Tom Waits - Biography - IMDb Tom Waits Biography Showing all 46 items Jump to: Overview (3) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trade Mark (1) | Trivia (27) | Personal Quotes (13) Overview (3) 6' (1.83 m) Mini Bio (1) Thomas Alan Waits was born in Pomona, California, to schoolteachers Alma Fern (Johnson) and Jesse Frank Waits. Described as one of the last beatniks of the contemporary music, Waits in fact has two separate careers. From 1973 (LP "Closing Time") to 1983 ("One From The Heart" soundtrack), he recorded nine LPs for Asylum Records, writing songs mainly in the manner of Tin Pan Alley, mixing them with jazz and blues. Extraordinarily, he never produced a hit, but he earned a cult following all over the world. In 1983 he signed with Island Records, and released a series of albums that stunned the music world. Beginning with "Swordfishtrombones", he introduced a whole new orchestration, which included some of the instruments invented by Harry Partch .

He found a new ground for his innovations, searching in sound fields that never before were searched. This second part of his career coincided with his marriage to Kathleen Brennan , a former writer for Francis Ford Coppola ( Zoetrope (1999)). His LPs "Rain Dogs" (1985), "Big Time" (soundtrack) and "The Black Rider" are today what Kurt Weill 's music was once. "The Black Rider" brings music written for the show directed by Bob Wilson and staged in Germany. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Dragan Todorovic Spouse (1) ( 10 August 1980 - present) (3 children) Trade Mark (1) Raspy, gravelly singing voice Trivia (27) Close friend of Chuck E. Weiss , a fellow L.A. scenester and co-founder of The Viper Room with Johnny Depp , and frequently mentions him in lyrics and liner notes on his records. Close friends with the Coppola family including Nicolas Cage ; often cast in Francis Ford Coppola movies. Frito-Lay used an unauthorized sample of his song "Step Right Up" in one of their commercials. He successfully sued for an undisclosed amount of money.

Frito-Lay unsuccessfully counter-sued. Children: Kellesimone (b. 1983), Casey Xavier (b. 1985), Sullivan (b. 1993). Uses a large collection of electric megaphones to create unusual tonal effects on his recordings. One of his favorites is a 1944 vintage issued by the US Navy Bureau of Ships, manufactured by Guided Radio Corp. of New York. Shops at hardware stores for items to be used as percussion instruments. Owns obscure and custom made instruments such as a Chamberlin Music Master 600 (an analog synthesizer manufactured in the 1960s) and a photon clarinet ("[It] sounds like a keyboard lobster dying on a campfire."). He converted a 4 cubic yard metal box (intended as a debris dumpster) into a musical instrument called a "Strata Dumpster" (aka "Dumpstalele"). He cut a 2 foot hole into one side, and streched seven piano strings across it, fastening them with two welded bridges. The strings can be plucked, strummed or bowed.

He describes the sound as "trainlike and huge, like trash day with a purpose." The photo on the cover of his album "Rain Dogs" includes a man who many believe to be him. It was one of a series of photos taken at the Cafe Lehmitz in Hamburg by the Swedish photographer Anders Petersen. Waits reportedly saw the photo at an exhibition, was taken by the similarity of him and the man in the photo, and asked permission from the photographer to use it as an album cover. His maternal grandmother, Olga Regina Olsen, was the daughter of Norwegian parents (her family was from Oslo). Tom's other ancestry is English, Scottish, Scots-Irish (Northern Irish), German, Swiss-German, and Welsh. He has said that Bob Dylan is his favorite songwriter and his main influence for initially getting into music. He contributes his shift to more experimental, eccentric music starting with the album "Swordfishtrombones" to the influence of Don Van Vliet . Ironically, Dylan's more recent work has been said to be comparable to Waits' music. Is a good friend of Keith Richards who makes frequent appearances as a guitarist on his records. A big Baz Luhrmann fan.

Bears such a striking resemblance to actor Ron Perlman that he was once credited under the name "Ron Perlman" on a movie poster. Being a family friend of the Coppolas, he performed at the wedding of Sofia Coppola and Spike Jonze . Originally slated to play Lefty, one of the singing cowboys in A Prairie Home Companion (2006). His album "Rain Dogs" is mentioned in the script for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). All of his recent original songs are credited as being written by both Waits and his wife Kathleen Brennan , although some of them are written solely by Waits. His role in Domino (2006) is immediately preceded by his own song "Jesus Gonna Be Here," from his 1992 album "Bone Machine". Lives in Sonoma County, California. Member of the "Sons of Lee Marvin". Along with Jim Jarmusch (Founder). A private and humorous group consisting of invited members whom could plausibly be Lee Marvin's son. Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on March 14, 2011.

