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.

In October 2007, Dreams confirmed that this would be Gilliam's next project and was slated to star Christopher Plummer and Tom Waits.

Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding " like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car.

In 2011, Waits was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

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 ).

Waits signed to Asylum Records in 1972, and after numerous abortive recording sessions, his first record — the jazzy, folk-tinged Closing Time — was released in 1973.

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.

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.

The song " Blue Valentines " was also unique for Waits in that it featured a desolate arrangement of solo electric guitar played by Ray Crawford, accompanied by Waits ' vocal.

For Coppola's film, Waits originally wanted to work with Bette Midler ; she was unavailable due to prior engagements, however.

Franks Wild Years, a musical play by Waits and Brennan, was staged as an Off-Broadway musical in 1986, directed by Gary Sinise, in a successful run at Chicago's famed Steppenwolf Theater.

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 project was based on a German folktale called Der Freischütz, with Wilson responsible for the design and direction, Burroughs for writing the book, and Waits for music and lyrics, which were heavily influenced by the works of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill.

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

This was the first of several collaborations between Waits and the group ; Frontman Les Claypool would appear on several subsequent Waits releases.

Edwards was extremely complimentary of Waits ' contributions, saying: Tom Waits is the one who got me my contract with PolyGram.

Thomas Alan " Tom " Waits ( born December 7, 1949 ) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor.

In the same year, Waits lent his vocals to Gavin Bryars ' 75-minute reworking of his 1971 classical music piece Jesus ' Blood Never Failed Me Yet ; appeared in Robert Altman's film version of Raymond Carver's stories Short Cuts and Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes: Somewhere in California, a short black-and-white movie with Iggy Pop ; and his third child, Sullivan, was born.

She was born in Johnsburg, Illinois, as noted by her husband and musical collaborator Tom Waits, in the song of the same name.

In 1971, Waits moved to the Echo Park neighborhood of L. A. ( at the time, also home to musicians Glenn Frey of the Eagles, J. D. Souther, Jackson Browne, and Frank Zappa ) and signed with Herb Cohen at the age of 21.

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.

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.

At this time, Waits made a return to acting after a five-year break, marked at first by the re-release of his 1993 Jim Jarmusch-directed short Coffee and Cigarettes: Somewhere in California, costarring Iggy Pop, compiled in Coffee and Cigarettes.

In the movie, Waits appears in a dream scene as himself, singing the ballad " You Can Never Hold Back Spring " and accompanying himself at the piano.

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 ).

On January 22, 2008, Waits made a rare live appearance in Los Angeles, performing at a benefit for Bet Tzedek Legal Services — The House of Justice, a nonprofit poverty law center.

* Discography at the Tom Waits Library

* Tom Waits at NPR Music, contains interviews

Its main period of use was, like the treble cornett, about 1550 to 1650, although it gained favor in England only after the beginning of the 17th century ; in 1622 the celebrated Norwich Waits possessed at least two.

*" Putnam County " is also a song by Tom Waits in his 1975 album Nighthawks at the Diner

Tom Waits sings a song about life in Putnam County on the 1975 album, " Nighthawks at the Diner ".

of brick-clad steel-piling was put into place to protect the town, most noticeably at the Waits where a pleasing plaza has also been created.

In 2004 and 2005, she played the Devil in William Burroughs ' and Tom Waits ' musical, The Black Rider, directed by Robert Wilson, which opened at London's Barbican Theatre, toured to San Francisco, but from which she was forced to withdraw prior to performances at the Sydney Festival, owing to exhaustion.

On June 13, 1975, at the start of a three-game series with the Texas Rangers, the Indians traded Perry to the Rangers in exchange for pitchers Jim Bibby, Jackie Brown, and Rick Waits.

Wilson worked first as a model in Australia and in Europe, before she moved to Los Angeles in 1991 to study acting with Arthur Mendoza at the Actors Circle Theatre and with Tom Waits at the TomKat Repertory Group.

Johnson's last home run of his career came on September 27, 1975 off of Indians pitcher Rick Waits at Fenway Park.

* In the Tom Waits ' song " Kentucky Avenue ", the first-person speaker refers to his " half pack of Lucky Strikes ".

Album closer " I Can't Wait to Get Off Work ( And See My Baby on Montgomery Avenue )" has a simple musical arrangement, boasting only Waits ' voice and piano.

For example, 1991's Blame It On My Youth, covered songs by Tom Waits (" Purple Avenue ," aka " Empty Pockets "), Lyle Lovett (" God Will "), includes show tunes such as " If I Were a Bell " ( from Guys and Dolls ) and " On the Street Where You Live " ( from My Fair Lady ), and even remakes " Trust In Me ," from Disney's The Jungle Book, into a strikingly sultry and sinister song of seduction and death.