Rain Dogs
Encyclopedia
Rain Dogs is the 9th album by America
n singer-songwriter
Tom Waits
, released in August 1985
on Island Records
. A loose concept album about "the urban dispossessed" of New York City
, Rain Dogs is generally considered the middle album of a trilogy that includes Swordfishtrombones
and Franks Wild Years
.
The album, which includes appearances by guitarists Keith Richards
and Marc Ribot
, is noted for its broad spectrum of musical styles and genres, described by Rolling Stone
as merging "Kurt Weill
, pre-rock integrity from old dirty blues
, [and] the elegiac melancholy of New Orleans funeral brass, into a singularly idiosyncratic American style."
The album peaked at #29 on the UK charts and #188 on the US Billboard
Top 200. In 1989, it was ranked #21 on the Rolling Stone list of the "100 greatest albums of the 1980s." In 2003, the album was ranked number 397 on the magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
".
and Horatio Streets in Manhattan. According to Waits it was
In preparation for the album, Waits recorded street sounds and other ambient noises on a cassette recorder in order to get the sound of the city that would be the album's subject matter.
A wide range of instruments were employed to achieve the album's sound, including marimba
, accordion
, double bass
, trombone
, and banjo
, indicating the many different musical directions spread across Rain Dogs. Coming as it did in the mid 1980s—when most musicians depended on synthesizer
s, drum machine
s, and studio techniques to create their music—the album is notable for its organic sound, and the means by which it was achieved. Waits, discussing his mistrust of then fashionable studio techniques, said:
Waits also stated that "if we couldn't get the right sound out of the drum set we'd get a chest of drawers in the bathroom and bang it real hard with a two-by-four," such that "the sounds become your own."
Rain Dogs marked the first time that Waits worked with guitarist Marc Ribot
, who was impressed by Waits' unusual studio presence:
Ribot also recalls how the band would not rehearse the songs before going to record; rather, Waits would play them the songs on an acoustic guitar in the studio.
The album marks the first time Waits recorded with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards
. As to the reasons for getting Richards involved, and concerning their working relationship in the studio, Waits said:
onwards. As Rolling Stone put it,
The reviewer goes on to describe the music as "bony and menacingly beautiful."
The album is notable for its many different musical styles; among the album's nineteen tracks are two instrumentals ("Midtown" and "Bride of Rain Dog"), a polka
("Cemetery Polka"), a "kind of a New Orleans thing with trombone
" ("Tango Till They're Sore"), ballads ("Time"), pop music
("Downtown Train"), and "a gospel
thing" ("Anywhere I Lay My Head"). "Blind Love" marks Waits' first fully-fledged attempt at the country
genre. As Waits said on the Rain Dogs Island Promo Tape (which consisted of taped comments on songs as sent to radio stations, circa late 1985):
The song "Hang Down Your Head" is loosely based on the folk song "Tom Dooley
", with the lyrics altered but the melody remaining mostly intact.
by stating that the album was about "People who live outdoors. You know how after the rain you see all these dogs that seem lost, wandering around. The rain washes away all their scent, all their direction. So all the people on the album are knit together, by some corporeal way of sharing pain and discomfort."
According to Barney Hoskyns, the album's general theme of "the urban dispossessed" was inspired in part by Martin Bell's 1984 documentary
Streetwise, to which Waits had been asked to contribute music.
Rain Dogs includes a spoken word piece entitled "9th and Hennepin," concerning the inhabitants of 9th Street and Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis
, Minnesota
. In interview Waits described the inspiration for its lyrics, admitting that while the street itself is in Minneapolis,
at Café Lehmitz (a café near the Hamburg
red-light boulevard Reeperbahn
) in the late 1960s. The man and woman depicted on the cover are called Rose and Lily.
The Europe
an version of the cover features red rather than blue text.
Side One
Side Two
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
n singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, released in August 1985
1985 in music
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1985.-January–March:*January 1 - The newest music video channel, VH-1, debuts on American cable. It is aimed at an older demographic than its sister station, MTV...
on Island Records
Island Records
Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group...
