Tom Waits - The Black Rider 1993 Studio Cast (20 tracks) +Album Reviews

Waits's best work

M. E Mattson | Uva Ursi | 10/15/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The song "November" is a kind of microcosm for this album, which evokes skeletal trees, looming clouds, piles of dead leaves, and harrowing winds. A post-halloween, pre-dead of winter atmosphere pervades this record. While Tom Waits is a great original talent, with piles and piles of brilliant songs, he tends to "show his hand" too much, so that his act is revealed as just that--an act. And since most of his material depends on you buying into his persona(e), sometimes you come away unconvinced.Not here; and ironically, this is music for a stage production. But I don't think I've ever heard Waits quite this confident in his powers and so at home with his considerable gifts for settings, lyrics, and performance. In the instrumental "Russian Theme," when he "counts off," you can see him flailing his arms at the musicians to keep the music going. The recurrent themes of impending death are perfectly complimented by gleeful black humor; lyrically and sonically, The Black Rider holds together perfectly as a unified work."

Achingly Beautiful

C. Helton | 09/30/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I was always of the opinion that Tom's years at Island Records were his most ingenius (though this year's double release of "Alice" and "Blood Money" quite possibly changed all that), and I have always disagreed with the folks (well-intentioned though they may be) that say "Bone Machine" was the last "true" Tom Waits album before the release of "Mule Variations." I personally see Tom all over this album. Granted, I did not have the privelege of actually seeing a stage production of "The Black Rider," and the only things I know about the plot I got from the liner notes. Still, I think something in this play must have touched Tom's soul in a profound way. To chart this album on the Waits map, I'd put it about halfway between his wild and ambitious late-80s project "Franks Wild Years" and his just-released tearfully touching opus "Alice." It is, of course, no coincidence that those two albums were also the results of theatric endeavours. Still, "The Black Rider" is unique in that the story itself was not a product of Waits's imagination, yet he seems to relate to it almost as if it were. "November," "That's the Way," and "Briar and the Rose" lend touches of real beauty to this album. "Briar and the Rose" especially would not seem out of place on "Alice," while "Just the Right Bullets" and "Crossroads" seem to let you in on what Tom really thinks about the whole mess. The instrumentals on this are cacophonous even for Waits, which may or may not turn you on, depending on taste. Of course, no Waits album would be complete without the glitz of the carnival scene making an appearance in some form. We get this on the opening track, with Tom giving his own rendition of barker patter. (Real Waits listeners will no doubt notice within this opening track an incarnation of the freak who makes an appearance on "Alice" as none other than Tabletop Joe.) All in all, most people will say this album is not for introductory listeners. I say that depends on what you're looking for in Tom Waits. If you're looking for his genius in all its freakishly beautiful glory, you'll find few purer concentrations than right here."

I saw Black Rider and . . .

Reba | San Francisco, CA | 10/13/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"it makes this album amazing and make sense. The show has only played in the US once (this past fall in San Francisco)-- so it is hard to see, but if you ever get the chance you should. It is really an amazing collaboration of three brilliant artists. Like any musical cast recording, the record is hard to understand the full story or make perfect sense of why the songs sound the way they do when you can't see the visual or hear the rest of the text. Because I did, I love the album. I can understand why you might not get into it if you haven't seen it, but I think approaching it like you would a sountrack to a musical is helpful.

And just an FYI -- it's the story of Faust told in a crazy freak show kind of world. The hunting and the bullets comes in because the devil can give you 12 magic bullets that will always hit their target if you sell your soul. Plus it ties in in a creepy way to heroine and Burrough's (who wrote the text) shooting his wife."

