Thomas Alan Waits is a Compositeur, Chanteur, realizer, musician and American Acteur born in California with Pomona the December 7th 1949.

Waits has a recognizable voice, described one day by a critic as “soaked in one of Bourbon, dried and smoked during a few months, then left and was reversed by a car”. With growls like distinctive signs, it incorporates some style of pre-rock'n'roll like the blues, the jazz and the Light comedy; Waits built a distinguished and distinct character.

Its texts are those of a portraitist of odd, with characters and seedy character places, although it also showed on several occasions leaning for the touching or conventional style. It is a major influence several type-setters authors. Its songs are more often made famous for certain recoveries, like “Jersey Girl” by Bruce Springsteen and “Tom Traubert' S Blues” by Rod Stewart. Although its albums are a success mitigated with thePlain ones, they sometimes reached the statute of Gold Disc. Tom Waits was several times nominated during handing-over of price of Majors and gained a Grammy Award for two of her albums.

Tom Waits also collaborated as a type-setter of film musics or musical comedies. It is also an actor, such as for example in Dracula of Francis Ford Coppola and in Coffee and Cigarettes and Down by Law of Jim Jarmush.

Beginnings

The career of Tom Waits began with Los Angeles in 1971 when it signed with Herb Cohen, manager of Frank Zappa inter alia. It made several meetings of recording fallen through before arriving at the album Closing Time , melancholic person and tinted country in 1973. The album accepted critical warm welcome but success only in 1974 was when the Eagles took again one of its titles: Ol' 55 .

The album The Heart off Saturday Night watch its origins of singer of night club with his ballades of Crooner, semi-spoken, semi-sung on a bottom of light Jazz. It recorded in 1975 Nighthawks At the Diner in the presence of a restricted public, to return the environment in its concerts of the time with in particular the long monologs between its songs.

In 1976 Small Change left with the participation a famous beater, Shelly Manne, and an environment a little more jazzy. The songs such as The Piano Has Been Drinking and Bad Liver and has Broken Heart with the lyric style located between Raymond Chandler and Charles Bukowski contributed to install its reputation of dark artist. The albums Foreign Affairs and Blue Valentine , respectively left in 1977 and 1978 were in the same vein, Tom Waits showing there nevertheless more refinement in its vocal art.

It started a long employment relationship with Francis Ford Coppola starting from 1980 which had required of him to compose the music to him of its film Very favorite . Tom Waits also played in several of her films, Rusty James , Outsiders , Cotton Club and Dracula . He also worked with other realizers such as Jim Jarmusch ( Down by Law , Coffee and Cigarettes ) and Robert Altman ( Short cuts ). He wrote and interpreted with his wife Big time , a somewhat surrealist filmed concert.

He meets Kathleen Brennan, assistant scripte on the plates of the Zoetrope Studios of Francis Coppola on the turning of Very favorite and in 1980 marries it. Joint author of many his songs and of his following albums, Tom Waits often quotes it like a major influence in his work.

After 1980

It leaves Asylum Records for Island Records in 1983 and its music becomes less conventional. Its three albums of the medium of the Years 1980, Swordfishtrombones , Rain Dogs and Frank' S Wild Years present an eclectic instrumentation which it described itself as “Orchestra of Discharge” associating the copper sections of the Soul with the percussions réminiscentes of Harry Partch or the distorted guitar of Marc Ribot. It also modified its voice, sounding less and less like a Crooner of night club of the end of the Années 1970 that like Howlin' Wolf or Captain Beefheart. The last of these albums, a modest musical comedy of size Co-written with its wife, as its future collaborations with William S. Burroughs on The Black Rider showed its interest growing for the Théâtre which resulted in an interesting career of actor simultaneously with the music.

At the end of the Nineties, it left Island Records for ANTI, label on which it left its last five albums. For the album Real Gone , left in 2004, it gives up coppers for a formation guitar (Marc Ribot), low (Claypool, Primus), and battery (Brian Mantia). His/her own son, Casey Waits, appear on a few pieces.

Its work is generally characterized by its rocky voice, its strong personality, its presence on a scene of theater and the humor of “night bar smoked out” of its texts: “I' D rather cuts has bottle in face off me than has frontal lobotomy” (meaning Calembour: “I prefer to have a bottle in front of me that a frontal lobotomy”). Tom Waits is maniaco depressive.

Although Bruce Springsteen or Rod Stewart took again some of its songs, Tom Waits keeps her distances with a conventional career.

Lawsuit

Tom Waits always categorically refused that its music is employed for publicity and tackled in justice several companies which passed in addition to its wishes.

The first lawsuit was held in 1988 against Frito Lay which was condemned to a compensation for 2,6 million dollars. The company had approached Tom Waits for the use of the one as of its songs in a publicity. Tom Waits refused, Frito Lay then made record an advertizing jingle resembling Step Right Up by a singer having a voice similar to his. Ironically, Tom Waits had written this song like a denunciation of publicity.

In 1993 its song Heartattack and Vine was used in a publicity of Levi' S. Tom Waits made a lawsuit and Levi's agreed to cease using the song and published a full page of excuses in Billboard Magazine.

In 2000 a Spanish publicity for Audi presented a music sufficiently close to Innocent When You Dream , of which Tom Waits had refused the use to them, so that the court recognizes a violation of its moral rights in addition to one violation of the Copyright. The producer of publicity Tandem Campany Guasch was condemned to pay compensations with Tom Waits by the means of his Spanish editor.

Discography

Major albums

Compilations

  • 1981 : Bounced Checks

  • 1984 : Asylum Years
  • 1991 : The Early Years, Volume One
  • 1993: The Early Years, Volume Two
  • 1998: Beautiful Diseases: the Island Years

Contributions

has

Film original soundtracks

Albums homage

Recoveries

Among the abundant production of Tom Waits, certain titles were taken again by other singers:

Catalog of films

Actor

Type-setter

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