Tom Waits Closing Time CD

Live Recording

Personnel: Tom Waits (vocals, piano); Jesse Ehrlich (cello); Tony Terran (trumpet); Arni Egilsson (bass instrument); Johnny Seiter (drums).
Tom Waits' debut album is a minor-key masterpiece filled with songs of late-night loneliness. Within the apparently narrow range of the cocktail bar pianistics and muttered vocals, Waits and producer Jerry Yester manage a surprisingly broad collection of styles, from the jazzy "Virginia Avenue" to the up-tempo funk of "Ice Cream Man" and from the acoustic guitar folkiness of "I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You" to the saloon song "Midnight Lullaby," which would have been a perfect addition to the repertoires of Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett. Waits' entire musical approach is stylized, of course, and at times derivative -- "Lonely" borrows a little too much from Randy Newman's "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" -- and his lovelorn lyrics can be sentimental without being penetrating. But he also has a gift for gently rolling pop melodies, and he can come up with striking, original scenarios, as on the best songs, "Ol' 55" and "Martha," which Yester discreetly augments with strings. Closing Time announces the arrival of a talented songwriter whose self-conscious melancholy can be surprisingly moving. ~ William Ruhlmann
The 1973 album that introduced a young singer-songwriter to the world at large is a far cry from the wonderfully twisted sonic lanscape that would define SWORDFISHTROMBONES a decade later. The Waits of CLOSING TIME was a barroom balladeer too, but one who fit neatly into the early-'70s folk-rock, singer-songwriter paradigm (CLOSING TIME's opener "Ol' '55," in fact, was covered by the Eagles on their first album). The arrangements here are straightforward, piano-based affairs that present the songs with a minimum of fuss.
Waits's voice isn't the deep, gravelly instrument that would bellow its way through RAIN DOGS, but a smoky, measured one, devoid of artifice. Accordingly, the song structures are simpler, and the best ("Martha," "I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You") attain a timeless feel. For all his relative conventionality on this debut, though, Waits is still closer in spirit to the great American songwriters of the '40s than any '70s California rocker. Listeners looking for the eccentric, carnivalesque atmosphere that typifies Waits's work from the '80s and '90s will be surprised by the relative straightforwardness of CLOSING TIME, yet the album announces an important talent.

Q (10/92, p.101) - 3 Stars - Good - "..a straightforward start to Waits' career.."