The other inductees were Darlene Love , Neil Diamond , Alice Cooper , Leon Russell and Dr. John . His father, Frank, was a teacher at the largest high school in Los Angeles, Belmont High School. Beyond the aforementioned Bob Dylan and Captain Beefheart, Waits is a big fan of Frank Sinatra , Thelonious Monk , the Rolling Stones, Gavin Bryars , the Lounge Lizards, The Pogues, Leonard Cohen , Little Richard , James Brown , Frank Zappa , Elvis Costello , Paul Simon and Prince . His number one favorite album of all time "In the Wee Small Hours" by Sinatra. Member of the "Sons of Lee Marvin". Along with Jim Jarmusch (Founder). A private and clandestine organisation consisting of invited members whom could plausibly be Lee Marvin's son. Lives in California. [August 2001] Before she was an established actress Winona Ryder once babysat for Tom's children. Personal Quotes (13) Swordfishtrombones (1983) Stereogum Return to Story CREDIT: Heard through the wall of a neighboring apartment, you might confuse Tom Waits’s music with Howlin’ Wolf’s.

Then again, you could just as easily mistake it for a long-lost Harry Partch piece, an especially ‘out’ Busta Rhymes interlude, or a bootleg recording of Randy Newman twelve-stepping in reverse. For all the discussion of Tom Waits as an American Original, his components are easy enough to parse; his music can be compared to an exotic meal whose recipe doesn’t necessarily require a special trip to the grocery, with many of the ingredients — the aforementioned Wolf (via Captain Beefheart), the Beats, Bukowski, Kurt Weill, Cole Porter, Spike Jonze, Satch — easily found in the cupboards of most discerning 21st century listeners. The yield, however, alchemically produces the great and unique Tom Waits. Actor Peter Sellers claimed to not possess a personality of his own and considered himself a tabula rasa upon which he was able to convincingly construct or adopt personas. Waits’s public face could similarly be said to be a series of projections; part chameleon, part caricature, the corporeal version of Waits seems to embody nothing and everything. As an artist, he is a fount of musical ideas, albeit one that appears to require constant kindling.

Every sound, colloquialism, or bit of trivia is processed by Waits as raw material; tropes, platitudes, and song fragments are merely grist for the mill to be absorbed and rendered anew in the form of innovative, postmodern sound sculptures. Waits is the only white singer I have ever heard who can scat convincingly. His ability to embrace classic song structures and traditional idioms is a thread that runs through even his most experimental work: A Tin Pan Alley refrain poking through the din of a salvage yard rumble or a show tune quote in the midst of a hallucinatory sea chantey endure like proud, stubborn mailboxes that remain standing after the onslaught of a Nor’easter. There are two distinct eras of Tom Waits music, demarcated by an invisible line that separates the Asylum (or pre-Swordfishtrombones) years, and the Island/Epitaph (post-Swordfishtrombones) years. The former era is distinguished by albums made with outside producers on which Waits invented and perfected his freight train freeloader persona; these showcase the sophisticated, piano-based, Beat-obsessed, urban, relatively traditional side of Waits.

The latter period is marked by songwriting collaborations with his wife Kathleen Brennan and albums that are exclusively produced or co-produced by Waits himself; these albums represent a decisive turn toward both the avant garde and more tactile, organic and humanistic sounds. These distinctions should be understood to be quite broad, merely providing a sort of Cliff’s Notes guide to experiencing Waits’s uncategorizeable oeuvre. Furthermore, while it may be tempting to contextualize Waits’s many moods and inventions using distinctions like “brawlers,” “bawlers,” and “bastards” (the subtitle of Orphans, Waits’ 2006 box set of rarities and outtakes), this, too, is an oversimplification. Every Tom Waits album, even those found at the very bottom of this list, is worth owning, and worth knowing. Waits has never released a bad album; he has also yet to release a front-to-back brilliant one. Like Townes Van Zant, Waits has written at least two dozen irrefutably perfect songs, but conspicuously absent from his prodigious discography is one irrefutably perfect album.

