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Tom Waits
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In the early '70s, Tom Waits was working as a doorman at the Heritage nightclub in San Diego, where artists of every genre performed. An avid fan of many writers and musicians, among them Bob Dylan, Lord Buckley, Hoagy Carmichael, Marty Robbins, Raymond Chandler, and Stephen Foster, Waits began developing his own idiosyncratic musical style, combining song and monologue. He took his newly formed act to Monday nights at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, where musicians from all over stood in line all day to get the opportunity to perform on-stage that night. Shortly thereafter, Waits was signed to Asylum Records. He was 21 years old.
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Tom Waits is a professional singer, song-writer, and actor of some renown. Waits has a raspy, gravelly singing voice, described by one fan as "like how you'd sound if you drank a quart of bourbon, smoked a pack of cigarettes and swallowed a pack of razor blades. . . . Late at night. After not sleeping for three days." Since the early 1970s, when his professional singing career began, Waits has recorded more than seventeen albums and has toured extensively, playing to sold-out audiences throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, and Australia. Regarded as a "prestige artist" rather than a musical superstar, Waits has achieved both commercial and critical success in his musical career.
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Just the list of instruments Tom Waits has used over the years would be enough to make other artists’ A&R reps run screaming. Tuba, concertina, accordion, musical saw, pump organ, harmonium, upright bass, banjo, marimba, and a plethora of homemade instruments are just some of the sounds Tom Waits has used during the course of his career. His voice acts as yet another instrument, employing different sounds as needed by the characters depicted in the song lyrics: old-time jazzy and raspy in "Temptation", folksy and Dylan-esque in "I Hope That I don’t Fall In Love With You", and howling primal screams in "Clap Hands" are a few vocal styles he’s employed. He’ll even put on a German or British accent if he feels a song needs it, as in "The Black Rider" and the live version of "Strange Weather".
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A gifted lyricist, composer and raconteur, Tom Waits began performing in the late 60s, inspired by a spell working as a doorman in a San Diego nightclub. Here he saw a miscellany of acts - string bands, comedians, C&W singers - and by absorbing portions of an attendant down-market patois, developed his nascent songwriting talent. Having appeared at the Los Angeles' Troubador "Amateur Hoot Nights", Waits was signed by manager Herb Cohen who in turn secured a recording deal with Asylum Records. Closing Time revealed a still-unfocused performer, as yet unable to draw together the folk, blues and singer/songwriter elements vying for prominence. It did contain "Ol' 55", later covered by the Eagles, and "Martha', a poignant melodrama of a now-middle-aged man telephoning his first love from 40 years previously. The Heart Of Saturday Night was an altogether more accomplished set in which the artist blended characterizations drawn from diners, truckers and waitresses, sung in a razor-edged, rasping voice, and infused with beatnik prepossessions.
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In the 1970s, Tom Waits combined a lyrical focus on desperate, lowlife characters with a persona that seemed to embody the same lifestyle, which he sang about in a raspy, gravelly voice. From the '80s on, his work became increasingly theatrical as he moved into acting and composing. Growing up in southern California, Waits attracted the attention of manager Herb Cohen, who ... handled Frank Zappa, and was signed by him at the beginning of the 1970s, resulting in the material later released as The Early Years and The Early Years, Vol. 2. His formal recording debut came with Closing Time (1973) on Asylum Records, an album that contained "Ol' 55," which was covered by labelmates the Eagles for their On the Border album. Waits attracted critical acclaim and a cult audience for his subsequent albums, The Heart of Saturday Night (1974), the two-LP live set Nighthawks at the Diner (1975), Small Change (1976), Foreign Affairs (1977), Blue Valentine (1978), and Heart Attack and Vine (1980). His music and persona proved highly cinematic, and, starting in 1978, he launched parallel careers as an actor and as a composer of movie music.
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Tom Waits was born in California in 1949 to two teachers. His parents divorced when he was 10 years old, and Tom began teaching himself how to play piano. By the time he was 16, he had joined an R&B band. He joined the U.S. Coast Guard briefly, before moving to Los Angeles, where he began pursuing a musical career. He signed a contract with Bizarre/Straight records in 1971 and started recording demos, then switched to Asylum Records the following year.
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Tom Waits