WAITS ODDBALLERS ALERT

In the interest of giving you Tom Waits fiends a heads up for every oddball I run across, here's one from 1980, when he guested on an album by jazz saxophonist Richie Cole, called Hollywood Madness. (I know the image above is a bit misleading, but for all practical purposes, this is a Tom Waits recording, as he's the vocalist). There's a few weird things going on here, one of which is Tom Waits singing about Tom Waits. Sure, he's written a bunch of songs relating personal experiences, that's what Tom Waits does. But in this sucker he name checks himself. He also does a pretty comical scat thing, and a rambling spoken word outro. The whole thing sounds like something from a musical, due in no small part to the background vocals by the Manhattan Transfer, not to mention Waits sounding almost as buoyant as Louis Armstrong. The whole thing is entirely lighthearted which, for Waits, is weird.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:

Tom Waits with Richie Cole, Eddie Jefferson & the Manhattan Transfer - Waitin' on Waits mp3 (8/9/2012: NOTE: Music link has been disabled. Sorry.) at Ballistic Wax
Further listening:
Four more recent Waits songs at In All Caps