For one thing, almost all of his records, especially those released during the CD era, are far too long. Waits is an artist who indulges his imagination’s every whim, and who follows those whims indiscriminately. More often than not, the results are resplendent; occasionally, they’re not. As a result, ill-advised sonic experiments, musty monologues that sound like voiceover narrations from bad films involving dames and trenchcoats, and songs that sound like outtakes from the Bugsy Malone soundtrack frequently disrupt the pacing and shatter the spell cast by even his greatest records. It should be noted that my personal favorites, or at least the ones I return to most regularly, appear at Nos. 4 and 5 of this countdown; I’m generally (and pretty firmly) an Asylum/pre-Swordfishtrombones guy, but in an attempt to rate these albums fairly, I tried to assess the discography with a fairly objective criteria. This is the first Stereogum countdown in which I believe there will be no majority consensus even among the top ten; any one of these 18 albums might just be somebody’s favorite, and I expect that the comments section will reflect this.

I did not include the exhaustive-but-worthwhile Orphans box set or live albums that seemed redundant due to the inclusion of songs discussed elsewhere. I also saw no reason to include the pair of Early Years collections of Waits’s earliest songwriting demos, many of which have been re-recorded and released on his first two albums. Lastly, I did not feel the need to include Night On Earth, Waits’ mostly instrumental soundtrack to the Jim Jarmusch film of the same name. The Countdown begins here . Tom Waits | Download Music, Tour Dates & Video | eMusic Biography All Music Guide All Music Guide: In the 1970s, Tom Waits combined a lyrical focus on desperate, low-life 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 also 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. He wrote songs for and appeared in Paradise Alley (1978), wrote the title song for On the Nickel (1980), and was hired by director Francis Coppola to write the music for One from the Heart (1982), which earned him an Academy Award nomination. While working on that project, Waits met and married playwright Kathleen Brennan, with whom he later collaborated.

Moving to Island Records, Waits made Swordfishtrombones (1983), which found him experimenting with horns and percussion and using unusual recording techniques. The same year, he appeared in Coppola's Rumble Fish and The Outsiders, and, in 1984, he appeared in the director's The Cotton Club. In 1985, he released Rain Dogs. In 1986, he appeared in Down by Law and made his theatrical debut with Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre in Frank's Wild Years, a musical play he had written with Brennan. An album based on the play was released in 1987, the same year Waits appeared in the films Candy Mountain and Ironweed. In 1988, he released a film and soundtrack album depicting one of his concerts, Big Time. In 1989, he appeared in the films Bearskin: An Urban Fairytale, Cold Feet, and Wait Until Spring. His work for the theater continued in 1990 when Waits partnered with opera director Robert Wilson and beat novelist William Burroughs and staged The Black Rider in Hamburg, Germany.

In 1991, he appeared in the films Queens' Logic, The Fisher King, and At Play in the Fields of the Lord. In 1992, he scored the film Night on Earth; released the album Bone Machine, which won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album; appeared in the film Bram Stoker's Dracula; and returned to Hamburg for the staging of his second collaboration with Robert Wilson, Alice. The Black Rider was documented on CD in 1993, the same year Waits appeared in the film Short Cuts. A long absence from recording resulted in the 1998 release of Beautiful Maladies, a retrospective of his work for Island. In 1999, Waits finally returned with a new album, Mule Variations. The record was a critical success, winning a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk album, and was also his first for the independent Epitaph Records' Anti subsidiary. A small tour followed, but Waits jumped right back into the studio and began working on not one but two new albums. By the time he emerged in the spring of 2002, both Alice and Blood Money were released on Anti Records.

Blood Money consisted of the songs from the third Wilson/Waits collaboration that was staged in Denmark in 2000 and won Best Drama of the Year. After limited touring in support of these two endeavors, Waits returned to the recording studio and issued Real Gone in 2004. The album marked a large departure for him in that it contained no keyboards at all, focusing only on stringed and rhythm instruments. Glitter and Doom Live appeared in 2009. Waits didn't release another studio album of new material until 2011, when he issued Bad as Me on Anti in the Fall. He uncharacteristically issued a track listing two months in advance of the release, and the pre-release title track as a digital single. He also took the unusual step of releasing a video in which he allowed bits of all the album's songs to play while he scolded bloggers and peer-to-peer sites for invading his privacy. Tom Waits - TV Celebrities - ShareTV [Complete List] BIOGRAPHY: Described as one of the last beatniks of the contemporary music, Tom Waits - in fact - had two separate careers.

