Primus and Tom Waits have lent their talents to a long-awaited CD featuring the voice of long-dead Beat poet Jack Kerouac.

Britain's "New Musical Express" is reporting that that the album, "Jack Kerouac Reads On The Road," is finally scheduled for release September 13 on Rykodisc. Produced by Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo, the LP was derived from recently uncovered recordings, previously thought to be lost, of Kerouac reading his poetry and singing jazz standards (badly, says "NME").

One of Kerouac's songs, "On The Road," features music by the poet and is based on an old French Canadian folk song. That track has also been reworked by Primus and Tom Waits as the closing cut; Waits provides a rewrite and vocals, and Primus provides the instrumentation.

Primus and Waits actually recorded their parts for the Kerouac CD in 1997, according to Primus management, but the project switched labels and experienced other delays.

"On The Road" marks the latest in a series of collaborations between Waits and Primus. Waits appeared as "Tommy the Cat" on Primus's first major-label CD, 1991's "Sailing the Seas of Cheese," and the following year Primus appeared on Waits' "Bone Machine." The group also turned up on Waits' latest, "Mule Variations," and as Primus' Les Claypool told MTV News in June, the singer will be guesting on the group's next LP (see "Primus Enlists Fred Durst, James Hetfield, Tom Morello, Others For New Album").

Jack Kerouac, generally accepted as the founder of the Beat Generation (which later evolved into the hippie movement), penned such books as "On The Road" (1957), "The Dharma Bums," and "The Subterraneans" (both 1958). He died in 1969.

Rykodisc also released "Kicks Joy Darkness," an all-star Kerouac tribute album (also produced by Ranaldo) in 1997.