Tom Waits
Tom Waits | |
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Born | Thomas Alan Waits December 7, 1949 Pomona, California, U.S. |
Occupations |
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Years active | 1969–present |
Spouse |
ANTI- |
Website | tomwaits |
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 began in the
Waits was born and raised in a middle-class family in Pomona, California. Inspired by the work of Bob Dylan and the Beat Generation, he began singing on the San Diego folk circuit. 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 jazzy Closing Time (1973), The Heart of Saturday Night (1974) and Nighthawks at the Diner (1975), which reflected his lyrical interest in poverty, criminality and nightlife. He repeatedly toured the United States, Europe and Japan, and found greater critical and commercial success with Small Change (1976), Blue Valentine (1978) and Heartattack and Vine (1980). During this period, Waits entered the world of film, acting in Paradise Alley (1978), where he met a young story editor named Kathleen Brennan.[3] He composed the soundtrack for Francis Ford Coppola's One from the Heart (1982) and made cameos in several subsequent Coppola films.
In 1980, Waits married 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 eclectic and experimental sound influenced by Harry Partch and Captain Beefheart, as heard on the loose trilogy Swordfishtrombones (1983), Rain Dogs (1985) and Franks Wild Years (1987). Waits starred in Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law (1986), lent his voice to his Mystery Train (1989), composed the soundtrack for his Night on Earth (1991) and appeared in his Coffee and Cigarettes (2003). He collaborated with Robert Wilson and William S. Burroughs on the "cowboy opera" The Black Rider (1990), the songs for which were released on the album of the same name. Waits and Wilson collaborated again on Alice (2002) and Woyzeck (2000). Bone Machine (1992) and Mule Variations (1999) won Grammys for Best Alternative Music Album and Best Contemporary Folk Album, respectively. In 2002, the songs from Alice and Wozzeck were recorded and released on the albums Alice and Blood Money. Waits went on to release Real Gone (2004), the compilation Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards (2006), the live album Glitter and Doom Live (2009) and Bad as Me (2011).
Waits has influenced many artists and gained an international cult following. His songs have been covered by Bruce Springsteen, Tori Amos and the Ramones and he has written songs for Johnny Cash and Norah Jones, among others. In 2006, Waits and Brennan were ranked fourth on Paste's list of the hundred greatest living songwriters.[4] In 2011, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Introducing him, Neil Young said "This next man is indescribable, and I'm here to describe him. He's sort of a performer, singer, actor, magician, spirit guide, changeling... I think it's great that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has recognized this immense talent. Could have been the Motion Picture Hall of Fame, could have been the Blues Hall of Fame, could have been the Performance Artist Hall of Fame, but it was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that recognized the great Tom Waits." In accepting the award, Waits said "They say that I have no hits and that I'm difficult to work with. And they say that like it's a bad thing!"[5]
Biography
Childhood and adolescence: 1949–1968
Thomas Alan Waits was born on December 7, 1949, in Pomona, California.[7] He has one older sister and one younger sister.[8] His father, Jesse Frank Waits, was a Texas native of Scots-Irish descent, and his mother, Alma Fern (née Johnson), hailed from Oregon and had Norwegian ancestry.[9][10] Alma, a regular church-goer, managed the household. Jesse taught Spanish at a local school and was an alcoholic; Waits later related that his father was "a tough one, always an outsider."[11] They lived at 318 North Pickering Avenue in Whittier, California. He recalled having a "very middle-class" upbringing and "a pretty normal childhood". He attended Jordan Elementary School, where he was bullied. There, he learned to play the bugle and guitar. His father taught him to play the ukulele.[12]
During the summers, he visited maternal relatives in
Waits recalls, "I was fifteen and I snuck into see
Waits worked at Napoleone's pizza restaurant in National City, California, and both there and at a local diner developed an interest in the lives of the patrons, writing down phrases and snippets of dialogue he overheard.[26] He worked in the forestry service as a fireman for three years [27] and served with the Coast Guard.[28] He enrolled at Chula Vista's Southwestern Community College to study photography, for a time considering a career in the field. He continued pursuing his musical interests, taking piano lessons. He began frequenting venues around San Diego, being drawn into the city's folk music scene.[29]
Early musical career: 1969–1976
In 1969 he gained employment as an occasional doorman for the Heritage coffeehouse, which held regular performances from folk musicians.[30][31] He also began to sing at the Heritage; his set initially consisted largely of covers of Dylan and Red Sovine's "Phantom 309".[32] In time, he performed his own material as well, often parodies of country songs or bittersweet ballads influenced by his relationships; these included early songs "
To promote his debut, Waits and a three-piece band embarked on a U.S. tour, largely on the East Coast, where he was the supporting act for more established artists.
Waits moved from Silver Lake to
After recording The Heart of Saturday Night, Waits reluctantly agreed to tour with Zappa again, but once more faced strong audience hostility. The kudos of having supported Zappa's tour nevertheless bolstered his image in the music industry and helped his career.
