Biography of Tom Waits
Singer/songwriter and actor Tom Waits has garnered considerable critical acclaim and a cult following during a 20-year singing career (he has also built up quite a resumé as a film actor since the late '70s), and his songs have been successfully covered by such mainstream artists as The Eagles and Rod Stewart, though he himself has never scored a notable commercial hit. Born in Pomona, CA, Waits was heavily influenced by the Beat writers of the '50s and, by the early '70s, had developed a performing persona as a heavy-drinking, heavy-smoking street poet. He signed to Elektra/Asylum and released his debut album, Closing Time, a relatively conventional singer/songwriter album of the day, in 1973. One of its songs, "Ol' 55," turned up on an Eagles album. Waits followed it with Heart of a Saturday Night, which found him celebrating the same street life found in Bruce Springsteen's early albums. (Springsteen later recorded Waits's song "Jersey Girl.") Nighthawks at the Diner, a double live album, represented a peak in this material. On his albums after the mid-'70s, Waits's voice, already a raspy one, seemed to drop an octave, and his songs became less melodic. In the early '80s he switched to the Island label, and on albums such as Swordfishtrombones, his music became more experimental. He wrote and starred in a stage presentation called Frank's Wild Years in the mid-'80s, and it was transferred to film under the title Big Time. ~ William Ruhlmann
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