Performances: 1976 - 1980

1976

Tour promoting Nighthawks At The Diner
October 1975 - June 1976
(album released: October, 1975).
Tom Waits: vocals, acoustic guitar, piano. Frank Vicari: tenor saxophone. Dr. Fitz(gerald) Jenkins: upright bass. Chip White: drums.

Tom Waits (1976): "I must admit that I hoisted up six tall cool ones in the back with the stage crew, before I actually went out into the limelight, and I got to sing one song and sit on the panel...She had a good personality. It was a little awkward I must admit. I was at the end of the couch....but they talked to me, they tolerated me..." (Source: unidentified BBC Interview, 1976)

Barney Hoskyns (2009): “One of the first dates Waits played with the new trio was the University of Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh, where they were supported by none other than Charles Bukowski. "Tom had given me a couple of his books," Chip White remembers. "Like, Check this out and you'll dig where I'm comin' from...' And I did." To White's astonishment, Bukowski brought a beer cooler on stage, downing one can after another without saying a word. Finally somebody yelled out, "Hey man, say something!" Bukowski burped in response and began reading. By this point "Buk" had become a legend of the literary underground, his semi autobiographical novels Post Office (1971) and Factotum (1975) bringing him a far larger audience than his early stories and poems while making his alter ego Hank Chinaski a cult hero.... "He was like a big bear," Waits recalled of the writer. "He had this enormous head, as big as Frankenstein. He had a big presence and huge shoulders, and that face that looks like a mask, a scary mask. I was fascinated with him. He was like a ... I don't know what you call it, a mentor.” (Source: “Lowside Of The Road: A Life Of Tom Waits" by Barney Hoskyns. Faber/ Broadway, 2009)

David "Lefty" Foster (2007): "Waits played the Shaboo shortly after releasing his acclaimed 1976 album "Small Change," but the record was a slow grower, and the audience was small when he rolled into Willimantic. "There were like 12 people the first night we booked him, and in the middle of the show - he's chain-smoking at the piano, and the bass player and the drummer are there, and all of a sudden, one of the Shaboo cats - we had cats - jumped up on the piano and started walking across the piano while he was playing, and Tom was enamored by the cat," Foster says. "At the end of the night, he's up in the office, he's kind of mumbling and chain-smoking, going, `Lefty, this is a great place. I really dug it.' I had my head tilted, going, `Tom, there was nobody here. What could possibly get you off about the place when there was nobody here?' He goes, `Man, the vibe, the cat - everything was just great.'" Waits' booking agent sent the singer back to Willimantic eight weeks later in the tour, after the album had attracted more attention, and this time the 1,000-capacity Shaboo sold out in advance. Foster recalls, "At the end of the night, I'm paying him again up in the office, and I said, `Tom, a little better this time,' and he goes, `Nah, it was better the first time.'" (Source: "Memorable Nights At The Shaboo - Concert Saturday Marks 25th Anniversary Of Roadhouse's Closing" Courant.com by Eric R. Danton. August 12, 2007)

Rolling Stone. January, 1977: "The final injustice came last spring in New Orleans when Roger McGuinn, Joan Baez, Kinky Friedman and some other members of the "Rolling Blunder Revue" as Waits termed Dylan's entourage, took over the stage at Ballinjax Club just before Waits was scheduled to begin his set. "They got up there for an hour just before I was supposed to begin my set," says Waits, "Nobody even asked me; before I knew it, fuckin' Roger McGuinn was up there playing guitar and singing and Joan Boaz and Kinky were singing. By the time I got onstage the audience was stoked. They were all lookin' around the room and shit. I don't need this crap - it was my show. I was drinkin' too much on top of everything else."