He followed this with a week's residency at the Reno Sweeney nightclub, an off-Broadway–style club in New York City.[65] In December he appeared on the PBS concert show Soundstage.[66] From March to May 1976, he toured the U.S.,[67] telling interviewers that the experience was tough and that he was drinking too much alcohol.[68] In May, he embarked on his first tour of Europe, performing in London, Amsterdam, Brussels, and Copenhagen.[69] On his return to Los Angeles, he joined his friend Chuck E. Weiss, moving into the Tropicana motel in West Hollywood, which had an established reputation in rock music circles.[70] Visitors noted his two-room apartment there was heavily cluttered. Waits told the Los Angeles Times that "You almost have to create situations in order to write about them, so I live in a constant state of self-imposed poverty".[71]
Small Change and Foreign Affairs: 1976–1978
In July 1976, he recorded Small Change, again produced by Howe.[72] He recalled it as a seminal episode in his development as a songwriter, the point when he became "completely confident in the craft".[73] The album was critically well received and was his first release to break into the Billboard Top 100 Album List, peaking at 89.[74] Per Bowman, Small Change "made it clear that Waits had evolved into a master storyteller, reflecting the influence of crime-noir writers such as Dashiell Hammett and John D. MacDonald. Arguably his first masterpiece, the album featured exquisite piano ballads such as 'Tom Traubert's Blues' and ‘The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me),’ the word-jazz of ‘Pasties and a G-String,’ and the tour-de-force tenor-sax-accompanied hucksterism of ‘Step Right Up.’”[75] He received growing press attention, being profiled in Newsweek, Time, Vogue, and The New Yorker;[76] he had begun to accrue a cult following.[77] He went on tour to promote the new album, backed by the Nocturnal Emissions (Frank Vicari, Chip White and Fitz Jenkins).[78] In reference to "Pasties and a G-String", a female stripper came onstage during his performances.[79] He began 1977 by touring Japan for the first time.[80]
Back in Los Angeles, he encountered various problems. One female fan, recently escaped from a mental health institution in Illinois, began stalking him and lurking outside his Tropicana apartment.[80] In May 1977, Waits and close friend Chuck E. Weiss were arrested for fighting with police officers in a coffee shop. They were charged with two counts of disturbing the peace but were acquitted after the defense produced eight witnesses who refuted the police officers' account of the incident.[81] In response, Waits sued the Los Angeles Police Department and five years later was awarded $7,500 in damages.[82]
In July and August 1977, he recorded his fourth studio album,
During these years, Waits sought to broaden his career beyond music by involving himself in other projects. Waits became friends with the actor and director Sylvester Stallone and made his first cinematic appearance as a cameo part in Stallone's Paradise Alley (1978); Waits appeared as a drunken piano player.[92] With Paul Hampton, Waits also began writing a movie musical, although this project never came to fruition.[93] Another project he began at this time was a book about entertainers of the past whom he admired.[93]
Blue Valentine and Heartattack and Vine: 1978–1980
In July 1978, Waits began the recording sessions for Blue Valentine.[94] Part way through the sessions, he replaced his musicians to create a less jazz-oriented sound;[95] for the album, he switched from a piano to an electric guitar as his main instrument.[96] For the album's back cover, Waits used a picture of himself and Jones leaning against his car, a 1964 Ford Thunderbird, taken by Elliot Gilbert.[97] Per Bowman, "Waits gradually began writing about junkies and prostitutes instead of skid-row drunks. In songs such as 'Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis’ and ‘Red Shoes by the Drugstore,’ his writing became ever more vivid, compact, and complex."[75] From the album, Waits's first single was released, a performance of "Somewhere" from West Side Story, but it failed to chart.[98] For his Blue Valentine tour, Waits assembled a new band; he also had a gas station built for use as a set during his performances.[99] His support act on the tour was Leon Redbone.[100] In April, he embarked on a European tour, there making television appearances and press interviews; in Austria he was the subject of a short documentary.[101] From there, he flew to Australia for his first tour of that country before returning to Los Angeles in May.[102]
Waits was dissatisfied with Elektra-Asylum, who he felt had lost interest in him as an artist in favor of their more commercially successful acts like
Waits still contractually owed Elektra-Asylum another album, so took a break from Coppola's project to write an album that he initially called White Spades.
Swordfishtrombones and New York City: 1980–1984
A whip and a chair. The Bible. The Book of Revelations. She grew up Catholic, you know, blood and liquor and guilt. She pulverizes me so that I don't just write the same song over and over again. Which is what a lot of people do, including myself.
