Hope Waits

Introducing Hope Waits
(3.5 out of 4)

She does a Tom Waits song, but Hope Waits is no relation to the junkyard bard. With this mesmerizing debut, however, the young singer from Louisiana, now based in L.A., seems destined to make her own name in the business.

Waits grabs you right from the start with "I'll Be Satisfied," turning the Berry Gordy-penned Jackie Wilson hit from upbeat and up-tempo to slow and sensuous. She's equally masterful as an interpreter on a wildly diverse set that ranges from the supper-club purr of Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer's "Come Rain or Shine" to the roadhouse rawness of Don Robey's "Mother-in-Law Blues." If the originals by Waits and producer-guitarist Peter Malick don't quite measure up to the covers, they do have their own drama, mystery, and ineluctable emotional undertow.