Fred Dellar (1976): "There is heckling. "Your opinions are like assholes, buddy," comes the voice from beneath the cap. "Everybody's got one." The fans at the back yell "Shut up!" to the front-line main-mouths. Waits flicks a lighted cigarette into the central area of contention and everybody holds their breath waiting for a fight to start. Nothing happens, so Waits moves on to deliver a finger-poppin' work-out on 'Diamonds on My Windshield' the tempo being about twice that employed on the Heart Of Saturday Night version." (Source: "Tom Waits: Ronnie Scott's London". By Fred Dellar. New Musical Express. June 12, 1976)

Mick Brown (1981): "The first time Tom Waits visited London, in 1976, he earned the dubious distinction of being thrown out of the club were he had been booked to perform. This was probably nothing new to Waits, who at the time gave the impression of having been thrown out of most places, and - to paraphrase Groucho Marx - of not wanting to join any club that would have him as a member anyway." (Source: "He's A Coppola Swell" by Mick Brown. The Guardian. March, 1981)

Tom Waits (1987): "That was a tightrope. The rope was round my neck. Nightmares. Playing a lounge in the middle of a golf course with this nomadic audience all waiting for a Moroccan jazz combo. That was a rough gig. Two weeks! Man, I had to dry out after that one. That was like spending two weeks at somebody else's grandmother's house. It was miscasting I was miscast." (Source: "I Just Tell Stories For Money" New Musical Express magazine (UK), by Sean O'Hagan. Date: Travelers Cafe/ Los Angeles. November 14, 1987)

End tour promoting Nighthawks At The Diner
October 1975 - June 1976

Studio recordings for the album Small Change
July 15, 1976 - July 29, 1976
(Wally Heider Recording. Hollywood/ USA. Outtakes as featured on Drunk On The Moon)

Start tour promoting Small Change
October 1976 - May 1977
(album released: September, 1976)
Tom Waits: vocals, acoustic guitar, piano.Frank Vicari/ Dave Kirby: tenor saxophone. Dr. Fitz(gerald) Jenkins: upright bass.Chip White/ Red Jackson: drums.

Also lists as: Mainstreet/ Lobster Records 1993. Bottom Line/ New York. December 18, 1976 & The Heart Of The Shaboo Night/ Paradise Records 1992, May 1976.

The Back Door, Aztec Center, San Diego State University. San Diego/ USA.

Randy Hoffman (2007): "It didn't start till two in the morning. And man, I'm telling you, he delivered one of the most amazing live performances I have ever seen... I remember thinking, 'God, this guy made a serious left turn!' He'd developed into a whole thing that I could never have imagined, and I was just knocked out." (Source: Randy Hoffman interview June 14, 2007 as quoted in “Lowside Of The Road: A Life Of Tom Waits" by Barney Hoskyns. Faber/ Broadway, 2009)

Jay S. Jacobs (2000): "On Tom's twenty-seventh birthday, he and The Nocturnal Emissions played the Agora Ballroom in Cleveland. While Tom was doing "Pasties and a G-String" a woman slipped onstage, walked up behind him, caught his eye, and started to dance. Waits got into it, assuming that she was an audience member acting on impulse, but his shock was apparent when she started to perform a slow, sensual striptease. Shimmying out of her dress, the woman revealed her very own pasties and G-string. Waits regained his equilibrium and sang along to the stripper's bump and grind. As the song ended the woman disappeared back into the crowd and Waits joked, "Thank you, thank you. I haven't seen my mother in years."' Nocturnal Emissions drummer Chip White explained to a European radio interviewer how all of this actually came about. Tom didn't know it, but that seemingly impromptu striptease was, in fact, a birthday surprise arranged for him by John Forscha, his road manager and old friend from L.A. It was an inspired gift: Waits enjoyed the spectacle so much that he had Forscha hire a local stripper at every remaining tour stop. Band members got to the point where they'd rate the girls. At the end of the tour, they tallied the points and named the Madison, Wisconsin stripper the hottest of the hot." (Source: Wild Years, The Music and Myth of Tom Waits. Jay S. Jacobs, 2000). Further reading: Tom Waits For No One?

