1949-12-07 ( 75 years old ) in Pomona, California, USA
Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American musician, composer, songwriter and actor. His lyrics often focus on the underbelly of society and are delivered in his trademark deep, gravelly voice. He worked primarily in jazz during the 1970s, but his music since the 1980s has reflected greater influence from blues, rock, vaudeville, and experimental genres.
Waits was born and raised in a middle-class family in Whittier, California. Inspired by the work of Bob Dylan and the Beat Generation, he began singing on the San Diego folk music circuit as a young boy. He relocated to Los Angeles in 1972, where he worked as a songwriter before signing a recording contract with Asylum Records. His first albums were the jazz-oriented Closing Time (1973) and The Heart of Saturday Night (1974), which reflected his lyrical interest in nightlife, poverty, and criminality. He repeatedly toured the United States, Europe, and Japan, and attracted greater critical recognition and commercial success with Small Change (1976), Blue Valentine (1978), and Heartattack and Vine (1980). He produced the soundtrack for Francis Ford Coppola's film One from the Heart (1981), and subsequently made cameo appearances in several Coppola films.
In 1980, Waits married Kathleen Brennan, split from his manager and record label, and moved to New York City. With Brennan's encouragement and frequent collaboration, he pursued a more experimental and eclectic musical aesthetic influenced by the work of Harry Partch and Captain Beefheart. This was reflected in a series of albums released by Island Records, including Swordfishtrombones (1983), Rain Dogs (1985), and Franks Wild Years (1987). He continued appearing in films, notably starring in Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law (1986), and also made theatrical appearances. With theatre director Robert Wilson, he produced the musicals The Black Rider (1990) and Alice (1992), first performed in Hamburg. Having returned to California in the 1990s, his albums Bone Machine (1992), The Black Rider (1993), and Mule Variations (1999) earned him increasing critical acclaim and multiple Grammy Awards. In the late 1990s, he switched to the record label ANTI-, which released Blood Money (2002), Alice (2002), Real Gone (2004), and Bad as Me (2011).
Despite a lack of mainstream commercial success, Waits has influenced many musicians and gained an international cult following, and several biographies have been written about him. In 2015, he was ranked at No. 55 on Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time". He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.
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Movies
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The Absence of Eden
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This Is Sparklehorse
2022-10-12
Robert Wilson: The Beauty of the Mysterious
2022-01-16
Licorice Pizza
2021-11-26
Motherless Brooklyn
2019-10-31
The Dead Don't Die
2019-05-15
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
2018-11-09
The Old Man & the Gun
2018-09-27
The Moon’s Milk
2018-07-23
Roy Orbison: Black and White Night 30
2017-02-24
Tom Waits: Tales from a Cracked Jukebox
2017-02-19
Keith Richards: Under the Influence
2015-09-18
The Laughing Heart
2013-01-01
Seven Psychopaths
2012-10-12
A Brief History of John Baldessari
2012-03-10
Twixt
2011-09-10
The Monster of Nix
2011-06-01
The Book of Eli
2010-01-14
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
2009-10-01
Tom Waits: Romeo Bleeding - Live from Austin
2009-02-06
Tom Waits: Under Review
2008-05-13
One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur
2008-05-11
Wristcutters: A Love Story
2007-10-19
Tom Waits - No Visitors After Midnight
2006-11-09
Tom Waits - Burma Shave [Live Concert]
2006-01-01
The Tiger and the Snow
2005-10-14
Domino
2005-10-14
Coffee and Cigarettes
2004-03-12
Bukowski: Born Into This
2003-01-18
Tom Waits - Bridge School Benefit
1999-10-30
Mystery Men
1999-08-06
Tom Waits: VH1 Storytellers
1999-04-01
Guy Maddin: Waiting for Twilight
1997-09-07
Coffee and Cigarettes III
1997-04-11
Short Cuts
1993-10-01
Bram Stoker's Dracula
1992-11-13
At Play in the Fields of the Lord
1991-12-06
The Fisher King
1991-09-20
Until the End of the World
1991-09-12
Queens Logic
1991-02-01
Red Hot + Blue: A Tribute to Cole Porter
1990-12-01
The Two Jakes
1990-08-10
John Lurie: A Lounge Lizard Alone
1990-01-01
Bearskin: An Urban Fairytale
1989-11-05
Mystery Train
1989-09-06
Cold Feet
1989-05-19
Big Time
1988-12-30
Candy Mountain
1988-01-20
Ironweed
1987-12-18
Down by Law
1986-09-20
The Cotton Club
1984-12-14
The Stone Boy
1984-04-04
Rumble Fish
1983-10-09
The Outsiders
1983-03-25
Poetry in Motion
1982-09-17
The Making of 'One from the Heart'
1982-08-14
One from the Heart
1982-02-11
Wolfen
1981-07-24
Tom Waits at Theatre le Palace
1980-12-19
Tom Waits for No One
1979-01-01
Paradise Alley
1978-09-22
Tom Waits: A Day in Vienna
1978-01-01
Tom Waits: Rockpalast '77
1977-04-18
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