. A loose concept album about "the urban dispossessed" of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Rain Dogs is generally considered the middle album of a trilogy that includes Swordfishtrombones
Swordfishtrombones
Swordfishtrombones is an album by American singer-songwriter Tom Waits, released in September 1983. It was the first album that Waits produced himself....
and Franks Wild Years
Franks Wild Years
Franks Wild Years is an album by Tom Waits, released 1987 on Island Records. Subtitled "Un Operachi Romantico in Two Acts", the album contains songs written by Waits and collaborators for a play of the same name...
.
The album, which includes appearances by guitarists Keith Richards
Keith Richards
Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...
and Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot born May 21, 1954) is an American guitarist and composer.His own work has touched on many styles, including no wave, free jazz, and Cuban music. Ribot is also known for collaborating with other musicians, most notably Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and composer John Zorn.-Biography:Ribot was...
, is noted for its broad spectrum of musical styles and genres, described by Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
as merging "Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
, pre-rock integrity from old dirty blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, [and] the elegiac melancholy of New Orleans funeral brass, into a singularly idiosyncratic American style."
The album peaked at #29 on the UK charts and #188 on the US Billboard
Billboard charts
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...
Top 200. In 1989, it was ranked #21 on the Rolling Stone list of the "100 greatest albums of the 1980s." In 2003, the album was ranked number 397 on the magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is the title of a 2003 special issue of American magazine Rolling Stone, and a related book published in 2005.Related news articles:...
".
Composition and recording
Waits wrote the majority of the album in a two month stint in the fall of 1984 in a basement room at the corner of WashingtonWashington Street (Manhattan)
Washington Street is a north-south street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Running from 14th Street in the Meatpacking District at its northernmost end to its southern end at Hubert Street in TriBeCa, Washington Street is, for its entire length, the westernmost street in lower Manhattan...
and Horatio Streets in Manhattan. According to Waits it was
kind of a rough area, Lower ManhattanLower ManhattanLower Manhattan is the southernmost part of the island of Manhattan, the main island and center of business and government of the City of New York...
between CanalCanal Street (Manhattan)Canal Street is a major street in New York City, crossing lower Manhattan to join New Jersey in the west to Brooklyn in the east . It forms the main spine of Chinatown, and separates it from Little Italy...
and 14th street14th Street (Manhattan)14th Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The street rivals the size of some of the well-known avenues of the city and is an important business location....
, just about a block from the riverEast RiverThe East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland...
[...] It was a good place for me to work. Very quiet, except for the water coming through the pipes every now and then. Sort of like being in a vault.
In preparation for the album, Waits recorded street sounds and other ambient noises on a cassette recorder in order to get the sound of the city that would be the album's subject matter.
A wide range of instruments were employed to achieve the album's sound, including marimba
Marimba
The marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It consists of a set of wooden keys or bars with resonators. The bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones. The keys are arranged as those of a piano, with the accidentals raised vertically and overlapping the natural keys ...
, accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
, double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
, trombone
Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
, and banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...
, indicating the many different musical directions spread across Rain Dogs. Coming as it did in the mid 1980s—when most musicians depended on synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
s, drum machine
Drum machine
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums or other percussion instruments. They are used in a variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music...
s, and studio techniques to create their music—the album is notable for its organic sound, and the means by which it was achieved. Waits, discussing his mistrust of then fashionable studio techniques, said:
If I want a sound, I usually feel better if I've chased it and killed it, skinned it and cooked it. Most things you can get with a button nowadays. So if I was trying for a certain drum sound, my engineer would say: "Oh, for ChristChristChrist is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
's sake, why are we wasting our time? Let's just hit this little cup with a stick here, sampleSampling (music)In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song or piece. Sampling was originally developed by experimental musicians working with musique concrète and electroacoustic music, who physically...
something (take a drum sound from another record) and make it bigger in the mix, don't worry about it." I'd say, "No, I would rather go in the bathroom and hit the door with a piece of two-by-four very hard."
Waits also stated that "if we couldn't get the right sound out of the drum set we'd get a chest of drawers in the bathroom and bang it real hard with a two-by-four," such that "the sounds become your own."