Unidentified shows 1976:
Date unknown (May/ June 1976): Venue unknown. Germany
Date unknown (1976): Palladium. Dallas/ USA
Date unknown (ca. May, 1976): Unicorn Club in Ithaca, New York/ USA (mentioned in New Times magazine. June 11, 1976)
Date unknown (ca. May, 1976): Willimantic, Connecticut. Night before Unicorn/ Ithaca (mentioned in New Times magazine. June 11, 1976)
Date unknown: (December 17(?)/ 24(?), 1976): "My Father's Place" Roslyn, Long Island (mentioned in The New Yorker. December 27, 1976)
Date unknown (late December, 1976): The Quiet Knight, Chicago. Weekend shows (25?, 26?) (mentioned in Rambler December 30, 1976)

1977

Tom Waits (1979): "When I first played the Roxy with Jimmy Witherspoon, all the lights fused along Sunset Boulevard" (Source: Melody Maker magazine. May 5, 1979)

Chip White: "We went to Japan one time. We went to Japan and he met a lady over there, and there was some confusion because she got kind of friendly and everything and she thought that he was asking her to marry him - to get married but he was not asking her to get married. So then we go back to California and we're playing at the Roxy on Sunset Strip one night with Jimmy Witherspoon. There were the two bands. We're playing and a strange thing happened because a car crashed into a telephone pole and knocked all the lights out in the club, completely blacked out and just at that moment this lady came from Japan to meet him. It was incredible because everything got dark and somebody'd light candles and then she walked in just when we lit the candles. So it was strange. And then we thought they'd fix the power but they could not fix the power so all the clubs - everybody went out in the streets and they were drinking and smoking - so the whole Sunset Strip is like one long party and he's there with this lady from Japan that's gonna marry him. But he's not gonna get married." (Source: German/ Swiss? interview with Chip White - date unknown. Transcription by Gary Tausch as sent to Raindogs Listserv Discussionlist, August 8, 2001)

Tom Waits (2009): "I played the Roxy with Jimmy Witherspoon a long time ago, and somebody hit the telephone pole in front on Saturday. Knocked out all the power - this was like 5minutes before we went on. Place was in total darkness. People were lighting candles. Jimmy Witherspoon went and did a killer show. He just put his organist on a piano, and he has this big big, huge voice any way. Got right on the lip of this thing. I was freaked out. I didn't know what to do. He killed. I guess you have to get reduced to that to find out the origin and basic building blocks of what you do are still in tact. Look under the building, make sure the supports are still there and haven't been eaten through" (Source: "Irrelevant Topics - Tom Waits & Beck Hansen". Beck official site. July 8/ 17, 2009)

End tour promoting Small Change
October 1976 - May 1977

Studio recordings for the album Foreign Affairs
July 28, 1977 - August 15, 1977
(Outtakes featured on Drunk On The Moon)

Start tour promoting Foreign Affairs
October 1977 - March 1978
(album released: September, 1977).
Tom Waits: vocals, acoustic guitar, piano.Frank Vicari: tenor saxophone.Dr. Fitz(gerald) Jenkins (replaced by Danny Trifan Oct. 4, 1977 and Noah Young early 1978): upright bass. Chip White: drums, percussion/ vibes

The Troubadour. Los Angeles/ USA. Opened by Elayne Boozler

Barney Hoskyns (2009): "When he played a benefit for the Troubadour in mid September, he asked Midler to join him on stage to sing a duet. "It was one of the greatest shows I've ever seen," says Michael Hacker. "Bette came out and they did 'Never Talk to Strangers.'The place was packed. People were shoulder to shoulder." (Source: “Lowside Of The Road: A Life Of Tom Waits" by Barney Hoskyns. Faber/ Broadway, 2009)

