Tom Waits is a highly influential singer/songwriter, noteworthy for delving into realms of noisy industrial blues experimentation, blues jazz, and dust, rust-belt folk, as well as for his distinct, heavily raspy vocal style. Crystal Gayle is a Top 40 country artist, with more than fifteen #1 singles on the Billboard US Country charts, including her #2 Billboard Top 200 signature hit "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue", and a member of the Grand Ole Opry. By all accounts there's little reason for these two vastly different artists to come together and collaborate on an album. Yet in 1982, the two were brought together to write and perform on the soundtrack to Francis Ford Coppola's 1982 romantic musical film One From The Heart. The soundtrack was written by Waits himself, who also sang and played piano, while Gayle (Whom Waits had picked himself, after Bette Midler was unavailable.) provided vocals on several solo songs as well as duets with Waits, all backed by a cavalcade of jazz session veterans, like Jack Sheldon on trombone, Shelly Manne on percussion, Greg Cohen on bass, Teddy Edwards on tenor saxophone, and more. Though the film One From The Heart was a box office flop, the Waits & Gayle-featured soundtrack was embraced by critics, many of whom pointed to it as the best thing associated with the film. Recorded just before Waits abandoned jazz-blues for the junkyard clamor of his 1983 album Swordfishtrombones, Waits' ragged baritone is mixed with Gayle's silky croon to perfect effect, and makes One From The Heart's soundtrack a must-own for any fan of film soundtracks, cinematic jazz, and certainly of Waits & Gayle.
