- In full:
- Thomas Alan Waits
- Born:
- December 7, 1949, Pomona, California, U.S. (age 76)
- Awards And Honors:
- Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum (2011)
- Grammy Award (1999)
- Grammy Award (1992)
Tom Waits
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Who is Tom Waits?
Tom Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter and actor known for his gritty and romantic portrayals of urban outcasts. His distinctive growl and stream-of-consciousness lyrics, influenced by Jack Kerouac and Charles Bukowski, create a smoky, late-night atmosphere reminiscent of his early club performances in the late 1960s. Waits blends jazz, blues, pop, and avant-garde rock with his piano and guitar playing.
Waits's albums achieved commercial success in Britain, with Small Change (1976) and Heartattack and Vine (1980) being his best-selling. His songs have been recorded by artists such as the Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, and Rod Stewart. Waits has also composed film scores, co-written the stage musical Frank’s Wild Years, and collaborated with William S. Burroughs and Robert Wilson on The Black Rider. His experimental musical efforts, such as Bone Machine (1992) and Mule Variations (1999), have earned him Grammy Awards. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.
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What kind of music does Tom Waits create?
Tom Waits is known for his gritty and romantic portrayals of urban outcasts through his music. Waits draws from jazz, blues, pop, and avant-garde rock. His signature growl complements offbeat orchestrations and stream-of-consciousness lyrics influenced by Jack Kerouac and Charles Bukowski.
His albums Small Change and Heartattack and Vine gained commercial success in Britain. Artists like the Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, and Rod Stewart have recorded his songs. Waits also composed film scores, co-wrote the musical Frank’s Wild Years, and collaborated with William S. Burroughs and Robert Wilson on The Black Rider. His experimental album Bone Machine won a Grammy for best alternative music album in 1992.
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What is unique about Tom Waits’ singing voice and style?
Tom Waits is known for his unique singing voice and style, characterized by raspy vocals delivered in his signature growl. This distinctive vocal quality evokes the atmosphere of smoky clubs where he began performing in the late 1960s.
Waits draws from jazz, blues, pop, and avant-garde rock, combining unusual orchestrations with his piano and guitar playing and stream-of-consciousness lyrics influenced by Jack Kerouac and Charles Bukowski.
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What are some well-known songs or albums by Tom Waits?
Tom Waits is an American singer-songwriter known for his gritty portrayals of urban outcasts. His raspy voice and incorporation of jazz, blues, pop, and avant-garde rock have gained him critical acclaim.
Two of his best-selling albums, Small Change (1976) and Heartattack and Vine (1980), did not crack the American Top 40. Waits's Bone Machine (1992) won a Grammy for best alternative music album, and Mule Variations (1999) won the Grammy for best contemporary folk album.
Later albums include Blood Money (2002), Alice (2002), Real Gone (2004), and Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards (2006). In 2009, Waits released Glitter and Doom, followed by Bad as Me (2011).
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How has Tom Waits influenced other musicians or music genres?
Tom Waits' gritty portrayals of urban life have earned him admiration from critics and musicians alike. His unique blend of jazz, blues, pop, and avant-garde rock, combined with stream-of-consciousness lyrics influenced by Jack Kerouac and Charles Bukowski, has left a lasting impact.
Though Waits' albums achieved commercial success in Britain, his songs have been covered by artists such as the Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, and Rod Stewart, demonstrating his influence across genres. Additionally, his experimental approach to music, marked by offbeat orchestrations and theatrical live performances, has inspired many alternative musicians.
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What other artistic work, such as acting or composing for movies, has Tom Waits done?
Tom Waits has explored several artistic avenues in addition to his work as a singer-songwriter. He has composed film scores and co-wrote the stage musical Frank’s Wild Years, which premiered in 1986. He also collaborated with writer William S. Burroughs and theatre director Robert Wilson on another musical, The Black Rider (1990).
Waits's theatrical performances led to a career as a film actor, appearing in Down by Law (1986), Dracula (1992), Mystery Men (1999), Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), and Domino (2005). More recently, Waits has appeared in The Old Man & the Gun, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (both 2018), and The Dead Don’t Die (2019).
1 Britannica SourceCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
Tom Waits (born December 7, 1949, Pomona, California, U.S.) is an American singer-songwriter and actor whose gritty, sometimes romantic depictions of the lives of the urban underclass won him a loyal if limited following and the admiration of critics and prominent musicians who performed and recorded his songs.
Musical style
Born into a middle-class California family but enamored of the bohemian lifestyle depicted in Beat literature, Waits lived in his car and in seedy Los Angeles hotels as he embarked on his career. His raspy vocals, delivered in his signature growl, evoked the late-night atmosphere of the smoky clubs in which he first performed in the late 1960s as well as blues performers such as Howlin’ Wolf. Drawing on jazz, blues, pop, and avant-garde rock music, he combined offbeat orchestrations with his own piano and guitar playing and stream-of-consciousness lyrics that reflected the influence of writers Jack Kerouac and Charles Bukowski.
(Read Britannica’s article “Are Song Lyrics Poetry?”)
Albums and honors
Although Waits’s albums found considerable commercial success in Britain beginning in the mid-1980s, even his best-selling albums—Small Change (1976) and Heartattack and Vine (1980)—failed to crack the American Top 40. His songs, however, have been recorded by the Eagles (“Ol’ 55”), Bruce Springsteen (“Jersey Girl”), and Rod Stewart (“Downtown Train”). He also scored films and was nominated for an Academy Award for composing the music for Francis Ford Coppola’s 1981 film One from the Heart. In addition, Waits cowrote the stage musical Frank’s Wild Years (which premiered in 1986) and collaborated with writer William S. Burroughs and theater director Robert Wilson on another musical, The Black Rider (1990). Waits’s 1992 release Bone Machine, typical of his increasingly experimental musical efforts in the 1990s, won a Grammy Award for best alternative music album. His 1999 album, Mule Variations, was also much praised and took the Grammy for best contemporary folk album.
Later albums included Blood Money (2002), Alice (2002), Real Gone (2004), and Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards (2006), a sprawling collection of 56 songs. In 2009 Waits released Glitter and Doom, a series of live recordings from his 2008 concert tour. Waits’s first studio release since 2004, Bad as Me (2011), a collection of blues-tinged, whiskey-soaked love songs, was greeted with wide critical acclaim. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.
Acting career
The theatrical posturing of Waits’s live performances led in the 1980s to an alternate career as a film actor, notably in Jim Jarmusch’s Down by Law (1986). He made further appearances in Dracula (1992), Mystery Men (1999), Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), and Domino (2005). His saturnine features and gravelly voice perfectly suited him to Mephistophelian roles, and he deployed these attributes to memorable effect as one of the “people in charge” of purgatory in Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006) and as the Devil himself in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009). Waits later appeared in The Old Man & the Gun, about a real-life group of bank robbers known as the Over-the-Hill Gang, and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (both 2018), the Coen brothers’ ode to the Old West. He was then cast in the zombie movie The Dead Don’t Die (2019).
His other film credits include Robert Altman’s Short Cuts (1993); Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths (2012) and Wild Horse Nine (2026); and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza (2021).
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Personal life
Waits married songwriter and screenwriter Kathleen Brennan in 1980; they have three children. Earlier in his career he was romantically linked to singer-songwriter Rickie Lee Jones, who appears on the back cover of Waits’s 1978 album Blue Valentine. Their relationship and breakup inspired many songs on Jones’s album Pirates (1981).