Tom Waits The Early Years Volume One 180g LP

Tom Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car." With this trademark growl, his incorporation of pre-rock music styles such as blues, jazz, and vaudeville, and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music, Waits has built up a distinctive musical persona. He has worked as a composer for movies and musical plays and has acted in supporting roles in films, including Paradise Alley and Bram Stoker's Dracula; he also starred in the 1986 film Down by Law. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his soundtrack work on One from the Heart.

Lyrically, Waits' songs frequently present atmospheric portrayals of grotesque, often seedy characters and places - although he has also shown a penchant for more conventional ballads. He has a cult following and has influenced subsequent songwriters despite having little radio or music video support. His songs are best-known through cover versions by more commercial artists: "Jersey Girl", performed by Bruce Springsteen, "Ol' '55", performed by the Eagles, and "Downtown Train", performed by Rod Stewart. Although Waits' albums have met with mixed commercial success in his native United States, they have occasionally achieved gold album sales status in other countries. He has been nominated for a number of major music awards and has won Grammy Awards for two albums, Bone Machine and Mule Variations. In 2011, Waits was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Early Years, Vol. 1 is an album of early demos recorded by a 21-year-old Tom Waits in 1971, two years before the release of his first album, Closing Time... Waits accompanies himself on piano or guitar and sings in an unaffected nasal tenor. (One track, 'Ice Cream Man,' is given a full-band treatment.) Several of these songs, notably 'Ice Cream Man,' 'Virginia Ave.,' 'Midnight Lullabye,' and 'Little Trip to Heaven,' turned up on his later albums...