William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide

This is an album of early demos recorded by a 21-year-old Tom Waits in 1971, two years before the release of his first album, Closing Time, and issued on the record label owned by his ex-manager. Waits accompanies himself on piano or guitar and sings in an unaffected nasal tenor. (One track, "Ice Cream Man," is given a full-band treatment.) Several of these songs, notably "Ice Cream Man," "Virginia Ave.," "Midnight Lullabye," and "Little Trip to Heaven," turned up on his later albums, but the overall level of writing and performance is well below Waits' usual standard. Clearly, his better early material was chosen for his Asylum albums. Hardcore fans will want to hear this album, of course, but others need not bother.

Steve Appleford, Amazon.com

Tom Waits wasn't always the intense, even bizarre pop expressionist he'd become by the '80s. Before the brilliant dementia of his later work, Waits was just another soft-spoken troubadour with a wicked sense of humor and a special fondness for jazz, blues, and the Beat generation. The roots of his music are revealed within the 13 tracks of The Early Years, a collection of previously unreleased 1971 demo tapes. Waits never intended these recordings for public consumption. But the wise guy pathos of "I'm Your Late Night Evening Prostitute" and the intentionally bad puns of "Had Me a Girl" hold up well as intelligent, charming, early snapshots of an important artist. --Steve Appleford

Album Description
This is a 13-song collection of unique recordings from 1971-1972, prior to the time that Waits signed with Elektra/Asylum. These recordings are absolutely not available on any other Waits album - making this package a must-have for any serious - or even casual -Waits fan. Nine of the thirteen songs were never re-recorded for any other Waits album.

Craig Marks and James Lien, CMJ New Music First

Twenty years-20 long, crazy, wild years. At two packs a day, figuring 18 smokes a pack (minus two per pack bummed by strangers) that's well over 262,800 Lucky Strikes down the road for Tom Waits. If you think it's mindblowing to contrast the tough young greasy hoodlum on the back cover with the rumpled, stubbly look of the classic Waits persona that hit its stride in the late `70s, just listen to that last high hounddog note on "Poncho's Lament" to get an idea what Waits sounded like before all those nonfilters and chaserless shots did their work on his larynx. Recorded as demos that predated his first LP, Closing Time, by almost two years, these early recordings give a glimpse into the formative cabaret/club years of Waits' songs and persona: even his favorite and most famous character Frank makes an early appearance. It's interesting that much has been written comparing Waits to Bruce Springsteen, of all people, but what's really odd about Early Years are the eerie similarities of feeling and mood his work shares with the early music of another of his songwriting contemporaries-in a weird way, it's Cold Spring Harbor-era Billy Joel that we found ourselves thinking of more than the Boss. In the light of 20 years, it's interesting to compare the broad, suburban, lowest-common-denominator arena rock both Bruce and Bill are pumping out these days, and how they stack up next to the stunning, uncompromising artistry of Waits' latter day career.

Andy Gill, Q Magazine, July 1991

This, the first of two volumes of previously unissued Tom Waits tracks, is the latest fruit of the deal with Herb Cohen and Frank Zappa's Bizarre/Straight labels which saw critical success with the Tim Buckley live CD Dream Letter (and promises further archive stuff from both Buckley and Little Feat founder Lowell George).

Recorded in late '71, The Early Years suffers somewhat from excessive tape hiss, but offers nonetheless a fascinating glimpse of a now well-known character and style at a more sketchy, amorphous stage of its development. The classic Waits style only really crystallised in the 3AM atmosphere of his second album, The Heart Of Saturday Night, the first of his many collaborations with producer Bones Howe.

On his debut, Closing Time, he was ill-matched with Herb Cohen's house producer Jerry Yester, who tried to turn Waits' individualistic songs into mainstream country-rock fodder. It's not difficult to see why: on the pre Closing Time demos that make up The Early Years, Waits' voice is nowhere near as stylised as it would become. It has more the world-weary resignation of Willie Nelson or Charlie Rich, either of whom could have made a decent fist of the chucklesome Looks Like I'm Up Shit Creek Again. The country association is strengthened further when, on Poncho's Lament, the song drops away for a brief spoken passage with all the translucent sincerity of bar-room weepies.

Four of the tracks on The Early Years made it to Closing Time: Ice Cream Man, Virginia Ave, Midnight Lullaby and Little Trip To Heaven. None changes much, although Virginia Ave offers one of the first - albeit most sentimental - of the beatnik/boho snapshots Waits would later build his career around. There are other, more subtle signs of the mature Waits style in the blues drawl of So Long I'll See Ya, with its chorus "I got them so long I'll see ya 'cos my Buick's outside waitin' blues", and in the wistful, melancholic piano accompaniment of I'm Your Late Night Evening Prostitute. The self-conscious earthy sleaziness of that title also resurfaces in Had Me A Girl, a list of sexual conquests punctuated by the chorus "And my doctor says I'll be all right, but I'm feelin' blue".It's an indication of the songwriter's subtle power that this dirty chuckle of a chorus also leaves a lingering suggestion of the emotional insecurity of the relentlessly promiscuous.

© Frank Steven Groen