This Saturday is Tom Waits' 75th birthday. Ten years ago, we unearthed a 1976 interview with a then 26-year-old Waits, and we'll be re-airing it on Sunday at 7 p.m. during Roots and Rhythm. In the interview, which took place at a Howard Johnson's restaurant in York, Pa., Waits discusses his recent concerts at the University of Pittsburgh, touring with Frank Zappa, and his inspirations and influences. WYEP’s Brian Siewiorek remembers first seeing the archival interview, and recalls what it was like listening to the conversation:
It was 2014, and as we were getting things ready for WYEP’s 40th anniversary, a giant box was brought to my desk. The box was from Jeff Smith, one of the founders of WYEP. In it was a treasure trove of recordings from the early years of the station, all on cassette tape and reel-to-reel. One of the reels that caught my eye was labeled, “Tom Waits Interview/Live Album, March 1976, York, PA - Howard Johnson’s Restaurant.” (Howard Johnsons is now the Round the Clock Diner at 222 Arsenal Road in York.) After more digging, I found a cassette in the box, with the word “WAITS” written on it in ballpoint pen.
We asked Smith for the story behind these tapes and he explained that the station had arranged for an interview with Tom Waits, a then 26-year-old California singer-songwriter who had just released his third album, “Nighthawks at the Diner” a year before. The interview had come about because of a contact made when Waits and his band played four shows at the University of Pittsburgh earlier in March of 1976.
Smith and two other WYEP DJs, Bill Askin and Mal Redding, drove across the state to York to meet up with Waits at a Howard Johnson’s Restaurant. By the time they got the tape rolling it was 1 a.m. Smith also explained that the cassette from the box with the ballpoint pen writing on it was the original tape they had in the recorder at the restaurant that morning.
Listening to that cassette, I was transported back in time. This interview wasn’t done in a quiet back room, but at a table in the dining room of the restaurant complete with sounds of other diners talking and laughing, servers popping by to fill up coffee mugs, Zippos springing open to light cigarettes, and the occasional fumbling of the microphone. It’s like you’re sitting right at the table, as if you were one of Waits’ nighthawks at the diner.
But this tape also captures Waits, now one of America’s most beloved songwriters, very early in his career. His wit is razor sharp, his desire to continue making music is clear, but his weariness of the music industry is there as he is clearly trying to make ends meet three albums into his career out on a self-financed tour.
There are some true treasures in the WYEP archive, but this interview is among the best.
Be sure to tune in on Sunday, Dec. 7 for the full conversation — and check back for the interview transcription after it airs!
