Details
Track Listing
1. Lucky Day (Overture)
2. Black Rider, The
3. November
4. Just the Right Bullets
5. Black Box Theme
6. T'Ain't No Sin
7. Flash Pan Hunter (Intro)
8. That's the Way
9. Briar and the Rose, The
10. Russian Dance
11. Gospel Train - (Orchestra)
12. I'll Shoot the Moon
13. Flash Pan Hunter
14. Crossroads
15. Gospel Train
16. Interlude
17. Oily Night
18. Lucky Day
19. Last Rose of Summer, The
20. Carnival
Album Notes
Personnel: Tom Waits (vocals, organ, keyboards, marimba, calliope, percussion); Wiliam Burroughs (vocals); Greg Cohen (various instruments); Joe Gore (guitar, banjo); Henning Stoll (viola, bassoon); Linda Deluca, Gerd Bessler (viola); Matt Brubeck (cello); Volker Hemken (clarinet); Ralph Carney (bass clarinet, saxophone); Larry Rhodes (bassoon); Nick Phelps (French horn); Kevin Porter (trombone); Hans-Jorn Braudenberg, Francis Thumm (organ); Bill Douglas, Stefan Schafer (bass); Kenny Wollesen (percussion, marimba); Don Neely (musical saw); Kathleen Brennan, Clive Butters, Joe Marquez (boots).
Recorded at Prairie Sun Recording Studios, Cotati, California and Music Factory, Hamburg, Germany. Includes liner notes by Tom Waits.
This album contains songs Tom Waits wrote and performed for the stage production of THE BLACK RIDER directed by Robert Wilson and written by William Burroughs.
THE BLACK RIDER contains Waits' versions of the songs he wrote for the Robert Wilson play of the same name. Wilson has worked with everyone from Philip Glass to Lou Reed, so he's just the kind of left-of-center visionary to accommodate Waits' offbeat musical style. From NIGHTHAWKS AT THE DINER to FRANK'S WILD YEARS, Waits has always been a concept man, and you don't get more conceptual than supplying songs for this semi-mythological narrative of passion and death.
THE BLACK RIDER is somewhat similar in style to the twisted cabaret/blues of Waits' mid-80s work, but with a pronounced European artsong flavor. Accordingly, Waits is accompanied by a mix of his U.S. cronies (Joe Gore, Greg Cohen, etc.) and the musicians from the original BLACK RIDER production. The presence of William Burroughs as lyricist on a couple of tunes represents the closing of a circle that includes the heavy influence of the '50s beat writers on Waits' early work. Less visceral and more cerebral then Waits' previous work, BLACK RIDER is nevertheless full of masterful compositions and inventive, idiosyncratic arrangements.
Industry Reviews
4 Stars - Very Good - ...Waits' work has grown consistently stronger, more ambitious and less self-conscious....
Rolling Stone (03/10/1994)
Highly Recommended - ...Tom Waits has suddenly emerged to become the hardest-working epiglottis in show business....nothing like a pinch of hobo logic to spice up a successful marriage of high opera and low fidelity...
Spin (01/01/1994)
3 Stars - Good - ...[BLACK RIDER] is eclectic, bleak, funny, plain barmy in places and, at a couple of exquisite moments, as touching as anything Tom Waits has recorded...
Q (12/01/1993)
8 - Excellent - ...with records as challenging, tuneful and blackly comic as THE BLACK RIDER, Tom Waits threatens to come as close as anyone since Brecht to piecing together a cross-cultural jigsaw that doesn't fall apart...
NME (11/13/1993)
...Roll up for ringside seats and prepare to be amazed, astounded and bedevilled. For this ringmaster has no living equal....
Melody Maker (11/13/1993)
...[THE BLACK RIDER] showcases [Tom Wait's] penchant for disturbing mood music and grotesque sentiment... - Rating: B
Entertainment Weekly (11/12/1993)
Performance: Harrowing / Recording: Good - ...Waits mines instrumental sounds like the pipeline to the netherworld itself...his vocals sound drawn across broken glass and rusty nails, and filtered through bubbling blood....
Stereo Review (03/01/1994)
...Roll up for ringside seats and prepare to be amazed, astounded and bedevilled. For this ringmaster has no living equal....
Melody Maker (11/13/1993)
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