Tom Waits' 1976 album Small Change gets a 50th anniversary vinyl reissue

Anti- Records will release a 50th anniversary vinyl reissue of Tom Waits' 1976 album Small Change on October 2, The Line of Best Fit reported on August 10, with NME following the next day. The reissue comes alongside newly surfaced archive footage of Waits performing "The Piano Has Been Drinking" on the 1970s chat show Fernwood Tonight, hosted by comedy actor Martin Mull.

Small Change is considered the high point of Waits' early period, its success prompting him to put together his first touring band. Songs including "Tom Traubert's Blues," "Step Right Up" and "The Piano Has Been Drinking" drew on the American songbook, beat poetry and the low-lit storytelling Waits had been collecting since his three previous albums.

Waits described his source material in a 1976 interview, saying he worked as a doorman at an LA nightclub and listened to bluegrass acts, comics, folk singers and string bands, adding: "I did research there as an evening curator, and I started writing."

The newly circulated Fernwood Tonight clip shows Waits hunched over a piano for an irreverent solo performance that lands somewhere between comedy and cabaret, The Line of Best Fit reported.

The reissue follows a run of new activity from Waits. Last month he shared "The Fly," a spoken word track, and earlier this year he teamed up with Massive Attack on the protest song "Boots on the Ground," his first original work since 2011's Bad As Me. "The Fly" and "Boots on the Ground" are set for release together on 12-inch vinyl on September 4, with Waits joking of the b-side: "Man's folly of fiascos is a feast for the flies."

Waits and his wife and longtime collaborator Kathleen Brennan also curated Where the Willow and the Dogwood Grow this year, a collection of other artists covering their songs including recordings by Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, Ramones, Willie Nelson and Marianne Faithfull, NME reported. His longtime music agent, Paul Charles, said in 2023 that Waits had been "writing again" and could be open to some tour dates.

Massive Attack, Waits' collaborator on "Boots on the Ground," have had their own busy month: two members were barred from Singapore over a pro-Palestine concert display, and the group separately put their name to a charity football shirt raising funds for Cuba. It's the latest addition to the release calendar and our rock coverage.