ESSENTIALS (2023)

These are the best from the collections below - in my humble opinion. Updated as needed.

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RUFF (2022)

These tracks are favorites and, you know, still quite rough. But that's okay. J Dance is a soundtrack to a test project featuring Francine's son Jourdan dancing - I love e listening to it. The Treasure is a very simple but enjoyable journey with a man who deliberately goes the long way - to find the treasure of another sad song. Here We Are is hopeful, as it expresses the crazy unlikeliness of love following despair... And finally, the trippy If You Could Love Me Too tries to ensnare with it's moody, trancy groove. "If you could come to me, come with me, we could give this day it's due..." Now I've added 2022's  The New End of You just because I can. Cover created with dog photo by FLOUFFY on Unsplash.com

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NOTHING (2020)

Some of the old, some of the brand new. Now or Nevermore indulges my more lush, string laden side with my love for Radiohead, kinda. Wake Up Daddy is as basic a 3-chord rock song as ever, and an earnest cry about the epidemic of absent fathers. I've included my (so far) favorite "studio" recording of Chameleon Man, and Hit Parade is just another routine horror story of domestic servitude. Nothing completes the set, leaving the listener with a little hope, a little love story about my one main squeeze. Enjoy!

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A MURDER OF BILLIONAIRE CROWS (2020)

Sloppy but true tracks from the vault. Most are new songs from 2018-2019. The title is from a break in the final song. Paper World was written for an Instagram animation about an unfortunate "paper" man unable to navigate in 3D, and was then expanded to a full song. Maybe Go Walkin' is about being desperate in the city, and dialing a number you said you wouldn't dial.. Thanks Anyway is a trancy, fever dream about, yes - some days there is no hope. Gaslighter - Well, I'll bet you think this song is about you...Thanks for Nuthin is just a good old poppy rocky guitar-slinging shtuff. Finally, Dark World is just plain scary, watching "...all these monkey- men and women throw it all away..."

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WHITE & BLUE (2019)

It's always been strange to me, my deep resonance with the blues... I think of my "silver-spoon existence" and then I think of Robert Johnson... like I'm a stranger in a strange land. And basically, that's true. But then, we all do have pain and anguish and struggle, and I do, too. You can't fake the blues, that's the scary thing. Everybody knows it... Here are humble offerings. Blues C Does It is a freestyle, sloppy rocker with whole-tone notes and me finally getting a chance to play the harp again. Remember My Name is a plaintive call from Maine to Mass where my true love lives.. Sweet Virginia - "Come on sweet Virginia!! Let your river run with mine!" Indeed. Making a Garden is a portrait of a woman, "woman-handling" the garden - as her lover looks on hungrily.

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What I'm going for here, and what is the Holy Guitar Grail to me, is to combine the physicality of Jimi and Jimmy; the the razor-sharp imagination and plasticity of Jeff Beck; and the trust that when I leap, the net appears. Electric guitar is the hands-down sexiest instrument ever devised by man. You know it's true.

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TOM BABBITT: CHAMELEON MAN LIVE (2018)

Live show filmed in September 2018, featuring 8 original songs and an extended version of ZZ Top's "Blue Jean Blues." The concert took place at SPACE 320 in Newton, MA with a studio audience - and features musicians Marciani from Argentina (guitar and vocals); Pietro Gennenzi from Italy (bass); Juan Mejia from Colombia (drums): and Santiago Galeano​ from Argentina (Keyboards and vocals). Each of these monster players (and wonderful guys) are  Berklee School of Music grads and accomplished composers, arrangers and bandleaders in their own right. Tom's animations, as well his films with Francine Zaslow were projected during the live show as well as integrated into the finished film. 

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TELL ME (2015)

I tried for some BIG sounds here, and I am in love with some moments here. Taller Grass uses only three chords (I'm very proud of that...) - if only to see if I could create drama using such a spare frame. I wrote The Good Life thirty years ago about our fair city Boston. I tried to create a huge intro like Gabriel's "Red Rain." Guantanamo is a terror dream about the end, and that silly old "no due process" thing we got going here. Using Tell Me my partner, Francine Zaslow, and I created a reasonably elaborate music video that won some awards (Best Music Video / Los Angeles Film Awards). Finally, Am I Real is another written in my twenties and reworked minorly... It's all about singing like percussion.

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OUTSKIRTS OF YOU (2013)

From Ice Station Nine, (a metaphor for the US and it's "out-caste:" the homeless); to the title track, a kind of old-school epic ballad, not too far from Layla's house, these tracks were mixed in Portland, ME by the awesome Steve Drown at "The Studio." I worked with a fierce studio drummer on both Wild One and "Ice," and it really shows. Bleed 4 You closes the show, a desperate, Cat Stevens plea to my future and only true love.

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I REMEMBER YOU (2017)

A collection of short stories in a variety of genres - from a kind of wistful, "Chris Isaac" mood piece I Remember You; to an Eno / Gabriel / Al Jarreau (?) love song, Frankie Full of Grace; to a mandolin celebration of love, Better Than it's Ever Been; to a dark story of abuse, Passerby - in a King Crimson trance-thing with still-sweet strings.. Finally, we've got Wonder Boy, the simple, yet satisfyingly dissonant, story of a one-hit wonder who lets it all slip away... and is left - wondering