In the 1970s,
Tom Waits combined a lyrical focus on desperate, lowlife 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.
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In the 1970s,
Tom Waits combined a lyrical focus on desperate, lowlife 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 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 rhythm-stringed instruments. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
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