Tom Waits Recording New Album

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Tom Waits announced via Twitter today that he is hard at work on his next studio album, the followup to his 2006 compilation Orphans: Brawlers & Bastards.

Details are scarce, but expect songs about down-and-out roustabouts and oddball characters, sung in a sandpapery voice scarred by whiskey and cigarettes, naturally.

Waits will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Neil Young on March 14. The entire induction ceremony will be simulcast online, which viewers can watch for a $5 fee.  Waits’ poetry accompanies the book Hard Ground, a “portrait of homelessness that impels us to look into the eyes of people who live ‘on the hard ground’ and recognize our common humanity.” The book is due March 1 from University of Texas Press.

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