— Waits on what his wife brought to his creative process[125]
Returning to Los Angeles, Waits and Brennan moved into a Union Avenue apartment.[126] Hoskyns noted that with Brennan, "Waits had found the stabilizing, nurturing companion he'd always wanted", and that she brought him "a sense of emotional security he had never known" before.[127] At the same time, many of his old friends felt cut off after his marriage.[128] Waits said of Brennan, "She rescued me. Maybe I rescued her too; that's often how it works. Upshot is that we both got into the same leaky boat. Maybe the weight drags it down, because now you've two people sitting in it. Sorry, baby! But on the other hand you've also got two peoples' imagination to patch it up again. Everybody knows she's the brains behind Pa, as Dylan might have said. I'm just the figurehead. She's the one who's steering the ship."[129]
Recording of Waits's One from the Heart soundtrack began in October 1980 and continued until September 1981.[130] A number of the tracks were recorded as duets with Crystal Gayle; Waits had initially planned to duet with Midler but she proved unavailable.[131] The film was released in 1982, to largely poor reviews.[132] Waits makes a small cameo in it, playing a trumpet in a crowd scene.[133] Waits's soundtrack album was released by Columbia Records in 1982.[134] Waits had misgivings about the album, thinking it over-produced.[135] Humphries thought that working with Coppola was an important move in Waits's career: it "led directly to Waits moving from cult (i.e. largely unknown) artiste to center-stage."[136]
Newly married and with his Elektra-Asylum contract completed, Waits decided that it was time to artistically reinvent himself.[137] He wanted to move away from using Howe as his producer, although the two parted on good terms.[138] With Brennan's help, he began the process of firing Cohen as his manager, with he and Brennan taking on managerial responsibilities themselves.[139] He came to believe that Cohen had been swindling him out of much of his earnings, later relating that "I thought I was a millionaire and it turned out I had, like, twenty bucks."[140] Waits credited Brennan with introducing him to much new music, most notably Captain Beefheart, a key influence on the direction in which he wanted to take his music.[141] He later said that "once you've heard Beefheart it's hard to wash him out of your clothes. It stains, like coffee or blood."[142] She also introduced him to Harry Partch, a composer who created his own instruments out of everyday materials.[143] Waits began to use images rather than moods or characters as the basis for his songs.[144]
I like to imagine how it feels for the object to become music. Imagine you're the lid to a fifty-gallon drum. That's your job. You work at that. That's your whole life. Then one day I find you and I say, "We're gonna drill a hole in you, run a wire through you, hang you from the ceiling of the studio, bang on you with a mallet, and now you're in show business, baby!"
— Waits on his unique use of instruments[145]
Waits wrote the songs for Swordfishtrombones during a two-week trip to Ireland.[144] He recorded it at Sunset Sound studios and produced it himself; Brennan often attended the sessions and gave him advice.[146] Swordfishtrombones abandoned the jazz sound characteristic of his earlier work; it was his first album not to feature a saxophone[147] and his first to feature the marimba.[75] When the album was finished, he took it to Asylum, but they declined to release it.[148] Waits wanted to leave the label; in his view, "They liked dropping my name in terms of me being a 'prestige' artist, but when it came down to it they didn't invest a whole lot in me in terms of faith". [149] Chris Blackwell of Island Records learned of Waits's dissatisfaction and approached him, offering to release Swordfishtrombones;[150] Island had a reputation for signing more experimental acts, such as King Crimson, Roxy Music, and Sparks.[151] Waits did not tour to promote the album, partly because Brennan was pregnant.[152] Although unenthusiastic about the new trend for music videos, he appeared in one for the song "In the Neighborhood", co-directed by Haskell Wexler and Michael A. Russ.[153] Russ also designed the Swordfishtrombones album cover, featuring an image of Waits with Lee Kolima, a circus strongman, and Angelo Rossitto, a dwarf.[154]
Jon Parles of GQ wrote that "On Swordfishtrombones, Waits has made a breakthrough – he’s found music as evocative as his words. Waits’s grumble of a voice now bounces off a peculiar assortment of horns and percussion and organ and keyboards, as if he’d led a Salvation Army band into a broken-down Hong Kong disco. It’s as if he’s shifted from monologues to screenplays.”[155] According to David Smay, Swordfishtrombones was "the record where Tom Waits radically reinvented himself and reshaped the musical landscape."[156] The album was critically well received;[125] NME named it the second best album of the year.[157] In 1989, Spin named it the second greatest album of all time.[158]
In 1983, Waits appeared in three more Coppola films: as Benny, a philosopher running a billboard store in Rumble Fish; as Buck Merrill in The Outsiders; and as the maître'd in The Cotton Club.[159] He later said that "Coppola is actually the only film director in Hollywood that has a conscience ... most of them are egomaniacs and money-grabbing bastards".[160] In September, Brennan gave birth to their daughter, Kellesimone.[161] Waits was determined to keep his family life separate from his public image and to spend as much time as possible with his daughter.[162] With Brennan and their child, Waits moved to New York City to be closer to Brennan's parents and Island's U.S. office. They settled into a loft apartment near Union Square.[163]
Waits found New York City life frustrating, although it allowed him to meet many new musicians and artists. He befriended John Lurie of The Lounge Lizards, and the duo began sharing a music studio in the Westbeth artist-community building in Greenwich Village. He began networking in the city's arts scene, and, at a party Jean-Michel Basquiat held for Lurie, he met the filmmaker Jim Jarmusch.[164]
Rain Dogs and Franks Wild Years: 1985–1988
Starting in the mid-80s,
In September 1985, his son Casey was born.[175] Waits assembled a band and went on tour, kicking it off in Scotland in October before proceeding around Europe and then the U.S.[176] He changed the setlist for each performance; most of the songs chosen were from his two Island albums.[177] Returning to the U.S., he traveled to New Orleans to act in Jarmusch's Down by Law. Jarmusch wrote Down by Law with Waits and Lurie in mind; they played two of the three main roles, with Roberto Benigni as the third.[178] The film opened and closed with songs from Rain Dogs.[179] Jarmusch noted that "Tom and I have a kindred aesthetic. An interest in unambitious people, marginal people."[180] The pair developed a friendship; Waits called Jarmusch "Dr Sullen", while Jarmusch called Waits "The Prince of Melancholy".[181]