From 1973 (LP "Closing Time") to 1983 ("One From The Heart" soundtrack), he recorded nine LPs for Asylum Records, writing songs mainly in the manner of Tin Pan Alley, mixing them with jazz and blues. Extraordinarily, he never produced a hit, but he earned a cult following all over the world. In 1983 he signed with Island Records, and released a series of albums that stunned the music world. Beginning with "Swordfishtrombones", he introduced a whole new orchestration, which included some of the instruments invented by Harry Partch. He found a new ground for his innovations, searching in sound fields that never before were searched. This second part of his career coincided with his marriage to Kathleen Brennan, a former writer for Francis Ford Coppola (Zoetrope (1999)). His LPs "Rain Dogs" (1985), "Big Time" (soundtrack) and "The Black Rider" are today what Kurt Weill's music was once. "The Black Rider" brings music written for the show directed by Bob Wilson and staged in Germany.

TRIVIA: All of his recent original songs are credited as being written by both Waits and his wife 'Kathleen Brennan' (qv), although some of them are written solely by Waits. The photo on the cover of his album "Rain Dogs" includes a man who many believe to be him. It was one of a series of photos taken at the Cafe Lehmitz in Hamburg by the Swedish photographer Anders Petersen. Waits reportedly saw the photo at an exhibition, was taken by the similarity of him and the man in the photo, and asked permission from the photographer to use it as an album cover. He converted a 4 cubic yard metal box (intended as a debris dumpster) into a musical instrument called a "Strata Dumpster" (aka "Dumpstalele"). He cut a 2 foot hole into one side, and streched seven piano strings across it, fastening them with two welded bridges. The strings can be plucked, strummed or bowed. He describes the sound as "trainlike and huge, like trash day with a purpose." Is a good friend of 'Keith Richards (II)' (qv) who makes frequent appearances as a guitarist on his records. Lives in Sonoma County, California.

Close friend of 'Chuck E. Weiss' (qv), a fellow L.A. scenester and co-founder of The Viper Room with 'Johnny Depp' (qv), and frequently mentions him in lyrics and liner notes on his records. Is Scottish and Irish from his father's side of the family and Norwegian from his mother's side. Being a family friend of the Coppolas, he performed at the wedding of 'Sofia Coppola' (qv) and 'Spike Jonze' (qv). Related sites for this celeb RockBox - Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones (1983) Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones (1983) Description: TOM WAITS - SWORDFISHTROMBONE Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor.

Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car." With this trademark growl, his incorporation of pre-rock music styles such as blues, jazz, and vaudeville, and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music, Waits has built up a distinctive musical persona. He has worked as a composer for movies and musical plays and has acted in supporting roles in films including Paradise Alley and Bram Stoker's Dracula; he also starred in the 1986 film Down by Law. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his soundtrack work on One from the Heart. Lyrically, Waits' songs frequently present atmospheric portrayals of grotesque, often seedy characters and places�although he has also shown a penchant for more conventional ballads. He has a cult following and has influenced subsequent songwriters despite having little radio or music video support.

His songs are best-known through cover versions by more commercial artists: "Jersey Girl", performed by Bruce Springsteen, "Ol' '55", performed by the Eagles, and "Downtown Train", performed by Rod Stewart. Although Waits' albums have met with mixed commercial success in his native United States, they have occasionally achieved gold album sales status in other countries. He has been nominated for a number of major music awards and has won Grammy Awards for two albums, Bone Machine and Mule Variations. In 2011, Waits was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Waits lives in Sonoma County, California with his wife, Kathleen Brennan, and three children. SWORDFISHTROMBONE Swordfishtrombones is an album by American singer-songwriter Tom Waits, released in September 1983. It was the first album that Waits produced himself. Stylistically different from his previous LPs, the album moves away from the piano and string orchestra arrangements of the late 1970s, replacing them instead with unusual instrumentation and a somewhat more abstract songwriting approach. The cover art is a TinTone photograph by Michael A. Russ.

