I have given up seeing Tom appear on stage in these parts but this will do for now. As ever, it has everything that one could expect - from the growling jazz to the type of song ("Hold On") which Bruce would have gobbled up in his heyday. Speaking of which, I doubt if Tom has had aheyday and, for me, that's a good thing. In his recent "2 Lectures" cd, Nick Cave called on Tom Waits when discussing the secret life of the love song and this is only right. Tom Waits is one of the great chroniclers of love - a particularly American kind of love at once urban and small town. There is something of the James Ellroy about Tom Waits - loose but still there. Finally, a word for the delicate and most wonderful, "Georgia Lee". This is Tom Waits at his most beautiful. A living genius when most geniuses are long gone.
