Personal playlist: Tom Waits recalls Captain Beefheart, the late Don Van Vliet

The singer-songwriter, whose new album is called ‘Bad as Me,' talks about Captain Beefheart, the late Don Van Vliet.

Tom Waits sat at a table at Pete’s Henny Penny in Petaluma last week talking about his forthcoming release, “Bad as Me.” The 61-year-old singer, songwriter, actor and roustabout calls record promotion “doing the dishes” — talking to the press after the feast that is the creative process is finished. The Times will have a full-length feature on his new album in Sunday’s paper, but here he discusses the late singer and artist Don Van Vliet, a.k.a. Captain Beefheart, who died earlier this year.

Live from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony: Tom Waits, Dr. John, Darlene Love, Alice Cooper and Neil Diamond celebrate in New York

 

Now into its second quarter-century, its rebellious youth largely a memory and its adolescence rapidly receding into the past, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's annual induction ceremony canonized Neil Diamond, the Alice Cooper band, Tom Waits, Dr. John and Darlene Love as its newest performer honorees on Monday night at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan.

All five had long been eligible under the hall's requirement that acts only become candidates 25 years after the release of their first recording, making this something of a catch-up year for those like Cooper, Diamond and Love, all of whom sold millions of records in their prime, or in the cases of Waits and Dr. John, artists whose critically admired work hadn't been accompanied by the kind of commercial success that might have helped usher them into the hall earlier. Fellow pianist Leon Russell was inducted in the "sideman" category.

Critic's Notebook: Rock Hall's dark horses

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions are all about musical history, but the producers of March's fete at the Waldorf Astoria might want to consider playing a current hit to greet the latest batch of inductees. “Raise your glass if you are wrong in all the right ways — all my underdogs,” Pink sings in the titular chorus of her No.1 song.

The rabble-rousing diva had no way of knowing that her trash anthem would apply so perfectly to those being honored by the Cleveland-based canonizing institution. But the strongest quality shared by 2011's chosen ones is that they're five dark horses, forming a winners' circle that looks different than any the Rock Hall has ever had.

That's not to say that Neil Diamond isn't a towering figure in genre-spanning postwar pop or that Darlene Love doesn't possess one of the signature voices of the girl-group era or that Tom Waits hasn't produced one of the most enduring recorded legacies of the rock era. I would never underestimate Alice Cooper's influence on several generations of theatrical rockers or marginalize New Orleans piano man Dr. John, who has turned on millions to the magic of the Crescent City under that name and as “Mac” Rebennack.

Add to this group one more significant performer, Leon Russell, whose reception of the Musical Excellence Award completes the comeback he's made with the graceful assistance of Elton John, and you have a selection that will mostly please pop aficionados but may also puzzle many. (Two worthy inductees in the nonperformer category were also announced: Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman and Specialty Records head honcho Art Rupe.)

Tom Waits, Neil Diamond, Alice Cooper among 2011 Rock Hall inductees

 
 
Tom Waits, Neil Diamond, the Alice Cooper Band, Dr. John and Darlene Love will be welcomed into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next spring, the organization will announce Wednesday.

All five had been long eligible for induction under the hall’s criteria that acts wait at least 25 years after releasing their first recordings. In addition, Jac Holzman and Art Rupe, the founders of Elektra and Specialty Records labels, respectively, are entering the hall as co-recipients of the annual Ahmet Ertegun Award bestowed on influential record executives.

Demonstrating that when Elton John speaks, Rock Hall voters listen, Leon Russell has been selected as the honoree for the new Award for Musical Excellence, previously known as the Sideman category. John had been exceptionally vocal this year when promoting their duet album “The Union” in saying that his Oklahoma-based fellow pianist, singer and songwriter deserved to be in the Hall of Fame.

Of the nominees who were on the final ballot for induction, Bon Jovi, Donna Summer, Chic, Laura Nyro, the Beastie Boys, Donovan, the J. Geils Band, LL Cool J, Joe Tex and Chuck Willis were left to wait for another year to be voted in.

As much as Waits’ induction will be cheered by critics and fans who have long admired his idiosyncratic songs, which often deal with the denizens of seedy bars and low-rent hotels, this year’s choices won’t help mollify those who have criticized the hall for the scant attention it has given rap music since its earliest proponents first became eligible in the last few years.

Dr. John’s selection can be seen both as a vote of confidence in his richly regional gumbo of New Orleans R&B, jazz and rock as well as for his prominence in recent years as an outspoken champion of the Crescent City’s status as a wellspring of musical and cultural riches following the devastation to the region in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Mainstream rock fans are also likely to grouse about the snub of Bon Jovi, even though many music critics have been lukewarm to New Jersey’s catchy but cliché-ridden brand of Springsteen-lite pop-rock.

When cartoonish rock band KISS made the nominee list last year, many fans objected, saying that Cooper, a.k.a. Vincent Furnier, had established the template for outrageously theatrical hard rock and deserved to be voted in first.

The induction ceremony will be held in March in New York.

-- Randy Lewis

Photo of Tom Waits in concert at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles in 1999. Credit: Los Angeles Times