Tom Waits

American singer, pianist, composer, songwriter and actor, whose lyrics often focus on the underbelly of society and are delivered in his trademark deep, gravelly voice. He worked primarily in jazz during the 1970s, but his music since the 1980s has reflected greater influence from blues, rock, vaudeville, and experimental genres. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.

A high school dropout at 16, he worked the Los Angeles blues and rock club circuit, in pizza houses, sang and played accordion and piano in bars and dives. Tattooed, with a throaty whiskey voice, he lived in motels for years. His 1973 debut album Closing Time won critical acclaim and made modest sales.

In the late '70s he did a music tour to London. In June 1978 he got a big part in the movie Paradise Alley, was a feature player in The Outsiders (1983) and Rumblefish (1983), and starred in Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law (1986).

With theatre director Robert Wilson, he produced the musicals The Black Rider (1990) and Alice (1992), first performed in Hamburg. Having returned to California in the 1990s, his albums Bone Machine (1992), The Black Rider (1993), and Mule Variations (1999) earned him increasing critical acclaim and multiple Grammy Awards. In the late 1990s, he released Blood Money (2002), Alice (2002), Real Gone (2004), and Bad as Me (2011).

Waits married musician Kathleen Brennan on 31 December 1981 in Los Angeles. Their daughter Kellesimone Wylder Waits was born on 24 August 1983, their son Casey Xavier Waits in September 1985, and another son Sullivan Blake Waits on 25 June 1993.