Waits had devised a musical, Franks Wild Years, loosely based on "Frank's Wild Years" from Swordfishtrombones. In late 1985, he reached an agreement that the play would be performed by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago's Briar Street Theatre[182] Waits starred as Frank, who he described as
Quite a guy. Grew up in a bird's eye frozen, oven-ready, rural American town where Bing, Bob, Dean, Wayne & Jerry are considered major constellations. Frank, mistakenly, thinks he can stuff himself into their shorts and present himself to an adoring world. He is a combination of Will Rogers and Mark Twain, playing accordion -- but without the wisdom they possessed. He has a poet's heart and a boy's sense of wonder with the world. A legend in Rainville since he burned his house down and took off for the Big Time.[183]
Reviews were generally positive. He had initially considered a run in New York City but decided against it.[184] The songs from the show were recorded at for his ninth studio album, Franks Wild Years, and released by Island in 1987.[185] NME ranked Franks Wild Years fifth on its list of albums of the year.[186] The album was Waits's first collaboration with David Hidalgo, who played accordion on "Cold, Cold Ground" and "Train Song". After its release, Waits toured North America and Europe,[187] his last full tour for two decades.[188] Two of these performances were the basis for Chris Blum's concert film Big Time (1988).[189]
Waits continued interacting and working with other artists he admired. He was a great fan of The Pogues and went on a Chicago pub crawl with them in 1986.[190] The following year, he appeared as a master of ceremonies on several dates of Elvis Costello's "Wheel of Fortune" tour.[191]
At rehearsals, Tom Waits looked like any moment he might break at the waist or his head fall off his shoulders on to the floor. I once saw a small-town idiot walking across the park, totally drunk, but he was holding an ice-cream, staggering, but also concentrating on not allowing the ice-cream to fall. I felt there was something similar to Tom.
— Jack Nicholson, Waits's co-star in Ironweed[192]
In 1986, he took a small part in
Although Waits had provided a voice-over for a 1981 television advert for Butcher's Blend dog food,[198] he objected to musicians letting companies use their songs in advertising; he said that "artists who take money for ads poison and pervert their songs".[199] In November 1988, he brought a lawsuit against Frito-Lay for using an impersonator performing "Step Right Up" in an advertisement for Doritos; it came to court in April 1990, and Waits won the case in 1992. He received a $2.6 million settlement, a sum larger than his earnings from all of his previous albums combined.[200] This earned him and Brennan reputations as tireless adversaries.[201]
The Black Rider, Bone Machine, and Alice: 1989–1998
In 1989, Waits began planning a collaboration with Robert Wilson, a theater director he had known throughout the 1980s. Their project was the "cowboy opera" The Black Rider. It was based on a German folk tale, the Freischütz, which had inspired Carl Maria von Weber's opera Der Freischütz (1821).[202] In 2004, Waits related that "Wilson is my teacher. There's nobody that's affected me that much as an artist".[203] Waits wrote the music and, at the suggestion of Allen Ginsberg, Waits and Wilson approached William S. Burroughs to pen the lyrics. They flew to Kansas to meet with Burroughs, who agreed to join the project. Waits traveled to Hamburg in May 1989 to work on the project, and was later joined there by Burroughs.[204] The Black Rider debuted in Hamburg's Thalia Theater in March 1990.[205] On completing its run at the Thalia, the play went on an international tour,[206] with a second run of performances occurring in the mid-2000s.[207]
In June 1989, Waits travelled to London to play a Punch and Judy puppeteer in Ann Guedes's film Bearskin: An Urban Fairytale.[208] He proceeded to Ireland, where he was joined by Brennan and spent time with her family.[209] In December 1989, he began a stint as Curly, a mobster's son, at the Los Angeles Theater Center production of Thomas Babe's play Demon Wine.[210] Over the next four years, he made seven film appearances.[209] He nevertheless repeatedly told press that he did not see himself as an actor, but only as someone who did some acting.[211] He made a brief appearance as a plainclothes cop in The Two Jakes (1990) and played a disabled war veteran in Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King (1991).[212] He had a cameo in Steve Rash's Queens Logic (1991) and played a pilot-for-hire in Héctor Babenco's At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991).[213][214] He appeared as himself fishing with John Lurie on Fishing with John. He was Renfield in Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).[215] Waits starred as Earl Piggot, an alcoholic limousine driver, in Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993).[216] Hoskyns said that this "may be the best performance Waits ever gave as an actor."[217]
In 1991, Waits and his family moved to the outskirts of
In August 1992, Waits released his tenth studio album, Bone Machine. Waits wanted to explore "more machinery sounds" with the album, reflecting his interest in industrial music.[224] It was recorded in an old storage room at Prairie Sun.
Waits recalled: "I found a great room to work in, it's just a cement floor and a hot water heater. Okay, we'll do it here. It's got some good echo."
Waits decided to record an album of the songs written for The Black Rider, and did so at Los Angeles's
In early 1993, Brennan was pregnant with Waits's third child, Sullivan.[237] He decided to reduce his workload so as to spend more time with his children; this isolation spawned rumours that he was seriously ill or had separated from his wife. For three years, he turned down all offers to perform gigs or appear in movies.[238] However, he made several cameos and guest appearances on albums by musicians he admired.[239] In February 1996, he held a benefit performance to raise funds for the legal defense of his friend Don Hyde, who had been charged with distributing LSD.[240] He also contributed two songs to the soundtrack album of the film Dead Man Walking, released that year.[241] He contributed "Little Drop of Poison" to the 1997 film The End of Violence.[242] In 1998, Island released Beautiful Maladies, a compilation of 23 Waits tracks from his five albums with the company; he selected the tracks himself.[243]
Mule Variations and Woyzeck: 1999–2003
After his contract with Island expired, Waits decided not to try to renew it, particularly as Blackwell had resigned from the company.
