* The Waits Website – Renaissance Civic Bands of Europe

This interest had been increasing since the publication of Quietly My Captain Waits, an historical novel by Evelyn Eaton set in Port-Royal in the early 17th century.

Bowie was chosen to curate the 2007 High Line Festival, selecting musicians and artists for the Manhattan event, and performed on Scarlett Johansson's 2008 album of Tom Waits covers, Anywhere I Lay My Head.

* David Coulter, Multi-Instrumentalist and Producer / Music Supervisor ; ex-member of Test Dept and The Pogues, has played Musical Saw on numerous albums and live with a who's who of Contemporary Popular Music: Damon Albarn, Gorillaz, Tom Waits, Hal Willner, Richard Hawley, Jarvis Cocker, Marianne Faithfull, Tim Robbins, The Tiger Lillies.

" With this trademark growl, his incorporation of pre-rock music styles such as blues, jazz, and vaudeville, and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music, Waits has built up a distinctive musical persona.

Waits, who taught himself how to play the piano on a neighbor's instrument, often took trips to Mexico with his father, who taught Spanish ; he would later say that he found his love of music during these trips through a Mexican ballad that was " probably a Ranchera, you know, on the car radio with my dad.

By 1965, while attending Hilltop High School within the Sweetwater Union High School District, Chula Vista, Waits was playing in an R & B / soul band called The Systems and had begun his first job at Napoleone Pizza House in National City ( about which he would later sing on " I Can't Wait to Get Off Work ( And See My Baby on Montgomery Avenue )" from Small Change and " The Ghosts of Saturday Night ( After Hours at Napoleone's Pizza House )" on The Heart of Saturday Night ).

In 1975, Waits moved to the Tropicana Motel on Santa Monica Boulevard and released the double album Nighthawks at the Diner, recorded in a studio with a small audience in order to capture the ambience of a live show.

By this time, Waits was drinking heavily, and life on the road was starting to take its toll.

Waits, looking back at the period, has said, I was sick through that whole period [...] It was starting to wear on me, all the touring.

Waits put together a regular touring band, The Nocturnal Emissions, which featured Frank Vicari on tenor saxophone, Fitzgerald Jenkins on bass guitar, and Chip White on drums and vibraphone.

Tom Waits and the Nocturnal Emissions toured the United States and Europe extensively from October 1976 until May 1977, including a performance of " The Piano Has Been Drinking " on cult BBC2 television music show the Old Grey Whistle Test in May 1976.

The album also features Bette Midler singing a duet with Waits on " I Never Talk to Strangers.

Around this time, Waits had a relationship with Rickie Lee Jones ( who appears on the sleeve art of the Blue Valentine album ).

In August 1980, Waits married Kathleen Brennan, a screenwriter, whom he had met while working on the set of the Francis Ford Coppola movie One from the Heart.

Brennan is regularly credited as co-author of many songs in his later albums, and Waits often cites her as a major influence on his work.

During this period, Waits appeared in a series of minor movie roles, including a cameo role in Wolfen ( 1981 ) as an inebriated piano player, and his song " Jitterbug Boy " also appeared on the movie's soundtrack.

) Contributions from guitarists Marc Ribot, Robert Quine, and Keith Richards accompanied Waits ' move away from piano-based songs, in juxtaposition with an increased emphasis on instruments such as marimba, accordion, double bass, trombone, and banjo.

In the same year, Waits also contributed vocals to the song " Harlem Shuffle " on The Rolling Stones ' album Dirty Work.

The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets — a theatrical collaboration of Waits, director Robert Wilson, and writer William S. Burroughs — premiered at Hamburg's Thalia Theatre on March 31, 1990.

His musical idols growing up also included Michael Jackson, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, and Nat King Cole.

The album, which was produced and arranged by former Lovin ' Spoonful member Jerry Yester, received positive reviews, but Waits did not gain widespread attention until a number of the album's tracks were covered by more prominent artists.

Waits described the album as: ... a comprehensive study of a number of aspects of this search for the center of Saturday night, which Jack Kerouac relentlessly chased from one end of this country to the other, and I've attempted to scoop up a few diamonds of this magic that I see.

The play opened at the Los Angeles Theater Center in February 1989 to mixed reviews, although Waits ' performance was singled out by a number of critics, including John C. Mahoney, who described it as " mesmerizing.

The following year, Waits was extremely busy working on movie soundtracks, acting, and contributing to a number of music projects by other artists.

While Waits has played the song live a number of times, an official version would not be released until 2007.

The album is also notable for containing a number of covers of songs by other artists, including The Ramones (" The Return of Jackie and Judy " and " Danny Says "), Daniel Johnston (" King Kong "), Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht (" What Keeps Mankind Alive "), and Leadbelly (" Ain't Goin ' Down to the Well " and " Goodnight Irene "), as well as renditions of works by poets and authors admired by Waits, such as Charles Bukowski and Jack Kerouac and a previously released duet with Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse entitled " Dog Door ".

