Tom Waits
Born December 7, 1949, Waits has a unique voice best described by Music
Hound Rock Album Guide as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon,
left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months and then taken outside and
run over with a car." In the lyrics his songs are best known for their
display of strange and seedy characters. Waits was born in Born in Pomona,
California to parents of Scottish, Irish, and Norwegian descent. He
started working as a doorman at Heritage nightclub where many varieties of
music were played. Soon he began putting together his own musical style
combining spoken word, "poetry" and song. He then took his act to a Monday
night Troubadour in Los Angeles, while many other musicians where waiting
in line all day to be able to play that night. In 1971 he moved to Los
Angles at age 21 and signed with Asylum Records and Herb Cohen (also the
manager for Frank Zappa). In 1973 he released his first album "Closing
Time" which did not get much success until his label mates, the Eagles,
covered Ol"55 in 1974. He then begun touring and opening with bands such
as Charlie Rich, Martha and the Vandellas, and Frank Zappa. He began to
acquire a loyal cult audience for his album The Heart Of Saturday Night
which was released in 1974. This album showed him as a night club signer
who half sings and half croons through the lyrics. He then went on to
produce more jazz-influenced albums such as Small Change (1976), Nighthawks
at the Diner (1975), Foreign Affairs (1977) and Blue Valentine (1978). At
the time he was involved in a high profile romantic relationship with
Rickie Lee Jones who appears on the cover of the album Blue Valentine. In
1980 he emerged with "Heartattack and Vine". Then began a business
relationship with Francis Ford Coppola who asked Waits to provide music for
his film "One From The Heart". He worked with singer/songwriter Crystal
Gayle as his vocal foil for that album. He also began a small acting
career with his appearance in Sylvester Stallone's 1978 film "Paradise
Alley". He then later appeared in "The Outsiders", starred in Jim
Jarmusch's "Down By Law" in 1986, and has supporting roles in movies such
as "Rumble Fish", "The Cotton Club", "Short Cuts", "Mystery Me"n, "Coffee
and Cigarettes" (as himself) and Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (as Dracula's
insane thrall Renfield). August of 1980 he married Kathleen Brennan who he
met on the set of "One From The Heart". She is regularly quoted as a
co-author on many of his songs and often referred to her as one of his
major influences. She introduced him to the music of Captain
Beefhart. After he left Asylum Records for Island Records he released
"Swordfish Trombones" in 1983 which marked a sharp turn in his music. This
was followed by "Rain Dogs" (1985) and "Franks Wild Years" (1987). While
he would usually either play guitar or the piano, at this time he started
experimenting with different instruments. Once quoted he was as saying
"Your hands are like dogs, going to the same places they've been. You have
to be careful when playing is no longer in the mind but in the fingers,
going to happy places. You have to break them of their habits or you don't
explore, you only play what is confident and pleasing. I'm learning to
break those habits by playing instruments I know absolutely nothing about,
like a bassoon or a water phone." The instrument orchestration on his
later albums was described as very eclectic. He has a junkyard orchestra
which consists of wheezing pump organs, clattering percussion (sometimes
reminiscent of the music of Harry Partch), bleary horn sections (often
featuring Ralph Carney, and taking their cues from brass bands or soul
music), nearly atonal guitar (perhaps best typified by Marc Ribot's
contributions) and other wonderfully obsolete instruments. Waits is
particularly fond of a damaged, unpredictable chambering on recent albums
featuring this little-used stroh violin. Tom Moon described his voice as a
"broad-spectrum assault weapon". Over the course, his singing and
songwriting has also become more abstract. The last of his three albums
where adapted into a off Broadway musical which he and his wife co-wrote
and starred in becoming a successful run at Chicago's famed Steppenwolf
Theater. This was the first of several theater collaborations Waits would
undertake. Waits with his wife also wrote and performed in "Big Time", a
surreal concert movie and soundtrack released in 1988. He later appeared
on the Primus 1991 album "Sailing the Seas of Cheese" as the voice of
"Tommy the Cat". This item certainly exposed him to a broader new
audience. In 1991 he had a role in yet another movie "At Play In The
Fields Of The Lord". "Bone Machine" was released in 1992 winning him a
Grammy. The Ramones even recorded a cover of his song "I Don't Want To
Grow Up". Waits wrote and conducted the music for Jim Jarmusch's 1993 film
"Night on Earth" which was released as an album. The Black Rider is the
result of a theatrical collaboration between Waits, director Robert Wilson
and writer William S. Burroughs. Then in 1999 he won a Grammy for "Mule
Variations" which was his first album with Anti-Records. He then went on
to release "Blood Money" (2002), "Alice" (2002), and "Real Gone" (2004) in
the new millennium. His musical influences include Bob Dylan, Lord
Buckley, Hoagy Carmichael, Marty Robbins, Raymond Chandler, and Stephen
Foster.