He’s played with Lightnin’ Hopkins, Willie Dixon, and Dr. John, but Chuck E. Weiss is best known to the general public as the subject of Rickie Lee Jones’ 1979 smash “Chuck E.’s In Love.” “Oh, Christ, I think he’s even combed his hair,” Jones sang, genuinely amused that love could tame such a bohemian. This CD, his first since his acclaimed ’99 comeback bid Extremely Cool, finds him just as unkempt as ever, the genially off-kilter party animal to friend Tom Waits’ darker gin-joint denizen.

Waits, an old friend of Weiss’, does not return to produce Old Souls And Wolf Tickets the way he did Extremely Cool, but the difference is hardly noticeable. Weiss and a couple of members of his longtime backup band, The G-d Damn Liars, distill the mood just fine, adding a little studio shine but no unnecessary polish to these drunken laments, silly boogies, and slinky come-ons. The best stuff is between the cracks, but this guy has weird-ass cracks, such as “Piggly Wiggly,” a funeral march of mandolin and organ that Weiss delivers in the hick falsetto of a stoned Southern grandma, or the staggering sea-chantey apology “Anthem For Old Souls,” scored with toy piano.

Of course, there’s some (relatively) straight blues, funk, and roots rock, like “Sneaky Jesus” and “Jolie’s Nightmare (Mr. House Dick),” and at least two excellent New Orleans-flavored piano strolls in “Congo Square At Midnight” and “No Hep Cats.” Not to mention a rare 1970 live rendition of “Down The Road A Piece,” done with Dixon as a “fast, Dixiefried boogie” loaded with third-person leering and hilarious garbled malaprops like “That was no woman, that was my wife!” Weiss isn’t the genius Waits is, but he damn sure remains his peer as an L.A. chronicler, glorifying seediness in a town that takes pains to rub it out at every opportunity. Waits is poignant, but Weiss brings the party.