Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan: an all-star album to celebrate them

A journey into one of the most influential and irregular catalogs of American music: Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan are at the center of “Where The Willow And The Dogwood Grow”, a compilation of 19 covers out on May 29th via Ace Records. A project built together with the couple, who also signs track-by-track comments, giving new light to songs that have redefined the language of contemporary songwriting. THEThe tracklist is a parade of heavy names: Bruce Springsteen reinterprets “Jersey Girl” in a live version from 1981, Willie Nelson signs “Picture In A Frame”, while Johnny Cash digs into “Down There By The Train”. Space also for Norah Jones with “The Long Way Home”, Ramones with “I Don’t Want To Grow Up,” Marianne Faithfull with “Strange Weather,” and Bob Seger with “16 Shells From A Thirty-Ought-Six.”

The concept is simple but very powerful: take songs written by Waits and Brennan and show their extraordinary elasticity, letting very different voices pass through them, deform themmake them alive again. The result is a mosaic that crosses genres and decades, confirming how their repertoire is capable of inhabiting every form, from folk to punk, from country to the most theatrical songwriting. Behind it, the story of one of the most decisive couples in music: having met in 1978 on the set of “Paradise Alley”, Waits and Brennan began collaborating steadily in the mid-80smaking a radical change to his career with records such as Swordfishtrombones and Franks Wild Years, as well as theater works such as “The Black Rider”. “Where The Willow And The Dogwood Grow” is not just a tribute: it is definitive proof of a legacy that continues to shape-shiftinfesting generations of artists and remaining, even today, outside of any center.