Home > Baker's Student Encyclopedia of Music > Waits, Tom

idiosyncratic American songwriter and performer; b. Pomona, Calif., Dec. 7, 1949. Waits began his career playing in Los Angeles clubs as a singer, pianist, and guitarist, sometimes with his group, Nocturnal Emissions. After being signed by FRANK ZAPPA'S manager in 1972, he produced his first record album, Closing Time in 1973.

Waits slowly rose from cultdom to stardom through such songs as Ol '55, Shiver Me Timbers, Diamonds on My Windshield, and The Piano Has Been Drinking. Noteworthy albums of this period include Nighthawks at the Diner, Small Change, Foreign Affairs, and Heartattack & Vine. He made a number of recordings for the Asylum label, then switched to Island. With the album Swordfishtrombones in 1983, he expanded his accompaniment to include a broad spectrum of exotic instruments.

Waits wrote the score for Francis Ford Coppola's film One from the Heart in 1982, and six years later made the concert movie Big Time. He also collaborated with his wife, Kathleen Brennan, on the stage show Frank's Wild Years in 1987, which includes the pastiches Temptation and Innocent When You Dream.

Among artists who have performed his music are BETTE MIDLER, Crystal Gayle, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, the EAGLES, and the Manhattan Transfer. He also made frequent appearances as a film and stage actor.

Waits is a jazz songwriter who regards the beatniks of the 1950s as his primary inspiration. His imaginative lyrics are full of slang and focus on the sad characters who populate cheap bars and motels. He accompanies his gravelly voice and delivery with rough instrumentation, but always with sensitive musicianship and ironic pathos.