Tom Waits

Acting · 1.3 popularity

Age

Movies

Born: December 7, 1949
From: Pomona, California, USA
Website: Visit site

Biography

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.

Works

80 films

Bram Stoker's Dracula

19927.4

The Book of Eli

20106.8

The Outsiders

19837.2

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

20187.1

Licorice Pizza

20216.9

Wildwood

2026

Seven Psychopaths

20126.8

Mystery Men

19995.9

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

20096.4

Rumble Fish

19837.0

The Dead Don't Die

20195.4

Father Mother Sister Brother

20256.4

The Fisher King

19917.3

Motherless Brooklyn

20196.7

Wild Horse Nine

2026

Short Cuts

19937.2

Until the End of the World

19916.7

Coffee and Cigarettes

20046.9

Domino

20055.9

Mystery Train

19897.3

Down by Law

19867.3

Wolfen

19815.9

The Cotton Club

19846.5

Twixt

20115.1

Final Cut: Ladies and Gentlemen

20127.5

Wristcutters: A Love Story

20077.0

The Two Jakes

19906.0

The Old Man & the Gun

20186.4

Ray Gunn

2026

Ironweed

19876.3

Paradise Alley

19785.9

One from the Heart

19826.0

Roy Orbison and Friends: A Black and White Night

19887.6

Queens Logic

19915.8

At Play in the Fields of the Lord

19916.5

The Absence of Eden

20245.4

The Tiger and the Snow

20056.7

Red Hot + Blue: A Tribute to Cole Porter

1990

The Stone Boy

19847.0

Cold Feet

19894.1

Bukowski: Born Into This

20036.7

Guy Maddin: Waiting for Twilight

19977.3

The Making of 'One from the Heart'

19828.5

Luck, Trust & Ketchup: Robert Altman in Carver Country

19938.0

Tom Waits: Tales from a Cracked Jukebox

20176.6

Tom Waits: VH1 Storytellers

1999

Coffee and Cigarettes III

19977.2

Keith Richards: Under the Influence

20156.7

Bearskin: An Urban Fairytale

19898.3

Human Nature in Eleven Parts

2025

Tom Waits - Bridge School Benefit

19993.8

John Lurie: A Lounge Lizard Alone

1990

Candy Mountain

19886.1

The Moon’s Milk

2018

Tom Waits: A Day in Vienna

19788.0

Tom Waits: Big Time

19887.3

Poetry in Motion

19828.0

A Brief History of John Baldessari

20125.3

The Laughing Heart

20134.0

The Monster of Nix

20117.0

Robert Wilson: The Beauty of the Mysterious

2022

Tom Waits - Live On The Tube

1985

Tom Waits - Burma Shave [Live Concert]

20063.8

The Black Rider

1990

Tom Waits: Under Review

20084.0

Tom Waits at Theatre le Palace

1980

Roy Orbison: Black and White Night 30

2017

Greasy Lake

19884.2

One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur

20086.8

Tom Waits: Romeo Bleeding - Live from Austin

20093.8

Tom Waits - Dead Man Walking, Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

1998

This Is Sparklehorse

2022

Tom Waits for No One

19795.1

Tom Waits: No Visitors After Midnight

19793.8

Tom Waits - One Star Shining : The First Decade

20266.5

Tom Waits - Live at Premio Tenco in Sanremo Italy

1986

Star.Wav

20245.5

The Last Ride

2025

Tom Waits: Glitter and Doom Concert Experience

2024

Tom Waits: Elephant Beer Blues - Songs After Closing Time

1976