The album peaked at #164 on the Billboard Pop Albums and 200 albums charts. In 1989, Spin named Swordfishtrombones the second greatest album of all time. In 2006, Q placed the album at #36 in its list of "40 Best Albums of the '80s." Pitchfork Media listed Swordfishtrombones as 11th best album of the 1980s. Slant Magazine listed the album at #26 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980's". Track List 'Bad As Me' Available Now! Biography Tom Waits, according to the esteemed American critic Robert Hilburn, is clearly one of the most important figures of the modern pop era. Such sentiments are not... mere hyperbole; in a career that now spans four decades and over 20 albums, Tom Waits has long since emerged as an extraordinary innovative force, a singular voice whose music remains determinedly and even gloriously - well beyond the trivial fads and fashions of popular culture.

Waits latest release, the 3CD set Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards adds further weight to that stellar reputation. Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards is a wide-ranging collection of 54 songs - including 30 new recordings equaling over three hours of rare and never-before heard music. The set comes complete with a 94-page booklet. Each of the three CDs is separately grouped and sub-titled Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards to capture the full spectrum of Waits ranging and roving musical styles. Brawlers is chock full of raucous blues and full-throated juke joint stomp; Bawlers comprises Celtic and country ballads, waltzes, lullabies, piano and classic lyrical Waits songs while Bastards is filled with experimental music and strange tales. In addition to the new work, Orphans features a number of songs originally recorded for the cinema, the theatre and other projects but which now find a home on a Waits album for the first time.

They include his unique interpretations of songs by such extraordinarily diverse talents as The Ramones, Daniel Johnston, Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht, Leadbelly, Sparklehorse, Charles Bukowski and Jack Kerouac. "Orphans are rough and tender tunes. Rhumbas about mermaids, shuffles about trainwrecks, tarantellas about insects, madrigrals about drowning, says Waits. Scared, mean orphan songs of rapture and melancholy. Songs that grew up hard. Songs of dubious origin rescued from cruel fate". Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards (Anti Records) is Waits first release since 2004s much-lauded Real Gone. The album was written and produced by Waits with his wife and long-time collaborator Kathleen Brennan and is released in the UK on Tuesday 21th November 2006. * * * Its been just over 30 years since Tom Waits made his recording debut. In that time his music has taken adventurous twists and turns, from confessional country-blues and jazz-flavoured lounge to primal rock and avant-garde musical theatre.

By turns tender and poignant, strange and twisted, his songs have tended to explore the dark underbelly of society as he has given his voice to a litany of characters and tales on the fringe and in the fray. Waits has drawn from a deep well of song idioms; folk, blues, country, jazz ballads, polkas, waltzes, cabaret, swing, popular ballads and a category which by now can only be described as Waitsian. The tools of his trade have included such instruments and objects as the marimba; trombone; brake drum; metal aunglongs; banjo; bell plate; bullhorn; conga; accordion; optigon; mellotron; maracas; pump organ; basstarda; chamberlain; harmonium; viola; sticks; chairs and musical saw as well as the regular old guitar, bass, piano and drums. There is also, of course, his trademark gravelly voice. In the early-Seventies Tom Waits worked as a doorman at the Heritage in San Diego, a nightclub where artists of every genre performed.

An avid fan of such authors, songwriters, musicians and performers as Hoagy Carmichael, Lord Buckley, Bob Dylan, Stephen Foster, Raymond Chandler and Marty Robbins, Waits began developing his own idiosyncratic musical style, combining songs with monologues. He took his newly formed act to Monday nights at the Troubadour in LA, 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. Waits first formal recording, Closing Time, was released in 1973. Among the tracks was Ol 55, a song later covered by his labelmates The Eagles for their On the Border album. Waits began touring and opening in America for such artists as Charlie Rich, Martha & The Vandellas and Frank Zappa.

As the decade unfolded, Waits gained increasing critical respect and a loyal cult audience with his subsequent albums The Heart of Saturday Night (1974); Nighthawks at the Diner (1975); Small Change (1976); Foreign Affairs (1977); Blue Valentine (1978) and Heartattack and Vine (1980). It was an incredibly prolific period for Waits, establishing his reputation as a visionary songwriter. * * * In 1982, the same year as his Oscar-nominated soundtrack for Francis Ford Coppolas One From the Heart, Tom Waits produced Swordfishtrombones with Kathleen Brennan. It was the first time Waits had produced his own work. The response from his record company Elektra-Asylum, however, was less than enthusiastic both Waits and the album were dropped, with label president Joe Smith warning with this record you will lose all your old fans and gain no new ones. Smiths successor Bob Krasnow also elected not to release the album or renew Waits recording contract. A year later, in 1983, Waits signed to Island Records, then one of the worlds leading independent labels.