In March 1999, Anti- released his album Mule Variations.[246] Waits had been recording the tracks at Prairie Sun since June 1998.[249] The tracks often dealt with themes involving rural life in the United States and were influenced by the early blues recordings made by Alan Lomax;[250] Waits coined the term "surrural" ("surreal" and "rural") to describe the album's content.[251] Mule Variations reached number 30 on the U.S. Billboard 200, the highest showing of a Waits album.[252] The album was well received,[246] being named "Album of the Year" by Mojo.[253] It won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album.[254] On the categorization of the album as folk music, Waits said: "That's not a bad thing to be called if you've got to be in some kind of category."[230]
Also in March 1999, Waits gave his first live show in three years at Paramount Theater, Austin, Texas as part of the South by Southwest festival.[255] He subsequently appeared in an episode of VH1 Storytellers. In the later part of the year he embarked on the Mule Variations tour, primarily in the U.S. but also featuring dates in Berlin.[256] In October, he performed at Neil Young's annual Bridge School benefit concert.[257] That year, he appeared in Kinka Usher comic book spoof Mystery Men, as Dr A. Heller, an eccentric inventor living in an abandoned amusement park.[258]
In 2000, Waits began writing songs for Wilson's adaptation of Georg Büchner's Woyzeck, which had earlier inspired Alban Berg's opera Wozzeck (1925). It was scheduled to start at the Betty Nansen Theater in Copenhagen in November 2000. He initially worked on the songs at home before traveling to Copenhagen for rehearsals in October.[259] Waits stated that he liked the play because it was "a proletariat story ... about a poor soldier who is manipulated by the government".[260] He decided to then record the songs he had written for both Alice and Woyzeck, placing them on separate albums. For these recordings, he brought in a range of jazz and avant-garde musicians from San Francisco.[261] The two albums, Alice and Blood Money, were released simultaneously in May 2002.[262] Alice entered the U.S. album chart at number 32 and Blood Money at number 33, his highest charting positions at that time.[263] Waits described Alice as being "more metaphysical or something, maybe more water, more feminine", while Blood Money was "more earthbound, more carnival, more the slaving meat-wheel that we're all on". Of the two, Alice was better received by critics.[264] Jesse Dylan directed a video for "God's Away On Business", but shooting was delayed when the emus who were set to star were eaten by coyotes. Per NME, "Replacements were hastily found and the video for ‘God’s Away On Business’, the single lifted from ‘Blood Money’, one of Waits’ two new albums, went ahead a little late."[265]
In May 2001, Waits accepted a Founders Award at the 18th annual
In September 2003, Waits performed at the Healing the Divide fundraiser in New York City.[269] He appeared in Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), having a conversation with Iggy Pop.[270]
Real Gone and Orphans: 2004–2011
In 2004, Waits released his fifteenth studio album,
After several years without film appearances, he played a gun-toting
In January 2008, Waits performed at a benefit for Bet Tzedek Legal Services—The House of Justice, a
Waits found himself in a situation similar to his earlier one with Frito Lay in 2000 when
Bad as Me and later work: 2011–present
In 2010, Waits was reported to be working on a new stage musical with director and long-time collaborator Robert Wilson and playwright Martin McDonagh.[295]
In early 2011, Waits completed a set of 23 poems, Seeds on Hard Ground, which were inspired by Michael O'Brien's portraits of the homeless in his book, Hard Ground. O'Brien's book included the poems alongside the portraits. In anticipation of the book release, Waits and
In March 2011, Waits was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Neil Young.[301][302][303][304] In his acceptance speech, Waits said "I’d like to thank my family. They know me and they love me anyway. My wife and her incandescent light that has guided me and kept me alive and breathing and sparkling. And my kids who, well, they taught me everything I know. Or maybe they taught me everything they know. I don’t know. They taught me a lot."[5]
In 2012, Waits had a supporting role in Martin McDonagh's crime comedy Seven Psychopaths as a retired serial killer.[305] In 2013, he lent his voice to The Simpsons episode "Homer Goes to Prep School" as a survivalist.[306] On May 5, 2013, he joined the Rolling Stones on stage at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California, to duet with Mick Jagger on Willie Dixon's "Little Red Rooster".[307] On October 27, 2013, Waits performed at the 27th annual Bridge School Benefit concert in Mountain View California; Rolling Stone called his performance a "triumph".[308]
Over the years, Waits made six appearances on the
In 2018, Waits had a feature role in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, a Western anthology film by the Coen brothers, as the Prospector.[312] Also in 2018, Waits provided the recorded narration for performances of Martin McDonagh's play A Very Very Very Dark Matter, which was performed at the Bridge Theatre, London. In 2021, Waits had a supporting role in Paul Thomas Anderson's coming-of-age film Licorice Pizza.[313] In 2023, he joined Iggy Pop on the Confidential Show, where they swapped stories and songs.[314][315]
Musical style
Per Bowman, Waits
has never been of his time, ahead of his time, or, for that matter, locked into any particular time. An outsider artist before the term was in common use, Waits has been enamored, at various points in his career, with the cool of 1940s and 1950s
hip-hop. Indeed, the art of Tom Waits has altogether transcended time and, to some degree, place.[75]
Asked about the distinction between words and music, he says: "I'm still a word guy. I'm drawn to people who use a certain vernacular and communicate with words. Words are music, really. I mean, people ask me, 'Do you write music or do you write words?' But you don't really, it's all one thing at its best."