Waits made a number of high-profile television and concert appearances between 2006 and 2010.

A number of musicians, including Tom Waits, Carla Kihlstedt, Thomas Newman, Bat For Lashes, A Hawk and A Hacksaw and Eric Gorfain continue to use the Stroh violin for its distinctive sound.

" Swordfishtrombones also introduced instruments such as bagpipes (" Town with No Cheer ") and marimba (" Shore Leave ") to Waits ' repertoire, as well as pump organs, percussion ( sometimes reminiscent of the music of Harry Partch ), horn sections ( often featuring Ralph Carney playing in the style of brass bands or soul music ), experimental guitar, and obsolete instruments ( many of Waits ' albums have featured a damaged, unpredictable Chamberlin, and more recent albums have included the little-used Stroh violin ).

Russell Simins has produced, remixed and performed with numerous bands including Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Honeymoon Killers, Crowbar Massage, Cibo Matto, Grapevine, Ween, Luscious Jackson, Yoko Ono, Money Mark, Fred Schneider, Duran Duran, Asian Dub Foundation, Stereolab, Tom Waits, The Pierces, Tandy, Spalding Rockwell, The Morning Pages, Little Barrie, Jena Malone, Tiny Masters of Today and Harper Simon.

After leaving Asylum, the label released the first Tom Waits " Best of " album in 1981, a collection called Bounced Checks, notable for including an alternate, stripped down version of " Jersey Girl " and the otherwise unreleased " Mr. Henry ", as well as an alternate master of " Whistlin ' Past the Graveyard " and a live performance of " The Piano Has Been Drinking ".

One from the Heart received its official theatrical release in 1982, with Waits appearing in a cameo as a trumpet player as well as receiving an Oscar nomination for Original Song Score ( eventually losing out to Victor Victoria, by Henry Mancini and Leslie Bricusse ).

" Waits also continued to further his acting career with a supporting role as Rudy the Kraut in Ironweed ( an adaptation of William Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel ) alongside Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, in which Waits performed the song " Big Rock Candy Mountain ", as well as a part in Robert Frank's Candy Mountain, in which Waits also performed " Once More Before I Go.

The same year, Waits made a foray into producing music for other artists, teaming up with his old friend Chuck E. Weiss to coproduce ( with his wife, Kathleen Brennan ) Extremely Cool, as well as appearing on the record as a guest vocalist and guitarist.

" Stevens demanded the removal of the poems " A Woman Waits for Me " and " To a Common Prostitute ", as well as changes to " Song of Myself ", " From Pent-Up Aching Rivers ", " I Sing the Body Electric ", " Spontaneous Me ", " Native Moments ", " The Dalliance of the Eagles ", " By Blue Ontario ’ s Shore ", " Unfolded Out of the Folds ", " The Sleepers ", and " Faces ".

The instrumental " Calliope ", on Tom Waits ' album Blood Money, features a toy piano, as well as the calliope of the title.

The album featured famed drummer Shelly Manne, and was, like Waits ' previous albums, heavily jazz-influenced, with a lyrical style that owed influence to Raymond Chandler and Charles Bukowski as well as a vocal delivery influenced by Louis Armstrong, Dr John and Howlin ' Wolf.

Waits himself described the song's subject during a concert in Sydney Australia in March 1979: " Uh, well I met this girl named Matilda.

As well, she has occasionally performed in musical theatre, most notably productions of Tom Waits ' experimental rock opera The Black Rider, stealing the show according to Pitchfork. com.

All five of their CDs feature guests, among them Mike Patton, Tom Waits and Willie Nelson, as well as friends like clarinetist Ben Goldberg and harpist Zeena Parkins.

" Waits himself provided guitar work and backing vocals as well as producing the project.

Some of their more successful songs are cover versions with adapted lyrics of well known classics (" Älä itke " (" Don't cry ") is Neil Young's " Don't Cry No Tears ", " Kaduilla Kallion " (" In the streets of Kallio ") originates with Tom Waits as " In The Neighbourhood "), but they also feature many own songs.

It features " Making Monsters For My Friends " and " It's Not For Me to Know " originally recorded by Dee Dee Ramone on his album I Hate Freaks Like You which he did with I. C. L. C, and " The Crusher " from Dee Dee Ramone's short rap career as Dee Dee King, as well as a cover of Tom Waits ' " I Don't Want to Grow Up " and a cover of Johnny Thunders song " I Love You.

Weiss is referred to in Tom Waits titles and lyrics from the album Small Change, as well as passing references on Nighthawks at the Diner.