Island rescued the now legendary Swordfishtrombones and released it with new artwork as his first album for the label. Swordfishtrombones marked a startling new creative point in Waits career with its visceral hybrid of styles and instrumentation. Waits experimented with the sound of his voice, tried unusual recording techniques and utilised found sounds and bizarre textures. His trademark storytelling backed by a piano combo had mutated into impressionistic and surreal aural landscapes. Just at the time in the Eighties when hair and recording got slick and big, Tom Waits offered up lo-fi primitivism, helping to set off a whole new aesthetic that went on to inspire a generation of new artists. This period of bold experimentation continued with Rain Dogs (1985) and Franks Wild Years (1987) which, with Swordfishtrombones, formed a landmark trilogy, one of the most accomplished musical achievements of the decade. The trilogy was followed by Big Time (1988), a film and soundtrack record of Waits acclaimed 1987 U.S.

tour; Bone Machine (1992), which won an American Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album and The Black Rider (1993), a recording of the songs and music Waits wrote for director Robert Wilsons award-winning opera, adapted by Beat novelist William Burroughs from an old German folk tale. So successful was The Black Rider - Germanys longest-running and most influential stage production of the Eighties - that Robert Wilson later commissioned Waits and his wife and collaborator Kathleen Brennan to compose the songs and music for two further street operas. The first, Alice, based on Lewis Carrolls life and works, premiered in Hamburg at the end of 1992 while the second, Woyzeck (based on the German writer Georg Büchners nightmarish 19th century play of a cuckolded soldier who murders his girlfriend), opened in Denmark eight years later. The songs from both works later appeared on Alice and Blood Money, the albums Waits released in 2002. * * * In retrospect, it was always inevitable that an artist so steeped in imagery as Tom Waits should be naturally fascinated with the cinema.

His first steps in that direction came when he wrote songs for Sylvester Stallones 1978 movie, Paradise Alley, in which Waits also had a cameo appearance. He then wrote and performed two songs for Ralph Waites acclaimed portrait of skid row, On the Nickel (1980), before being entrusted with the soundtrack for Francis Ford Coppolas One from the Heart, the directors follow-up to his epic and award-winning Apocalypse Now. Waits succeeded magnificently. His soundtrack featuring duets with country singer Crystal Gayle - is an enduring classic of American cinema. One from the Heart also won Waits an Academy Award nomination. It was the start of a long association with Coppola, evidenced by Waits appearances as an actor in the directors Rumble Fish, The Outsiders, The Cotton Club and as the unforgettable Renfield in Bram Stokers Dracula. In 1986 Waits appeared in Jim Jarmuschs Down by Law, a film that coincidentally marked the international debut of Italian actor Roberto Benigni. That same year Waits made his theatrical stage debut with Franks Wild Years - a musical play he co-wrote with Brennan - at Chicagos Steppenwolf Theatre.

Later film appearances included Ironweed, Queens Logic, The Fisher King, At Play in the Fields of the Lord and another Jarmusch movie, Night on Earth, for which Waits and Brennan composed the score, released as an album in 1991.Waits also had a memorable acting turn in Robert Altmans Short Cuts. Following the release of The Black Rider in 1993, there was to be a six-year hiatus before the next Tom Waits album. In those intervening years, however, he devoted himself to an array of different musical projects. Waits and Brennan, for instance, wrote two songs for the Dead Man Walking soundtrack album at the request of director Tim Robbins. Tom also contributed a song to the Wim Wenders film, The End of Violence while, in 1998, Waits and Brennan composed the score and a song for Bunny, which won the Oscar for Best Short Film (Animated). That same year Tom and Kathleen wrote two songs for Barry Levinsons Liberty Heights film.

