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.

* The Waits Website ( designed to accumulate and disseminate historical information on Waits, and to advertise the growing number of revival bands, as well as their equivalents throughout Europe ).

* 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.

In his generally positive review of the opening show of the tour, The Wall Street Journal critic Jim Fusilli described Waits ' music thus:

Earle's version of the Tom Waits song, " Way Down in the Hole " was heard during the 5th season's opening show.

One of his opening acts in these years was Tom Waits, who mentioned him in the song " Putnam County " from his album Nighthawks at the Diner with the lyric: " The radio's spitting out Charlie Rich ...

The opening theme is " Way Down in the Hole ", a gospel-and blues-inspired song originally written by Tom Waits for his 1987 album Franks Wild Years.

Each season uses a different recording of it against a different opening sequence, with the theme being performed, in order, by The Blind Boys of Alabama, Waits himself, The Neville Brothers, DoMaJe and Steve Earle.

The same year, Waits contributed backing vocals to the track " Go Tell It on the Mountain " on the Grammy Award ( Best Traditional Gospel Album )- winning album of the same name by The Blind Boys of Alabama.

The same years, Waits appeared on Sparklehorse's album Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain, playing piano on the track " Morning Hollow.

Waits made an appearance on the album The Spirit of Apollo by alternative hip hop project N. A. S. A., on the track " Spacious Thoughts.

Tom Waits ' 2002 release Blood Money features a track written for trumpet and calliope.

The track listing included covers of songs by Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen and Richard and Linda Thompson, Blind Willie Johnson, Tom Waits and The Low Anthem.

The work also includes tunes first made notable by such blues luminaries as Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith ; Tom Waits wrote the title track.

The final track, " True Love Waits ", was never released on a studio album and is performed on acoustic guitar by Thom Yorke.

Tom Waits ' 2002 release Alice contains a track called " Reeperbahn ".

The sub-title of the track " Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen " seems to indicate that it is about a time that Waits spent in Copenhagen in 1976 while on a tour.

The band formed in 1986 and named themselves after an instrumental track by Tom Waits.

With it, Waits broke onto Billboards Top 100 Albums chart for the first time in his career ( a feat Waits would not repeat until 1999 with the release of Mule Variations ).

Waits ' albums Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards and Alice are both included in metacritic. com's list of the " Top 200: Best-Reviewed Albums " since 2000 at # 10 and # 20, respectively ( as of November 2009 ).

Alison Moyet ( Alf ), The Art of Noise, The Assembly, The Associates, Aztec Camera, Big Country, Bon Jovi, The Boomtown Rats, Cardiacs, Cliff Richard, Cocteau Twins, The Cramps, Culture Club, Cyndi Lauper, The Damned, Dennis Brown with Sly & Robbie, Depeche Mode, Dexys Midnight Runners, Die Ärzte, Dire Straits, Divine, Stephen Duffy, Duran Duran, Echo & the Bunnymen, Vow Wow, Elvis Costello, The Fall, Fatal Charm, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Charged G. B. H., Gregory Isaacs & The Roots Radics, Gun Club, Hanoi Rocks, Heaven 17, Howard Jones, The Human League, Icicle Works, Iggy Pop, INXS, Judas Priest, Killing Joke, Level 42, Lloyd Cole & the Commotions, Madness, Madonna, Magnum, Meat Loaf, Motörhead, Ofra Haza, Paul Young, Pet Shop Boys, The Pretenders, The Proclaimers, Propaganda, The Psychedelic Furs, The Rainmakers, Robert Palmer, R. E. M., Scraping Foetus off the Wheel, Silent Running, Simple Minds, Simply Red, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Soft Cell, Spear of Destiny, SPK, Squeeze, The Style Council, Tears for Fears, Terence Trent D ' Arby, Terry & Gerry, The Smiths, The Cult, The Cure, The Dream Academy, The Jam, The Mission, The Pogues, The Pretenders, The Stranglers, The Toy Dolls, Then Jericho, Thin Lizzy, Thomas Dolby, Tina Turner, Twisted Sister, U2, Ultravox, Voice of the Beehive, Tom Waits, Wall of Voodoo, Wham !, Whitney Houston, XTC, Yazoo, ZZ Top.

Top Jimmy & The Rhythm Pigs concerts often featured guest appearances by such artists as Tom Waits, David Lee Roth, Stevie Ray Vaughan, members of X, The Blasters, The Gun Club, The Circle Jerks, The Plugz, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and many more.

This had been followed three years later by " Twins ", a segment featuring actors Steve Buscemi and Joie and Cinqué Lee, and then in 1993 with the Short Film Palme d ' Or-winning " Somewhere in California ", starring musicians Tom Waits and Iggy Pop.

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 ".

" 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.

First, Waits appeared on the Primus album Sailing the Seas of Cheese as the voice of " Tommy the Cat ", which exposed him to a new audience in alternative rock.

In 1993, he released The Black Rider, which contained studio versions of the songs that Waits had written for the musical of the same name three years previously, with the exceptions of " Chase the Clouds Away " and " In the Morning ", which appeared in the theatrical production but not on the studio album.

The album also includes the traditional hymn " I Know I've Been Changed ", performed as a duet by Hammond and Waits.

" " Diamond in Your Mind ", which Waits wrote for Wilson's Woyzeck, did not appear on Blood Money ; however, it did emerge on Solomon Burke's album Don't Give Up on Me of the same year.

" 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.

* " Chicago ", song by Tom Waits from the 2011 album Bad as Me

These works are today justly forgotten, apart from two ghost stories, " The Lusitania Waits " and " The Log of the Evening Star ", which are still occasionally reprinted in collections of tales of the uncanny.