Rain Dogs marked the first time that Waits worked with guitarist Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot born May 21, 1954) is an American guitarist and composer.His own work has touched on many styles, including no wave, free jazz, and Cuban music. Ribot is also known for collaborating with other musicians, most notably Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and composer John Zorn.-Biography:Ribot was...
, who was impressed by Waits' unusual studio presence:
Rain Dogs was my first major label type recording, and I thought everybody made records the way Tom makes records. [...] I've learned since that it's a very original and individual way of producing. As producer apart from himself as writer and singer and guitar player he brings in his ideas, but he's very open to sounds that suddenly and accidentally occur in the studio. I remember one verbal instruction being, "Play it like a midget's bar mitzvah."
Ribot also recalls how the band would not rehearse the songs before going to record; rather, Waits would play them the songs on an acoustic guitar in the studio.
He had this ratty old hollow body, and he would spell out the grooves. It wasn't a mechanical kind of recording at all. He has a very individual guitar style he sort of slaps the strings with his thumb[...]He let me do what I heard, there was a lot of freedom. If it wasn't going in a direction he liked, he'd make suggestions. But there's damn few ideas I've had which haven't happened on the first or second take.
The album marks the first time Waits recorded with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards
Keith Richards
Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...
. As to the reasons for getting Richards involved, and concerning their working relationship in the studio, Waits said:
There was something in there that I thought he would understand. I picked out a couple of songs that I thought he would understand and he did. He's got a great voice and he's just a great spirit in the studio. He's very spontaneous, he moves like some kind of animal. I was trying to explain "Big Black Mariah" and finally I started to move in a certain way and he said, "Oh, why didn't you do that to begin with? Now I know what you're talking about." It's like animal instinct.
Music
The album has been noted as one of the most important musically and critically in Waits' career, in particular to the new direction which he undertook from 1983's SwordfishtrombonesSwordfishtrombones
Swordfishtrombones is an album by American singer-songwriter Tom Waits, released in September 1983. It was the first album that Waits produced himself....
onwards. As Rolling Stone put it,
With Rain Dogs [Waits] dropped his bedraggled lounge-piano act and fused outsider influences—socialist decadence by way of Kurt WeillKurt WeillKurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
, pre-rock integrity from old dirty bluesBluesBlues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, the elegiac melancholy of New OrleansMusic of New OrleansThe music of New Orleans assumes various styles of music which have often borrowed from earlier traditions. New Orleans, Louisiana is especially known for its strong association with jazz music, universally considered to be the birthplace of the genre. The earliest form was dixieland, which has...
funeral brass—into a singularly idiosyncratic American style.
The reviewer goes on to describe the music as "bony and menacingly beautiful."
The album is notable for its many different musical styles; among the album's nineteen tracks are two instrumentals ("Midtown" and "Bride of Rain Dog"), a polka
Polka
The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...
("Cemetery Polka"), a "kind of a New Orleans thing with trombone
Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
" ("Tango Till They're Sore"), ballads ("Time"), pop music
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
("Downtown Train"), and "a gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
thing" ("Anywhere I Lay My Head"). "Blind Love" marks Waits' first fully-fledged attempt at the country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
genre. As Waits said on the Rain Dogs Island Promo Tape (which consisted of taped comments on songs as sent to radio stations, circa late 1985):
"Blind Love" is one of my first country songs. I like Merle HaggardMerle HaggardMerle Ronald Haggard is an American country music singer, guitarist, fiddler, instrumentalist, and songwriter. Along with Buck Owens, Haggard and his band The Strangers helped create the Bakersfield sound, which is characterized by the unique twang of Fender Telecaster guitars, vocal harmonies,...
. Most of those other guys, though, sound like they're all just drinking tea and watching their waist and talking to their accountant. This one I think subscribes to some of that roadhouse feel.
The song "Hang Down Your Head" is loosely based on the folk song "Tom Dooley
Tom Dooley (song)
"Tom Dooley" is an old North Carolina folk song based on the 1866 murder of a woman named Laura Foster in Wilkes County, North Carolina. It is best known today because of a hit version recorded in 1958 by The Kingston Trio. This version was a multi-format hit, reaching #1 in Billboard, the...