Waits described his voice as being "the sand in the sandwich."
He is known for his eclectic use of instruments, some of his own devising. On Swordfishtrombones, his orchestration included
Humphries described "Waitsworld" as a place of "the ricocheted romantics bent out of shape by a broad who should have known better; the twisted psychotics; the loners; the losers."[331] By Blue Valentine, violent death had become a recurrent lyrical theme in his work; he wrote the song "Sweet Little Bullet" from that album, for instance, about a 15-year-old girl who committed suicide by jumping from a high window along the Hollywood Bowl.[332] "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis", from the same album, is an epistolary song from a prostitute to her former lover, Charlie; while good-hearted, she is an unreliable narrator. In his later work, orphanhood became a recurring theme.[333] Many of his songs make reference to fictional locations that he has invented, such as the eponymous term in his song "Burma Shave".[334] Hoskyns also noted that many Waits songs, such as "Burma Shave" and "Georgia Lee", reflect an "abiding concern for runaways and kids in danger."[335] Andy Gill expressed the view that throughout Waits's oeuvre, "the theme of lowlife redemption, of escape, is ever-present."[336]
Personal life
During the 1970s, Waits had a brief relationship with comedian Elayne Boosler,[337] an intermittent relationship with Bette Midler,[61] and a relationship with Rickie Lee Jones.[88]
In 1980, Waits married frequent collaborator Kathleen Brennan. They live in Sonoma County, California,[124] and have three children: Kellesimone Wylder Waits (born 1983),[161] Casey Waits (born 1985),[175] and Sullivan Blake Waits (born 1993).[338][339] After he married and had children, Waits became increasingly reclusive.[340] Safeguarding the privacy of his family life became very important to him.[341]
During interviews, he has deflected questions about his personal life, and refused to sanction any biography.[342] When Barney Hoskyns was researching his unauthorized 2009 biography, Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits, Waits and his wife asked people not to talk to him. Hoskyns believed that it was Brennan who was responsible for the "wall of inaccessibility" surrounding Waits.[343]
When asked about his religious beliefs, he noted: "With the God stuff I don't know. I don't know what's out there any more than anyone else."[344]
Stage persona
Waits has been determined to keep a distance between his public persona and his personal life.[345] According to Hoskyns, Waits hides behind his persona, noting that "Tom Waits is as much of a character created for his fans as it is a real man."[346] In Hoskyns's view, Waits's self-image is in part "a self-protective device, a screen to deflect attention."[347] A few music journalists have gone so far as to suggest that Waits is a "poseur".[348] Hoskyns regarded Waits's "persona of the skid-row boho/hobo, a young man out of time and place" as an "ongoing experiment in performance art."[349] He added that Waits has adopted a "self-appointed role as the bard of the streets."[350] Mick Brown, a music journalist from Sounds who interviewed Waits in the mid-1970s, noted that "he had immersed himself in this character to the point where it wasn't an act and had become an identity."[351] Louie Lista, a friend of Waits's during the 1970s, stated that the singer's general attitude was that of "I'm an outsider, but I'll revel in being an outsider."[352] In a similar manner to contemporaries like Bob Dylan and Neil Young, Waits is known for cutting contact with figures he worked with in his past.[353]
"There ain't no Devil, there's just God when he's drunk."
"I don't have a drinking problem, 'cept when I can't get a drink."
"Everybody I like is either dead or not feeling very well."
"I'm so broke I can't even pay attention."
"You have to keep busy, after all, no dog ever pissed on a moving car."
"I don't care who I have to step on on my way down."