One of My Favorite CDs

David E. Banas | Maine | 04/19/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"For those who do not understand The Black Rider, or for those who feel a bit wary because of some of the other reviews posted here, I wanted to write that like most of the truly valuable works of art and things in life (Tolstoy, love, Beethoven's late piano sonatas, Midnight Cowboy, the Bible, Hendrix's Machine Gun live at the Filmore, a full moon over the ocean, a cold Guinness by a roaring coal fire on a rainy day in a small pub in Galway, etc...) this album demonstrates that you must give alot in order to get alot. And I promise that what you give to The Black Rider will be returned ten-fold. Part of what makes Tom Waits' music so great is that it encompasses the wide range of human emotions; from depression and loneliness, to Dionysic reveling, to true love and devotion, and it does this all in a manner that may be either described as so amazingly honest that it must be a show, or perhaps, such an incredible show that it must come from somewhere intensly honest. In reality it is often some combination of the above. The Black Rider is a microcosm of this as it contains examples of everything that Makes Tom Waits' music so unique and powerful. Songs like November, Briar and Rose, and Lucky Day are as beautiful and sad as they come. Songs like Russian Dance and Black Box Theme demand that you drop what you're doing, pick up a hatchet and dance along. Songs like I'll Shoot the Moon are among Tom's most tongue-in-cheek. There are some of Toms most wierd sounding songs and there are some simply great folky songs. And all this exists on an album that explodes with a gypsy/carnival sound amidst a great folk tale of love and the devil. There is not a track on the Black Rider that can not be labeled amazing for one reason or another and if you give it a chance, (and it may take several listens in a variety of situations, dont give up!) you will be greatly rewarded."

Outre ... Puzzling ... and Brilliant

Robert C. Hamilton | Portland, OR USA | 06/13/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It's not always easy to discern the logic behind the organization of a Tom Waits album; fortunately the man is a good enough musician to get away with juxtaposing music of widely differing themes and styles all on the same disc. It's even harder to follow the soundtracks to the multiple stage-productions for which he has written music, since there is no way to tell where each song and instrumental number fits in the universal scheme of the plot.When dealing with Tom Waits, again, it doesn't really matter. Few of us were lucky enough to be hanging around the Thalia theatre when The Black Rider had its run ... I wasn't even ten years old at the time! Even fewer of us could recite the Black Rider story on call; it's an old German folk tale that was also set to music by Carl Maria von Weber in the 19th century. Consequently, I know little more about the illustrious old tale than I could gather from the liner notes here. But I still love the album dearly.The more releases we see from living legend Waits, the more it seems that he can't make a CD without the stamp of brilliance on it. Some of these songs easily rank with the best of his career. "Just the Right Bullets" is mind-blowing, and the instrumental backing has a sound I haven't found in any of Waits' other work. "The Briar and the Rose," with its allusions to Waits' wife, Kathleen Brennan, is among the very best of his ballads. Nor is there any way to beat the carnival-barking announcement of the opening track, announcing an exhibition of "human oddities." Indeed.What makes The Black Rider unusual, perhaps, is the presense of a large number of instrumentals. Of course, Waits had been writing them for a long time -- listen to "Rainbirds" on Swordfishtrombones or "Midtown" on Rain Dogs -- but they reach a new prominence here. Some of them are simply short episodes of connecting music, while others, like "Gospel Train" and "Russian Dance" are long pieces of brilliant and often quite radical music. "Gospel Train," in particular, must rank as just about the most deliciously dissonant four minutes in all popular music. The vocal version of "Gospel Train" even features train noises from Tom!One other feature of this CD that receives quite a bit of comment is the presense of William Burroughs. I'm not sure that his sprechstimme delivery of "'Tain't no Sin" adds a whole lot to the album, but it certainly doesn't detract. And the lyrics on that song are wonderful: "When it's too hot for comfort / And you can't get an ice cream cone / 'Tain't no sin to take off your skin / And dance around in your bones."In the end, this is certainly not the Waits album I would give to someone unfamiliar with his work. It could take some getting used to, though I enjoyed it from the beginning. Certainly the logic behind the music is very hard to determine in absence of the theatrical context, but the "remainders," as it were, are more than enough for a feast of very quirky musical enjoyment. Highly recommended!"

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