A music of Tom Waits feature

"THE NOIR SENSIBILITY OF TOM WAITS, IN 10 SONGS
Lowlifes, Desperados, Ex-Cons, and Junkies"
Tanner Tefelski

It opens: "Tom Waits pulls from music and non-music traditions like an interior decorator choosing the right color scheme for a new home. He borrows a little from Lord Buckley and Louis Armstrong, from Jack Kerouac and Charles Bukowski, from movies and advertisements. He mashes it together, manufacturing warped yet recognizable personas: the Dylan-esque folkie, the gin-soaked jazzbo, the atonal Weimar-era lounger, the deranged bible stomper. Waits metamorphoses from record to record, song to song. One ingredient in the brew that persists over his five-decade-and-counting career is noir, permeating the early-to-middle albums and slightly seasoning the later ones..."