— Waits quotations which Humphries called "Waitsisms"[354]
Another friend from that period, Troubadour-manager Robert Marchese, related that Waits cultivated "the whole mystique of this really funky dude and all that Charles Bukowski crap" to give "his impression of how funky poor folk really are," whereas in reality Waits was "basically a middle-class, San Diego mom-and-pop-schoolteacher kid."[352] Humphries thought that there was a "conservative element" to Waits's persona, stating that behind his public image, "Waits has always been more of a white-picket-fence kind of guy than you might imagine."[355]
Jarmusch described Waits as "a very contradictory character," stating that he is "potentially violent if he thinks someone is screwing with him, but he's gentle and kind too."[356] Herbert Hardesty, who worked with Waits on Blue Valentine, called him "a very pleasant human being, a very nice person."[357] Humphries referred to him as "an essentially reticent man ... reflective and surprisingly shy."[358] He has a sense of humor and enjoys jokes.[359] Hoskyns described Waits as "unequivocally—some would say almost gruffly—heterosexual."[360]
Hoskyns suggested that Waits has had an "on-off affair with alcohol, never quite able to shake it off."[361] During the 1970s, he was known as a heavy drinker and a smoker but avoided any drugs harder than cocaine.[362] He told one interviewer, "I discovered alcohol at an early age, and that guided me a lot."[363] Humphries suggested that Waits's use of alcohol as opposed to illicit drugs marked him out as being different from many of his contemporaries on the 1970s U.S. music scene.[364]
During interviews, Waits has avoided questions about his personal life, gone off on tangents, and thrown in trivia.[365] Humphries noted that Waits has often supplied interviewers with "droll one-liners", something he termed "Waitsisms", observing that the singer was "dripping with wit and vinegar."[354] Waits is known for getting irate with journalists.[366] He dislikes touring,[367] but Hoskyns added that Waits has "a strong work ethic".[368]
Per his website's description of Glitter and Doom Live, "Disc One is designed to sound like one evening's performance, even though the 17 tracks are selected from 10 cities, from Paris to Birmingham; Tulsa to Milan; and Atlanta to Dublin... Disc Two is a bonus compendium called TOM TALES, which is a selection of the comic bromides, strange musings, and unusual facts that Tom traditionally shares with his audience during the piano set. Waits' topics range from the rituals of insects to the last dying breath of Henry Ford." It adds "he shifts seamlessly from an array of characters: carnival barker, preacher, country singer, soul balladeer; cabaret singer and storyteller."[369]
In concert, Waits tended to wear all black. Humphries noted that "on stage, Waits is a consummate performer, a raconteur of the recherché, and a genuine wit."[370] Waits has stated that a performance should be "a spectacle and entertaining".[52] It was on his 1977 tour for Foreign Affairs that he started employing props as part of his routine;[89] one recurring prop was a megaphone through which he would shout at the audience.[279]
Collaborations
Over the years, Waits has collaborated with various artists he admires. He toured with the saxophonist
Reception and legacy
Bowman writes that "At the dawn of the second decade of the 21st century, Waits’s influence can be seen in the work of many of the most forward-thinking contemporary artists, including
He was included on
I've seen him standing in a bunch of dust, and I thought I saw sparkly things coming off of him. I looked at him when he was singing and I said, "Is my vision going? I'm seeing three, maybe four people up there?" And they all seem to be waiting for the other one to finish so that they come in. And then this other one would just whistle at me. And then one would speak in a kind of speaking-in-tongues kind of voice. And then The Eagles covered it.
—Neil Young, inducting Waits into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 2011[5]
Various artists have covered his songs. In 1973,
Waits has influenced artists in other fields. Kazuo Ishiguro recalls how Waits influenced his novel The Remains of the Day:
I thought I’d finished Remains, but then one evening heard Tom Waits singing his song "Ruby’s Arms". It’s a ballad about a soldier leaving his lover sleeping in the early hours to go away on a train. Nothing unusual in that. But the song is sung in the voice of a rough American hobo type utterly unaccustomed to wearing his emotions on his sleeve. And there comes a moment, when the singer declares his heart is breaking, that’s almost unbearably moving because of the tension between the sentiment itself and the huge resistance that’s obviously been overcome to utter it. Waits sings the line with cathartic magnificence, and you feel a lifetime of tough-guy stoicism crumbling in the face of overwhelming sadness. I heard this and reversed a decision I’d made, that Stevens would remain emotionally buttoned up right to the bitter end. I decided that at just one point – which I’d have to choose very carefully – his rigid defence would crack, and a hitherto concealed tragic romanticism would be glimpsed.[414]
Another author who notes Waits's influence is Ian Rankin:
I already knew Tom Waits’s music, those soulful communications from the louche underbelly of the American dream, but nothing had prepared me for Swordfishtrombones. I first heard it on a friend’s stereo system, the pair of us transfixed by what was happening in front of our ears. It felt to me as if a vaudeville show was taking place in a scrapyard, the music whirling and clanging, Waits presiding over it all like a bruised but keen-eyed master of ceremonies. Rain Dogs added extra textures and refinements, laying its (marked) cards on the table with its opening track, "Singapore", a novel contained within two and a half minutes of controlled musical mayhem. By the time of its release I had left university and was trying to shape myself into a writer. I admired Waits’s lyrical vision and concision – the man was a born storyteller, stopping travellers who had wandered into the wrong part of town and compelling them with his words.[415]
