Good Night Loving Trail:

Here's a very rare Tom Waits live album that was put out by the Burning Airlines record label as a legitimate release. In other words, not a bootleg. However, the folks at Burning Airlines forgot to confirm clearance with Wait's music publishers and as soon as the record came out, it was almost instantly withdrawn due to the publisher's threat of impending lawsuit. All Cd copies were destroyed and any one who manages to score one these days is lucky indeed. Being a big Tom Waits fan, I bought The Dime Store Novels Vol. 1 on the day it came out, unaware of all the drama surrounding this disc.

It's a 1974 live show; supposedly recorded at Ebbets Field (but it sounds more like a local dive bar with a small crowd)...and a few times, Tom mentions about this show going out live over the radio. But I don't have any further details about that. Once thing is for sure though, Tom was very drunk that night and he stumbles and mumbles through his performance. Slurring his words and getting a bit lost in his on-stage stories. He even burps a few times during his songs and at one point in time tells someone in the crowd to "hush up, I'm tryin' to sing this damn thing!" But for the Waits fans out there, this is a very cool little document for a few reasons; one of which is the fact that this live set contains one of the few times that his version of Utah Phillips' "Good Night Loving Trail" was captured on tape. Also note the cool blues-y version of "Better Off Without A Wife."

Here she is