Art Fein (1999): On the most embarassing moment of music (Gay rights show, 1977): "The other was Tom Waits at the Gay Rights show at the Hollywood Bowl in 1977. I went there with Todd Everett -- because we got free tickets! I was shocked to see George Maharis, of Route 66, made all up like Percy Dovetonsils. Todd acutely noted that three female performers that night - Helen Reddy, Tanya Tucker, and Bette Midler - had all had hits with "Delta Dawn." During a break, I noticed on the darkened stage the figure of Waits ascending some stairs to a piano atop a wall. He was to follow Richard Pryor, but he never got a chance. Pryor was not in the best of moods: "When they called me to do this gig for you I said fine. But then I was backstage and saw one of your guys yelling at this young kid from the Lockers dance group because he was smoking near a set. Those young kids worked their asses off to entertain you faggots, and they're not getting paid, but once one of them steps out of line a tiny bit you think you can yell at him. Well you can't! I'm sick of y'all and your faggoty-ass bullshit. What were YOU doing during the Watts riots - sucking each other's dicks? Fuck you and everything you stand for, I'm getting the fuck out of here." The audience at first laughed at his audaciousness, then let loose boos. The stage went dark. After ten minutes, someone gave the signal to get on with it. With people shouting "Kill him!" and "Fuck Richard Pryor!", the spotlight hit Tom Waits sitting on top of the wall. He was virtually unknown to this crowd, and decided it wasn't time to get acquainted. He wouldn't move. He just sat there smoking a cigarette for five long minutes. Finally they switched off the light, and a spokesman came out and apologized for Pryor's remarks. I think the rest of the show was cancelled. If any of y'all ever talk to Waits, ask him about that night. I never did." (Source: Another Fein Mess. Art Fein, March 1999)

Night Tide Showcase. West Hartford/ USA

Barney Hoskyns (2009): “... after a row in Hartford, Connecticut, on the fourth, Fitz Jenkins was given his marching orders. "Something happened that was weird," Chip White recalls of the firing. "I think Tom had promised Fitz he could do some recording and then it didn't happen. I wasn't on the inside of it, but I was sorry it happened," Jenkins' replacement was sometime Blood, Sweat and Tears bassist Danny Trifan, an old jazz comrade of Frank Vicari's.” (Source: “Lowside Of The Road: A Life Of Tom Waits" by Barney Hoskyns. Faber/ Broadway, 2009)

The Memphis Flyer, 2005: "A lot of faces are blue in the glare of the Ritz' neon lights," the radio announcer said. Chip White started working the vibes, and Danny Trifan's upright bass walked lazily up and down. "Welcome, everybody, once again to the Ritz, the second set live on FM 100 -- Electra/Asylum recording artist Tom Waits." It was Wednesday, November 2nd, 1977, and the 28-year-old Waits, already a cult hero, was visiting Memphis for back-to-back sets. Foreign Affairs had just been released, but his song list featured cuts from The Heart of Saturday Night, Small Change, and Nighthawks at the Diner. The rasping songwriter was stumbling toward the end of his burlesque period, a tragically clownish love affair with Americana where Waits played the part of a hobo poet: half Charlie Chaplin, half Hoagy Carmichael, and all W.C. Fields. Critics liked Foreign Affairs well enough, but they were getting tired of Waits' drunk-at-the-piano schtick, and so was Waits, who wondered if he was on his way to becoming a novelty act. Frank Vicari's tenor saxophone started the Memphis show, squalling like a cat in the bathtub, and Waits growled his way through "The One That Got Away," a sprawling, impressionistic take on graft, watery graves, and all things noir. Fifteen songs later, the sax was still moaning, and Waits was deep into the wrecked despair of "San Diego Serenade." He bopped his way through vaudeville-inspired songs such as "Step Right Up" and "Jitterbug Boy," crooned howling heartachers like "I Wish I Was in New Orleans," and comically mumbled his way through "The Piano Has Been Drinking." "When I heard Tom Waits, I knew this was something. This was one of the original voices of rock-and-roll. It was incredible music and incredibly far out of the mainstream," says Walter Dawson. In 1977, Dawson was The Commercial Appeal's intricately tattooed music writer, with an ear for interesting material and the desire to introduce readers to artists they weren't likely to hear on the radio. When Dawson heard Waits was coming to Memphis, he placed a glowing review in the CA. Located on Madison Avenue just west of McLean, the Ritz seemed custom-built for Waits' seedy chic. Before it was converted into a nightclub, the building housed the Capri Art Theater. "It was a skin joint," says Jerry Swift. Today, Swift's the goateed elder statesman of the Memphis Flyer's advertising staff. In 1977, he owned the Ritz, an acoustically excellent performance space with a revolving stage and a reputation for booking artists such as Billy Joel, Leon Redbone, John Prine, and Joan Armatrading. Waits' concerts took a turn to the theatrical in '76, when he started touring with a street lamp for a set and making some unusual requests of club owners. The Ritz show was no exception. "When the contract came in, I was looking over the rider," Swift says with a salty chuckle. "It had the usual stuff -- food, drinks, and things like that. And then I saw, 'The club owner must provide a stripper on stage.' I called and asked, 'What's with this stripper shit? This is Memphis, and I don't know if we can do that.'" Fortunately for Swift, a man by the name of Art Baldwin had recently arrived in Memphis with a bevy of exotic dancers imported from Tacoma, Washington, and one of the Tacoma girls was available for the gig. According to Swift, there wasn't any actual stripping involved. The dancer just had to dress like a streetwalker and hang out under the street lamp. A bit of bumping and grinding was requested during "Pasties & a G-String," where Waits lasciviously shouts, "I'm getting harder than Chinese algebra!" Dawson says members of the Amazing Rhythm Aces, who'd gone backstage, watched as Waits carefully placed a cigarette in every pocket of his suit so he could comically fumble around for a smoke onstage. "That's showmanship," Dawson says. Of Waits that night, Swift recalls, "I thought he was a homeless man looking for a handout. He looked like one of the winos who would come in if somebody left the backstage door open. I said, 'Hey, what do you think you're doing,' and he looked up at me and said, 'Well, I'm performing here tonight.'" (Source: "The Second Time Around - After a hot one-night stand in 1977, Tom Waits pays Memphis a courtesy call".The Memphis Flyer. Aug. 3, 2006. By Chris Davis)