His songs have been used in film, television and theater. When the actor Robert Carlyle formed a theatre, he named it the Rain Dog Theatre after Waits's album.[389] Cabaret shows have been set to his songs, among them Robert Berdahl's Warm Beer, Cold Women and Stewart D'Arrietta's Belly of a Drunken Piano.[395] In addition to scoring films for Bell, Coppola and Jarmusch, Waits has written songs for soundtracks: "Never Let Go" for American Heart; "Walk Away" and "The Fall of Troy" for Dead Man Walking and "Little Drop of Poison" for The End of Violence, which later appeared in Shrek 2. "Temptation" and "Cold Cold Ground" appear in Léolo; "Innocent When You Dream" in Smoke; "Goin' Out West" in Fight Club;[416] "All The World is Green" and "Green Grass" in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.[417] Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room features "What's He Building?", "Straight to the Top (Vegas)", "Temptation" and "God's Away on Business".[418] The titles of the films Romeo Is Bleeding and Blue Valentine are derived from Waits songs. "Hold On" and "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" were sung by Beth Greene (Emily Kinney) in The Walking Dead episodes "I Ain't a Judas" and "Infected", respectively.[419][420] The Wire used "Way Down in the Hole" as its opening theme; each season featured a different rendition, including The Blind Boys of Alabama, Waits, The Neville Brothers, DoMaJe and Steve Earle. The season four rendition was arranged and recorded for the show and is performed by five Baltimore teenagers: Ivan Ashford, Markel Steele, Cameron Brown, Tariq Al-Sabir and Avery Bargasse.[421] In 2014, Aaron Posner and the magician Teller directed a production of Shakespeare's The Tempest featuring songs by Waits and Brennan.[422][423][424]
Discography
- Closing Time (1973)
- The Heart of Saturday Night (1974)
- Nighthawks at the Diner (1975)
- Small Change (1976)
- Foreign Affairs (1977)
- Blue Valentine (1978)
- Heartattack and Vine (1980)
- Swordfishtrombones (1983)
- Rain Dogs (1985)
- Franks Wild Years (1987)
- Bone Machine (1992)
- The Black Rider (1993)
- Mule Variations (1999)
- Alice (2002)
- Blood Money (2002)
- Real Gone (2004)
- Bad as Me (2011)
Tours
- 1973: Closing Time touring
- 1974–1975: The Heart of Saturday Night touring
- 1975–1976: Small Change touring
- 1977: Foreign Affairs touring
- 1978–1979: Blue Valentine touring
- 1980–1982: Heartattack and Vine touring
- 1985: Rain Dogs touring
- 1987: Big Time touring
- 1999: Get Behind the Mule Tour
- 2004: Real Gone Tour
- 2006: The Orphans Tour
- 2008: Glitter and Doom Tour[425]
Filmography
† | Denotes films that have not yet been released |
Year | Film | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1978 | Paradise Alley | Mumbles | |
1981 | Wolfen | Drunken Bar Owner | Uncredited |
1982 | One from the Heart | Trumpet player | Also composer (uncredited as actor) |
1983 | The Outsiders | Buck Merrill | |
Rumble Fish | Benny | ||
1984 | The Stone Boy | Petrified man at carnival | Uncredited |
The Cotton Club | Irving Stark | ||
1986 | Down by Law | Zach | |
1987 | Ironweed | Rudy | |
1988 | Greasy Lake | Narrator | Video |
Candy Mountain | Al Silk | ||
Big Time | Himself | Documentary; also co-writer | |
1989 | Bearskin: An Urban Fairytale | Silva | |
Cold Feet | Kenny | ||
Mystery Train | Radio D.J. (voice) | ||
1990 | The Two Jakes | Plainclothes Policeman | Uncredited |
1991 | At Play in the Fields of the Lord | Wolf | |
The Fisher King | Disabled Veteran | Uncredited | |
Queens Logic | Monte | ||
Night on Earth | Composer | ||
1992 | Bram Stoker's Dracula | R. M. Renfield
|
|
1993 | Short Cuts | Earl Piggot | |
1999 | Mystery Men | Doc Heller | |
2001 | The Last Castle | Composer with Jerry Goldsmith | |
2003 | Coffee and Cigarettes | Himself | Segment: "Somewhere in California" |
2005 | Domino | Wanderer | |
The Tiger and the Snow | Himself | ||
2006 | Wristcutters: A Love Story | Kneller | |
2009 | The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus | Mr. Nick | |
2010 | The Book of Eli | Engineer | |
2011 | The Monster of Nix | Virgil | Short film |
Twixt | Narrator | ||
2012 | Seven Psychopaths | Zachariah | |
2013 | The Simpsons | Lloyd (voice) | Episode: "Homer Goes to Prep School" |
2018 | The Ballad of Buster Scruggs | Prospector | Segment: "All Gold Canyon" |
The Old Man & the Gun | Waller | ||
2019 | The Dead Don't Die | Hermit Bob | |
2021 | Ultra City Smiths
|
The Narrator (voice) | 6 episodes |
Licorice Pizza | Rex Blau | ||
2023 | The Absence of Eden | ||
2025 | Wildwood † | Sterling Fox (voice) | In production |
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Sources
- Hoskyns, Barney (2009). Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0571235537.
- Humphries, Patrick (2007). The Many Lives of Tom Waits. London: Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-1-84449-585-6.
- Smay, David (2008). Swordfishtrombones. New York and London: Continuum. ISBN 978-0-8264-2782-3.
Further reading
- Jacobs, Jay S. (2006). Wild Years The Music and Myth of Tom Waits. ECW Press. ISBN 1-55022-716-5.
- Montandon, Mac, ed. (2006). Innocent When You Dream: Tom Waits – The Collected Interviews. Orion. ISBN 0-7528-7394-6.
- Maher, Paul (August 1, 2011). Tom Waits on Tom Waits: Interviews and Encounters. Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1-56976-927-0.
- ISBN 978-1-68335-658-5.
- Harvey, Alex (August 8, 2022). Song Noir: Tom Waits and the Spirit of Los Angeles. Reaktion Books. ISBN 978-1-78914-664-6.
External links
- Official website
- Tom Waits at Curlie
- Tom Waits discography at Discogs
- Tom Waits at IMDb
- "Tom Waits". Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
- Tom Waits Library