Orphans

Tom Waits, the great American performer and songwriter, releases a 3CD set titled "Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards" on Monday 20th November 2006. It's a wide-ranging collection of 54 songs - including 30 new recordings – equaling over three hours of rare and never-before heard music. The set comes complete with a 94-page booklet.

Each of the three CDs is separately grouped and sub-titled - "Brawlers", "Bawlers" and "Bastards" – to capture the full spectrum of Waits' ranging and roving musical styles. "Brawlers" is chock full of raucous blues and full-throated juke joint stomp; "Bawlers" comprises Celtic and country ballads, waltzes, lullabies, piano and classic lyrical Waits' songs while "Bastards" is filled with experimental music and strange tales. In addition to the new work, "Orphans" features a number of songs originally recorded for the cinema, the theatre and other projects but which now find a home on a Waits' album for the first time. They include his unique interpretations of songs by such extraordinarily diverse talents as The Ramones, Daniel Johnston, Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht, Leadbelly and Jack Kerouac.

Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, his wife and long time collaborator, again produced "Orphans", his first release since 2004's much-lauded "Real Gone". Waits and Brennan were recently named number four in a list of the "100 Best Living Songwriters" published by America's Paste magazine. "In literature only a handful of writers have pulled off the near impossible. In music, it happens on every Tom Waits recording," said the magazine.