John Adams: "Saw him (John Stewart) curse Tom Waits for wiping the audience out by opening a show at Santa Cruz with a wrenching set; then, of course, whip the audience back up with a killer set of his own." (Source: Bloodlines archives digest VI no 1107. December 26-27, 1997)

Peter Fields: "I only saw him (John Stewart) once at the Del Mar Theater in Santa Cruz in 1977, on a double bill with Tom Waits. The way it worked is that John did a show, then Waits; then a second group of ticketholders comes in, Waits does a show, then John. Well, Waits must have been in a mood that night because leading off the second show he plays forever. Two encores, no hurry to get done. So John didn't get onstage till 1:50am. The theater held about 1000 people, but there were only 125 of us left at this point. Didn't matter, John says "Damn that Waits" and then roared non-stop until after 4am. I thought he'd never stop playing "Never Goin' Back." (Source: bloodlines digest #339 - Wednesday, June 26, 2002)

1978

End tour promoting Foreign Affairs
October 1977 - March 1978

Studio recordings for the album Blue Valentine
July 24, 1978 - August 26, 1978
(Filmways/ Heider Recording. Hollywood/ USA)

Start tour promoting Blue Valentine
October 1978 - December 1979
(album released: September, 1978).
Tom Waits: vocals, electric guitar, piano.Herbert Hardesty: tenor saxophone, flugel horn, trumpet.Arthur Richards: electric guitar.Big John Tomassie: drums.Greg Cohen: upright bass.

