release date: Oct. 1975
format: cd (1990 reissue)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,86]
producer: Bones Howe
label: Asylum Records - nationality: USA
Track highlights: 2. "Emotional Weather Report" - 6. "Eggs and Sausage (In a Cadillac With Susan Michelson)" - 8. "Better Off Without a Wife"
3rd studio album by Tom Waits is nearly a perfect live album with the sound of a drunken Waits in his prime, chattering, joking with what sounds like life experience wisdom playing merrily out there in what might sound like a warm pub atmosphere. Only issue is that it has been staged and practically recorded in a large studio with hand-picked spectators for two days of recordings. The album follows one year after The Heart of Saturday Night.
Stylewise, it's a turn towards vocal jazz in a bluesy corner, and the songs are really a fine collection. The album appears in "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die".
Together with the first two releases, Nighthawks at the Diner has a natural part of Waits' early period, where a great deal of inspiration is drawn from contemporary American singer / songwriter and folk tradition, which at the time embraced artists such as Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Tim Buckley and more.
Recommended.
[ allmusic.com 3,5 / 5, Rolling Stone, Mojo, SputnikMusic 4 / 5 stars ]