Among other films to which Waits and Brennan have contributed songs are Ed Harriss Pollack, director Arliss Howards Big Bad Love and the Oscar-nominated Shrek 2 while Waits can be seen playing opposite Iggy Pop in Jim Jarmuschs critically acclaimed 2004 film of vignettes, Coffee & Cigarettes. In between this film work, Waits also recorded a vocal for Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet, the English composer Gavin Bryars remarkable 75-minute orchestral essay. The work centred on a 1971 field recording of a London hobo singing a religious tune; on Bryars album, Waits duets along with the voice of the tramp. * * * In 1999 Tom Waits returned to the limelight with Mule Variations, his first album in six years and his debut for the independent American label, Anti / Epitaph. The album, which synthesised Waits affinity for the American song tradition with his love of naturalistic sound worlds, was arguably the most direct and intimate recording of his career. It was certainly the most successful, selling over a million copies around the world and winning a Grammy into the bargain.

In the UK it was Waits first-ever Top 10 hit. As the follow-up Waits released two separate and distinct albums Alice and Blood Money on the same day in May 2002. The albums were as original as they were different from each other, with Alice chronicling the songs Waits and Brennan had written for Robert Wilsons 1992 theatrical production and Blood Money containing the music commissioned for 2000s Woyzeck. Alices songs are a school of fish that lead the listener into the rapture of the deep. Blood Moneys songs are musical dispatches from the dark, human carnival of life, said Waits, explaining how the two albums differed. His rich vein of creativity continued with Real Gone, Waits 2004 album which featured primal blues, rock-steady grooves and Latin rhythms, all mixed and stirred with what Waits called cubist funk and vocal mouth percussion the latter unveiling his unique approach to hip-hop human beatboxing. For the first time in Waits career, there was no piano on the record. In between album releases, Waits also returned to the road. A legendary live performer, his appearances are rare, extraordinarily memorable and highly anticipated events.

Part distorted vaudeville, part big top, part piano bar and part stand-up, live shows are meticulously orchestrated to have all the grace and excitement of a derailing train, as those lucky enough to have seen his post-Mule tours can testify. In the US, for instance, Waits 2006 summer Orphans tour - the live prelude to the album release - received some of the most extraordinary critical applause of any concert series in the past decade. * * * Waits and Brennan were recently named number four in a list of the 100 Best Living Songwriters published by Americas Paste magazine. In literature only a handful of writers have pulled off the near impossible. In music, it happens on every Tom Waits recording, said the magazine. Named as one of VH-1s Most Influential Artists of All Time, it is no surprise that Waits body of work has long been covered (and coveted) by other musicians.

Notable cover versions include Bruce Springsteen (Jersey Girl); Rod Stewart and Everything But The Girl (Downtown Train); Johnny Cash (Down There By the Train); Marianne Faithfull (Strange Weather); The Ramones (I Dont Wanna Grow Up); 10,000 Maniacs (I Hope I Dont Fall In Love With You); Tim Buckley (Martha); T-Bone Burnett (Time); Bob Seger (Blind Love); Lucinda Williams (Hang Down Your Head); Los Lobos (Jockey Full of Bourbon); Elvis Costello (More Than Rain) and The Blind Boys of Alabama (Jesus Gonna Be Here) as well as Wicked Grin, the critically acclaimed collection of Waits songs recorded by John Hammond and released in 2001. There is also a diverse list of artists who have cited Waits as an inspiration, including Bob Dylan who named Tom as one of his secret heroes. The adoration also strikes a chord with a rabid following there is even an annual celebration called Waitstock near Poughkeepsie, New York. See More Gender Kathleen Brennan Privacy & Advertising Kathleen Brennan Kathleen Patricia Brennan is an American musician, songwriter, record producer and artist.

She was born in Johnsburg, Illinois — as noted by her husband and musical collaborator Tom Waits , in the song of the same name. Brennan and Waits met in 1980 during the filming of the Francis Ford Coppola film One from the Heart . Waits was composing the original soundtrack for the film, while Brennan worked at the film’s studio, American Zoetrope , as a script analyst . Waits said in a March 31, 1998 radio interview with Chris Douridas on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic : “We met on New Year’s Eve at a party in Hollywood. I was leaving the next day. I was moving to New York City and I was never coming back here to the Los Angeles area ever again. That was what I said. But I’d said that before. So we met on New Year’s and then I left. I was gone for about four months and then I got a call to do One from the Heart. I came back and I got a little office with a piano in it and I was writing songs and Kathleen was working at Zoetrope. She was a story analyst.