", with the lyrics altered but the melody remaining mostly intact.
Lyrics
Rolling Stone called Rain Dogs Waits' "finest portrait of the tragic kingdom of the streets." The album's title comes from an expression which suggests such an atmosphere. Waits cast further light on the metaphorMetaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
by stating that the album was about "People who live outdoors. You know how after the rain you see all these dogs that seem lost, wandering around. The rain washes away all their scent, all their direction. So all the people on the album are knit together, by some corporeal way of sharing pain and discomfort."
According to Barney Hoskyns, the album's general theme of "the urban dispossessed" was inspired in part by Martin Bell's 1984 documentary
Documentary
A documentary is a creative work of non-fiction, including:* Documentary film, including television* Radio documentary* Documentary photographyRelated terms include:...
Streetwise, to which Waits had been asked to contribute music.
Rain Dogs includes a spoken word piece entitled "9th and Hennepin," concerning the inhabitants of 9th Street and Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
. In interview Waits described the inspiration for its lyrics, admitting that while the street itself is in Minneapolis,
most of the imagery is from New YorkNew YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. It's just that I was on 9th and Hennepin years ago in the middle of a pimpPimpA pimp is an agent for prostitutes who collects part of their earnings. The pimp may receive this money in return for advertising services, physical protection, or for providing a location where she may engage clients...
war, and 9th and Hennepin always stuck in my mind. "There's trouble at 9th and Hennepin." To this day I'm sure there continues to be trouble at 9th and Hennepin. At this donut shop. They were playing "Our Day Will ComeOur Day Will Come"Our Day Will Come" is a popular song composed by Bob Hilliard and Mort Garson which was a #1 hit in 1963 for Ruby & The Romantics.-Ruby & the Romantics:...
" by Dinah WashingtonDinah WashingtonDinah Washington, born Ruth Lee Jones , was an American blues, R&B and jazz singer. She has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the '50s", and called "The Queen of the Blues"...
when these three 12-year-old pimps came in in chinchillaChinchillaChinchillas are crepuscular rodents, slightly larger and more robust than ground squirrels, and are native to the Andes mountains in South America. Along with their relatives, viscachas, they make up the family Chinchillidae....
coats armed with knives and, uh, forks and spoons and ladles and they started throwing them out in the streets. Which was answered by live ammunition over their heads into our booth. And I knew "Our Day Was Here." I remember the names of all the donuts: cherry twist, lime rickey. But mostly I was thinking of the guy going back to Philadelphia from ManhattanManhattanManhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
on the Metroliner with The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, looking out the window in New York as he pulls out of the station, imagining all the terrible things he doesn't have to be a part of.
Artwork
Despite the facial similarity, the man on the cover of Rain Dogs is not Tom Waits. The photograph is one of a series taken by the Swedish photographer Anders PetersenAnders Petersen (photographer)
Anders Petersen is a Swedish photographer, who lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden.-Biography:Anders Petersen is noted for his intimate and personal documentary-style black-and-white photographs. He studied photography under Christer Stromholm in Sweden, 1966-1967...
at Café Lehmitz (a café near the Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
red-light boulevard Reeperbahn
Reeperbahn
The Reeperbahn is a street in Hamburg's St. Pauli district, one of the two centres of Hamburg's nightlife and also the city's red-light district...
) in the late 1960s. The man and woman depicted on the cover are called Rose and Lily.
The Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an version of the cover features red rather than blue text.
Track listing
All songs by Waits, except where noted.Side One
Side Two
Personnel
- Tom Waits – Vocals (1-10, 12-17, 19), Guitar (2, 4, 6, 8-10, 15-17), Farfisa Organ (3, 19), Piano (5, 12), Pump Organ (8), Banjo (13), Harmonium (18)
- Michael Blair - Percussion (1-4, 7, 8, 13, 17), Marimba (2, 7, 10, 12), Congas (4), Drums (8, 14, 18), Metal Percussion (12), Bowed Saw (12), Parade Drum (19)
- Stephen Taylor Arvizu HodgesStephen Hodges (musician)Stephen Hodges is an American percussionist and composer. He is best known for his work with Tom Waits, Mike Watt, T Bone Burnett, and film director David Lynch.- Discography :*Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones...
