Dicas de quarentena #22: Quando Tom Waits e os Replacements se encontraram

Durante as gravações para o disco Don’t Tell A Soul de 1989, os Replacements tiveram a presença ilustre de Tom Waits nos estúdios. Regados de muito Jack Daniel’s, os caras gravaram algumas faixas que acabaram infelizmente descartadas. No box lançado no ano passado pela banda, Dead Man’s Pop, enfim as gravações viram a luz do dia. Abaixo você confere um trecho da biografia dos Replacements escrita por Bob Mehr, “Trouble Boys”, em que ele narra esse encontro e o som gravado por Westerberg e companhia e Waits.

The band got together with Waits and his wife and collaborator Kathleen Brennan at the Formosa Café in West Hollywood. Though Waits and Westerberg could both be shy in such situations, they hit it off grandly. Waits was particularly enamored of [guitarist Slim] Dunlap, who seemed like a character straight out of one of his own songs.

The band invited Waits back to Cherokee to hear their new tracks. “Waits’ wife was with him, and he was being really mild-mannered,” recalled Matt Wallace [producer of Don’t Tell a Soul]. “And the band is drinking a lot, of course.” Around midnight, Brennan got tired and taxied home. The moment she left Waits reached for a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and began chugging. “And he just turned into Tom Waits,” said Wallace. “It was like Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde.”