Stan Soocher (1979): "Tom Waits is plenty pissed off. In the middle of a 50-city tour in support of his new album Blue Valentine (Asylum), he's been rudely awakened in his Knoxville, Tennessee, motel room by a persistent telephone ring after two days without sleep. Plus his wallet has been stolen, to boot. "It took me six months to get my license back since I had so many tickets for parking and moving violations," Waits growls before he plunges head-long into a series of incessant coughs. "I was doing a show in Valparaiso, Indiana (cough, cough) and some guy jumped on stage and stole my leather jacket (cough) with my license, letters, and money. You just can't trust anyone anymore. They're armed and they're dangerous." (Source: "Tom Waits For No One" Circus Weekly, by Stan Soocher. Date: January 23, 1979)

Tom Waits (1981): "Well I lost my equilibrium and my car keys, and my Miner Bird died. We were in Valparaiso Indiana and someone stole my wallet, my driver's license, my passport...whole catastrophe." (Source: Montreal Jazz Festival. July 3, 1981. "The One That Got Away")

Tom Waits (1982): "And I don't know how we ended up in Indiana. Wasn't my idea. 32 years old and I've never wanted to go to Indiana. It never occured to me. Even as a child. And that told me something. When I first heard of prospects for arrival in the Indiana area, I had reservations. But ah, Murray said that nobody works Indiana, so you guys'll clean up! Indiana is basically hungry. Hungry, and they want more and more for their entertainment dollar. You can fill that need. And at that point in my life I was not prepared to accept that kind of responsibility. I don't want any shit from Indiana. (applause) I mean I'm thinkin about... down the road... ah, day to day is one thing, but... we ended up in a little place, and on the marquee it said "Las Vegas style entertainment." That may sound good to you. When you've been out for awhile, you smell a rat. Some guy in Youngstown Ohio got mixed up with the mob, and they said "Listen, why don't you run a joint down in Valpariso." "We'll send you down there just till things cool off, and then you can come back and visit your family." And they said "Look, you guys'll love it, cause there's a hotel right next to the gig, a little Dairy Queen there." Everybody went "Wow...crazy." "The dough is great, you gotta be nuts not to not to take a gig like that." Well... I don't have a lot of regrets in my life... I lost my equilibrium and I lost my car keys...I lost my passport, my driver's license... my Visa, Carte Blanche, Bank Americard... lost everything that I hold dear to me. And I lost it in Indiana. I know what you're thinkin... that's no reason to blame Indiana. Well I'm just that way. So we do alot of travelin' now... go all over the country. But we don't go to Indiana." (Source: Tyrone Guthrie Theater. Minneapolis. May 9, 1982 "The One That Got Away")

Unidentified shows 1978:
Date unknown (1978). Venue unknown. Montreal/ Canada
Date unknown (1978). Venue unknown. Toronto/ Canada
Date unknown (1978?): The Golden Bear. Huntington Beach/ USA. Recorded
Date unknown (1978) The Night Train. Tucson/ USA (KWFM radio)

1979

End tour promoting Blue Valentine
October 1978 - December 1979

Unidentified shows 1979:
Date unknown (1979): Macky Auditorium. Boulder/ USA
Date unknown (1979): Kent State University. Kent/ USA
Date unknown (1979): Squaw Valley Ski Resort. Squaw Valley/ USA
Date unknown (1979): Tomorrow Club. Youngstown/ USA
Date unknown (February, 1979): Eisenhouwer Auditorium. Penn. State University. Pennsylvania/ USA
Date unknown (February, 1979): Tulagi's On The Hill. Boulder/ USA
Date unknown (October, 1979): Venue unknown. Carbondale/ USA
Date unknown (November, 1979): Paramount. Bayshore/ USA
Date unknown (December, 1979): Orpheum Theatre. Boston/ USA (last of tour?)

1980

Studio recordings for the album Heartattack And Vine
June 16, 1980 - July 15, 1980
(Filmways/ Heider Studios. Hollywood/ USA)

Start tour promoting Heartattack And Vine
November 1980 - October 1981
(album released: September, 1980).
Tom Waits: vocals, piano, electric guitar. Teddy Edwards: tenor saxophone. Greg Cohen: upright bass. Ronnie Barron: organ

Unidentified shows 1980:
Date unknown (1980): Venue unknown. Cleveland/ USA

* KLxxxx: researched by Ken Langford

Further reading
Time Line 1976-1980
Pictures 1976-1980
For setlists, please refer to The Dutch Dogs Site