- Drums (1, 2, 4, 6, 10, 11, 15, 16), Parade Drums (3) - Larry TaylorLarry TaylorLarry Taylor is an American bass guitarist, best known for his work as a member of Canned Heat from 1967. Before joining Canned Heat he had been a session bassist for The Monkees and Jerry Lee Lewis...
- Double Bass (1, 3, 4, 6, 8-10, 15), Bass (7, 11, 14, 16) - Marc RibotMarc RibotMarc Ribot born May 21, 1954) is an American guitarist and composer.His own work has touched on many styles, including no wave, free jazz, and Cuban music. Ribot is also known for collaborating with other musicians, most notably Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and composer John Zorn.-Biography:Ribot was...
- Guitar (1-4, 7, 8), Lead Guitar (10) - Chris SpeddingChris SpeddingChris Spedding is an English rock and roll and jazz guitarist, best known for his session work. Allmusic states - "Spedding is one of the UK's most versatile session guitarists, and has had a long career on two continents that saw him tackle nearly every style of rock and roll, as well as...
- Guitar (1) - Hollywood Paul Litteral - Trumpet (1, 11, 19)
- Tony GarnierTony Garnier (musician)Tony Garnier is an American bassist , best known as an accompanist to Bob Dylan, with whom he has played since 1989...
- Double Bass (2) - Bobby PreviteBobby PreviteRobert "Bobby" Previte is a drummer, composer and bandleader. Previte earned a B.A. in Economics at the University at Buffalo, where he also studied percussion. He moved to New York City in 1979, and became active in the city's thriving jazz and experimental music scenes...
- Percussion (2), Marimba (2) - William SchimmelWilliam SchimmelWilliam Schimmel is one of the principal architects in the resurgence of the accordion, and the philosophy of "Musical Reality"...
- Accordion (3, 9, 10) - Bob Funk - Trombone (3, 5, 10, 11, 19)
- Ralph CarneyRalph CarneyRalph Carney is an American musician. While his primary instruments are various saxophones and clarinets, Carney collects and plays many instruments, often unusual or obscure ones....
- Baritone Sax (4, 14), Sax (11, 18), Clarinet (12) - Greg CohenGreg CohenA native of Los Angeles, bassist Greg Cohen has been playing in various acclaimed music groups since the '60s. He is perhaps best known for his work with John Zorn's Masada quartet; more recently he has been touring with Ornette Coleman, and performed on Coleman's much-praised Sound Grammar...
- Double Bass (5, 12, 13) - Keith RichardsKeith RichardsKeith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...
- Guitar (6, 14, 15), Backing Vocals (15) - Robert Musso - Banjo (7)
- Arno Hecht - Tenor Sax (11, 19)
- Crispin Cioe - Sax (11, 19)
- Robert QuineRobert QuineRobert Wolfe Quine was an American guitarist, known for his innovative guitar solos.A native of Akron, Ohio, Quine worked with a wide range of musicians, though he himself remained relatively unknown in comparison...
- Guitar (15, 17) - Ross Levinson - Violins (15)
- John LurieJohn LurieJohn Lurie is an American actor, musician, painter and producer. He is co-founder of The Lounge Lizards, a jazz ensemble. Lurie has acted in 19 films including Stranger than Paradise and Down by Law, composed and performed music for 20 television and film works, and he produced and starred in...
- Alto Sax (16) - G.E. Smith - Guitar (17)
- Mickey CurryMickey CurryMichael Timothy Curry is an American drummer. He is best known for his long-term collaboration with the singer-songwriter Bryan Adams, although he has also worked with Hall & Oates, Cher, Tina Turner, Alice Cooper, David Bowie, Elvis Costello, Sam Phillips, Tom Waits, The Cult, Steve Jones and...
- Drums (17) - Tony LevinTony LevinTony Levin is an American progressive rock musician, specializing in bass guitar, Chapman stick and upright bass ....
- Bass (17) - Robert Kilgore - Organ (17)