wife
  9. Nighthawk Postcards
  10. Intro
  11. Warm Beer and Cold Women
  12. Intro
  13. Putnam County
  14. Spare Parts I (A Nocturnal Emission)
  15. Nobody
  16. Intro
  17. Big Joe and Phantom 309
  18. Spare Parts II and Closing

Music reviews of Nighthawks at the Diner

Music Review: Once Again On The Matter Of Saturday Night
Rating: 5 Stars

The comments posted here are also being used to comment on other Tom Waits albums.

The inner lives of the denizens of that late night diner in the famous painting by the American realist artist Edward Hopper, "Nighthawks" (1942). The scorching literary sketches of the rich and famous and the skid row bums provided by the late "Gonzo" journalist Doctor Hunter Thompson, accompanied by the renderings of the artist Ralph Steadman. The jingle-jangle high side lyrics of the legendary folk musician Bob Dylan of the "Blood On The Tracks" period. The reach into the far side of the part of the psyche exhibited by those down at the base of American society in an earlier period by the novelist Nelson Algren in "Walk On The Wild Side". And that same reach later by the man of the "mean" Los Angeles streets, Charles Bukowski. Wrap them all up in a whiskey-soaked, cigarette-scarred, gravelly, rasping voice and you have the idiosyncratic musician Tom Waits. Placed in that same company as above? Yes, by all means. Not a bad place to be, right?

Although I have been listening to the music of one Tom Waits for decades, every since I heard Jerry Jeff Walker do a cover of his classic song of loneliness, longing and reaching for the elusive promise of Saturday night dreams in "Looking For The Heart Of Saturday Night", I am not familiar with his biography. All I know is that aside from his own far-reaching musical endeavors, as expressed in numerous albums over the years, he has acted in some motion pictures, most notably as a skid row philosopher of sorts in the movie version of William Kennedy's "Ironweed" (a natural, right?) and has provided the soundtrack music to many movies, most notably the Al Pacino-starring "Sea Of Love". That Waits soundtrack version of the late 1950's, early 1960's classic teenage anthem to longing and love is just the right example of what Brother Waits means musically to this reviewer. Taking that simple song of teenage longing, Waits' husky-voiced rendition reaches back and turns it into something almost primordial, something that goes back beyond time to our first understandings that we are `alone' in the universe. Enough said.

But so much for all of that because what I really want to mention is the "Waits effect". Every once in a while I `need' to listen to words and sounds that express the dark, misbegotten side of the human experience. You know, sagas of Gun Street girls, guys talking "Spanish in the halls', people lost out there on the edge of society and the like. Is there anyone today who can musically put it better? If you need to hear about hope, dope, the rope. Wine, women and song or no wine, no women or no song. About whiskey-caked barroom floors, floozies, boozies, flotsam, jetsam, stale motel rooms, cigarette-infested hotels, wrong gees, jokers, smokers and ten-cent croakers. Drifters, grifters, no good midnight sifters. Life on the fast lane, nowhere lane, some back street alley, perhaps, out in the valley. This, my friends is you address. Listen up. Professor Waits is at the lectern.

Nighthawks At The Diner", Tom Waits, Electra/Asylum Records, 1975

This is another early Waits album with some now classic material . Here there are some monologues interspersed into the material that give it a very West Coast back street night club kind of feel. "Emotional Weather Report", "Nighthawk Postcards" and the long intricate almost surreal "Big Joe and Phantom 309" stick out here.

Description of Nighthawks at the Diner

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

Album-Oriented Rock (AOR) CDs

Music Genres
Bestsellers in Album-Oriented Rock (AOR) CDs
The Beatles (The White Album) ImageThe Beatles - The Beatles (The White Album)
Release date: 1990-10-25; Music CD
Best price: $17.72
Price in other shops: $34.98
American Soldier ImageQueensryche - American Soldier
Release date: 2009-03-31; Music CD
Best price: $8.93
Price in other shops: $18.98
Performing This Week...Live At Ronnie Scotts ImageJeff Beck - Performing This Week...Live At Ronnie Scotts
Release date: 2008-11-24; Music CD
Best price: $8.49
Price in other shops: $13.98
Greatest Hits ImageJourney - Greatest Hits
Release date: 2006-08-01; Music CD
Best price: $7.96
Price in other shops: $18.97
To Terrapin: May 28, 1977 Hartford, CT ImageGrateful Dead - To Terrapin: May 28, 1977 Hartford, CT
Release date: 2009-04-07; Music CD
Best price: $12.39
Price in other shops: $19.98
Astral Weeks Live At the Hollywood Bowl ImageVan Morrison - Astral Weeks Live At the Hollywood Bowl
Release date: 2009-02-24; Music CD
Best price: $8.87
Price in other shops: $18.98
The Devil You Know ImageHeaven & Hell - The Devil You Know
Release date: 2009-04-28; Music CD
Best price: $8.89
Price in other shops: $18.98
Fork In The Road (CD/DVD) ImageNeil Young - Fork In The Road (CD/ DVD)
Release date: 2009-04-07; Music CD
Best price: $10.85
Price in other shops: $21.98
Together Through Life ImageBob Dylan - Together Through Life
Release date: 2009-04-28; Music CD
Best price: $7.84
Price in other shops: $18.97
Together Through Life (Deluxe Edition) ImageBob Dylan - Together Through Life (Deluxe Edition)
Release date: 2009-04-28; Music CD
Best price: $15.11
Price in other shops: $26.98
Similar CDs
Bone Machine ImageTom Waits - Bone Machine
Release date: 1992-09-08; Music CD
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops: $13.98
Foreign Affairs ImageTom Waits - Foreign Affairs
Release date: 1990-05-11; Music CD
Best price: $4.40
Price in other shops: $11.98
Swordfishtrombones ImageTom Waits - Swordfishtrombones
Release date: 1990-06-15; Music CD
Best price: $5.28
Price in other shops: $11.98
Franks Wild Years ImageTom Waits - Franks Wild Years
Release date: 1990-06-15; Music CD
Best price: $5.59
Price in other shops: $9.98
Rain Dogs ImageTom Waits - Rain Dogs
Release date: 1990-06-15; Music CD
Best price: $5.79
Price in other shops: $11.98
Heartattack and Vine ImageTom Waits - Heartattack and Vine
Release date: 1990-10-12; Music CD
Best price: $6.80
Price in other shops: $11.98
Blue Valentine ImageTom Waits - Blue Valentine
Release date: 1990-05-11; Music CD
Best price: $4.93
Price in other shops: $7.98
Closing Time ImageTom Waits - Closing Time
Release date: 1990-10-12; Music CD
Best price: $4.74
Price in other shops: $7.98
The Heart of Saturday Night ImageTom Waits - The Heart of Saturday Night
Release date: 1990-10-25; Music CD
Best price: $5.49
Price in other shops: $11.98
Small Change ImageTom Waits - Small Change
Release date: 1990-10-25; Music CD
Best price: $5.89
Price in other shops: $11.98
Compare prices and find music notes for more than one million Music CD titles