Somebody told her to go down and knock on my door and she did and I opened the door and there she was and that was it. That was it for me. Love at first sight. Love at second sight.” They were married on August 10, 1980, reportedly at the Wee Kirk In The Heather Chapel in Las Vegas. Waits describes his wife as “a remarkable collaborator, and she’s a shiksa goddess and a trapeze artist, all of that. She can fix the truck. Expert on the African violet and all that. She’s outta this world. I don’t know what to say. I’m a lucky man. She has a remarkable imagination. And that’s the nation where I live. She’s bold, inventive and fearless. That’s who you wanna go in the woods with, right? Somebody who finishes your sentences for you.” [1] Brennan is credited as a co-writer and collaborator on numerous songs and projects written since her marriage to Waits and is credited with introducing him to the music of Captain Beefheart . [2] She is generally regarded as the catalyst for Waits’ more experimental sound beginning with the album Swordfishtrombones .

[3] Waits has said: “She doesn’t like the limelight, but she’s an incandescent presence on all songs we work on together.” Brennan contributed one of her paintings to the sleeve insert for Waits’ album The Black Rider . Brennan and Waits live in northern California with their three children: daughter Kellesimone (b. 1983) and sons Casey (b. 1985) and Sullivan (b. 1993). [4] Brennan was also a judge for the 9th and 10th annual The Independent Music Awards to support independent artists’ careers. [5] Brennan’s grandfather was from County Kerry in Ireland. Waits and Brennan honeymooned in Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland. References Tom Waits - Biography | Billboard Tom Waits Pomona, CA 1949 In the 1970s, Tom Waits combined a lyrical focus on desperate, low-life 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 also 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.

He wrote songs for and appeared in Paradise Alley (1978), wrote the title song for On the Nickel (1980), and was hired by director Francis Coppola to write the music for One from the Heart (1982), which earned him an Academy Award nomination. While working on that project, Waits met and married playwright Kathleen Brennan, with whom he later collaborated. Moving to Island Records, Waits made Swordfishtrombones (1983), which found him experimenting with horns and percussion and using unusual recording techniques. The same year, he appeared in Coppola's Rumble Fish and The Outsiders, and, in 1984, he appeared in the director's The Cotton Club. In 1985, he released Rain Dogs. In 1986, he appeared in Down by Law and made his theatrical debut with Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre in Frank's Wild Years, a musical play he had written with Brennan. An album based on the play was released in 1987, the same year Waits appeared in the films Candy Mountain and Ironweed.

In 1988, he released a film and soundtrack album depicting one of his concerts, Big Time. In 1989, he appeared in the films Bearskin: An Urban Fairytale, Cold Feet, and Wait Until Spring. His work for the theater continued in 1990 when Waits partnered with opera director Robert Wilson and beat novelist William Burroughs and staged The Black Rider in Hamburg, Germany. In 1991, he appeared in the films Queens' Logic, The Fisher King, and At Play in the Fields of the Lord. In 1992, he scored the film Night on Earth; released the album Bone Machine, which won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album; appeared in the film Bram Stoker's Dracula; and returned to Hamburg for the staging of his second collaboration with Robert Wilson, Alice. The Black Rider was documented on CD in 1993, the same year Waits appeared in the film Short Cuts. A long absence from recording resulted in the 1998 release of Beautiful Maladies, a retrospective of his work for Island. In 1999, Waits finally returned with a new album, Mule Variations.

The record was a critical success, winning a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk album, and was also his first for the independent Epitaph Records' Anti subsidiary. A small tour followed, but Waits jumped right back into the studio and began working on not one but two new albums. By the time he emerged in the spring of 2002, both Alice and Blood Money were released on Anti Records. Blood Money consisted of the songs from the third Wilson/Waits collaboration that was staged in Denmark in 2000 and won Best Drama of the Year. After limited touring in support of these two endeavors, Waits returned to the recording studio and issued Real Gone in 2004. The album marked a large departure for him in that it contained no keyboards at all, focusing only on stringed and rhythm instruments. Glitter and Doom Live appeared in 2009. Waits didn't release another studio album of new material until 2011, when he issued Bad as Me on Anti in the Fall. He uncharacteristically issued a track listing two months in advance of the release, and the pre-release title track as a digital single.

He also took the unusual step of releasing a video in which he allowed bits of all the album's songs to play while he scolded bloggers and peer-to-peer sites for invading his privacy. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi Related Artists

Question: Kathleen Brennan produced albums for which musician, starting with his 1983 album "Swordfishtrombones"?
Answer: Tom Waits