Posted in: What's New | No Comments | Posted on November 22, 2021 by Grumpy

‘Come On Up To The House: Women Sing Waits’ is a unique compilation full of fresh interpretations of songs by the legendary Tom Waits. Patty Griffin, Rosanne Cash, Phoebe Bridgers, Corinne Bailey Rae, Angie McMahon, Courtney Marie Andrews, and more each put their own unique spin on the gravel-voiced songwriter’s work.

“…to hear it all through these women’s voices: for me, this is where the whole thing was delivered. I didn’t just want to go to church, I wanted to go to their church. In much the way Burt Bacharach songs often seem most fully themselves in the hands of Dionne Warwick, or Dusty Springfield, or Jackie DeShannon, The Shirelles, Aretha, or Karen Carpenter. Or the way standards feel so fully standard in Ella Fitzgerald’s rendering of the material. The Waits songs I was hearing through these women were breathing differently and deeply. In just the way Dylan cuts the definitive version but never stakes out the song’s territory in a way that leaves no room for majestic covers, the recordings I was gathering were showing me the remarkable strength, the resonance of Waits’ stuff. No one took ownership of the material, it was all on loan, still belonged to Tom Waits. But what a series of loans! And that’s how it is with the very, very best songs. It all brought me back to the Tom Waits I’d begun to see an outline of as a young man, back to the Waits my mother brought into the family dining room. That strange and beautiful character who seemed to belong to no one. Who I now believe belongs to us all.” - Warren Zanes, producer