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Tom Waits

Tom Waits

Birthday: 1949-12-07 | Place of Birth: Pomona, California, USA

Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits 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 as a supporting actor in films, including Down By Law, Bram Stoker's Dracula and Wristcutters: A Love Story. 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 to the general public in the form of cover versions by more visible 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 2010, Waits was chosen to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011. Waits currently lives in Sonoma County, California with his wife, Kathleen Brennan, and three children. Description above from the Wikipedia article Tom Waits, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

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Known For

Acting

Year
Title

Role

2021
Licorice Pizza

as    Rex Blau

2021
Ultra City Smiths

as    The Narrator (voice)

2019
The Dead Don't Die

as    Hermit Bob

2018
The Old Man & the Gun

as    Waller

2012
Seven Psychopaths

as    Zachariah Rigby

2011
The Monster of Nix

as    Virgil (Voice)

2010
The Book of Eli

as    Engineer

2008
Tom Waits: Under Review

as    Himself

2005
The Tiger and the Snow

as    Himself / Sè stesso

2004
Coffee and Cigarettes

as    Tom (segment "Somewhere in California")

2003
Bukowski: Born Into This

as    Self

1999
1992
Bram Stoker's Dracula

as    R.M. Renfield

1991
Queens Logic

as    Monte

1991
1989
Cold Feet

as    Kenny

1988
Big Time

as    Self

1988
Roy Orbison and Friends: A Black and White Night

as    Self - Organ/Guitar

1987
Ironweed

as    Rudy

1978
Paradise Alley

as    Mumbles

1978