REPORT: The Celestial Monochord; Journal of the Institute for Astrophysics and the Hillbilly Blues

TOM WAITS (photo: Anton Corbijn)----}

Refer to the Celestial Monochord:

Journal of the Institute for Astrophysics and the Hillbilly Blues for more information... "But it would be absurd to say I've finally been "proven right." Waits has often been pretty generous in acknowledging his debts to other musicians, and folk has always been in the mix.

The Anthology at Tom Waits Concerts

from "KPFK Will Air Folk Fest"
The Pasadena Star Bee, July 3, 1974

Tom Waits is on tour — a rare enough news story in itself.

But note that the music piped into the theater before and after the shows, to date, has been The Anthology of American Folk Music, edited by Harry Smith.

I've often pointed out the folk lineage of various Tom Waits songs, showing connections between:

Cold Cold Ground and Stephen Foster,

Georgia Lee and Blind Willie Johnson,

Swordfishtrombones and Bascom Lamar Lunsford,

Better Off Without A Wife and Chubby Parker, The Carter Family, and John Lomax, and,

Down There By the Train and Uncle Dave Macon and Henry Thomas (although I really "buried the lead" on that one — scoll down).

... I have a lot more of these up my sleeve and I may get more of them written up some day ... (06.25.2008 4 AM Retrieved at: http://www.celestialmonochord.org/2008/06/the-anthology-at-tom-waits-concerts.html)