Ace Records has announced 'Where the Willow and the Dogwood Grow', a new compilation album featuring 19 covers of songs by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, due out on May 29. Contributors include Bruce Springsteen, the late Johnny Cash, the Ramones, Willie Nelson, and Joan Baez, among others. Many tracks were hand-picked by the songwriters themselves.
Ace Records revealed details of the upcoming album 'Where the Willow and the Dogwood Grow', which gathers covers of works by Tom Waits and his longtime collaborator Kathleen Brennan. The collection includes performances from an array of prominent artists, as first reported by Pitchfork on March 25. Standouts feature Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band on a live version of 'Jersey Girl (Live at Meadowlands Arena, NJ - July 1981)', Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band with '16 Shells From a Thirty-Ought-Six', and the Ramones covering 'I Don’t Want to Grow Up'. Other contributors are Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes ('Gin-Soaked Boy'), Los Lobos ('Jockey Full of Bourbon'), Lucinda Williams ('Hang Down Your Head'), Diana Krall ('Temptation'), Bettye LaVette ('Yesterday Is Here'), the Blind Boys of Alabama ('Way Down in the Hole'), Marianne Faithfull ('Strange Weather'), Johnny Cash ('Down There by the Train'), King Ernest ('House Where Nobody Lives'), Willie Nelson ('Picture in a Frame'), Madison Cunningham ('Hold On'), Norah Jones ('The Long Way Home'), John Hammond ('2:19'), Solomon Burke ('Diamond in Your Mind'), Alison Krauss and Robert Plant ('Trampled Rose'), and Joan Baez ('Day After Tomorrow'). Brennan, Waits's wife, co-writer, and producer, has been credited by Waits for influencing his experimental style. 'She rescued me,' Waits told The Guardian. 'Maybe I rescued her too, that’s often how it works. Upshot is that we both got into the same leaky boat. Everybody knows she’s the brains behind Pa, as Dylan might have said. I’m just the figurehead. She’s the one who’s steering the ship.'