Tom Waits Add to My Celebs Age 62 Birthday Dec. 7th, 1949 Born in Pomona, California, USA Height 6'

Tom Waits' Main TV Roles Show Character(s) Canada After Dark (CA) Tom Waits The Cutting Edge Tom Waits

Main Movie Roles 2010 - The Book of Eli 2009 - The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus 2005 - Domino 2004 - Coffee and Cigarettes 1999 - Mystery Men 1993 - Short Cuts 1992 - Bram Stoker's Dracula 1991 - Until the End of the World 1991 - The Fisher King 1990 - The Two Jakes 1989 - Mystery Train 1987 - Ironweed 1986 - Down by Law 1984 - Streetwise 1984 - The Cotton Club 1983 - The Outsiders 1983 - Rumble Fish 1982 - One from the Heart 1981 - Wolfen 1978 - Paradise Alley

NOTE: Complete List of Works can be found at IMDB


BIOGRAPHY:

Described as one of the last beatniks of the contemporary music, Tom Waits - in fact - had two separate careers. From 1973 (LP "Closing Time") to 1983 ("One From The Heart" soundtrack), he recorded nine LPs for Asylum Records, writing songs mainly in the manner of Tin Pan Alley, mixing them with jazz and blues. Extraordinarily, he never produced a hit, but he earned a cult following all over the world. In 1983 he signed with Island Records, and released a series of albums that stunned the music world. Beginning with "Swordfishtrombones", he introduced a whole new orchestration, which included some of the instruments invented by Harry Partch. He found a new ground for his innovations, searching in sound fields that never before were searched. This second part of his career coincided with his marriage to Kathleen Brennan, a former writer for Francis Ford Coppola (Zoetrope (1999)). His LPs "Rain Dogs" (1985), "Big Time" (soundtrack) and "The Black Rider" are today what Kurt Weill's music was once. "The Black Rider" brings music written for the show directed by Bob Wilson and staged in Germany.


TRIVIA:

• His album "Rain Dogs" is mentioned in the script for _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)_ (qv).
• Owns obscure and custom made instruments such as a Chamberlin Music Master 600 (an analog synthesizer manufactured in the 1960s) and a photon clarinet ("[It] sounds like a keyboard lobster dying on a campfire.").
• Originally slated to play Lefty, one of the singing cowboys in _A Prairie Home Companion (2006)_ (qv).
• All of his recent original songs are credited as being written by both Waits and his wife 'Kathleen Brennan' (qv), although some of them are written solely by Waits.
• He converted a 4 cubic yard metal box (intended as a debris dumpster) into a musical instrument called a "Strata Dumpster" (aka "Dumpstalele"). He cut a 2 foot hole into one side, and streched seven piano strings across it, fastening them with two welded bridges. The strings can be plucked, strummed or bowed. He describes the sound as "trainlike and huge, like trash day with a purpose."
• Children: Kellesimone (b. 1983), Casey Xavier (b. 1985), Sullivan (b. 1993).
• Is a good friend of 'Keith Richards (II)' (qv) who makes frequent appearances as a guitarist on his records.
• Shops at hardware stores for items to be used as percussion instruments.

Tom Waits Photos

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