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 was born at Park Avenue Hospital in Pomona, California, the son of Alma Fern ( née Johnson ) McMurray and Jesse Frank Waits, both schoolteachers.

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.

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.

From August to December 1971, Waits made a series of demo recordings for Cohen's Bizarre / Straight label, including many songs for which he would later become known.

This cover later appeared in the 1995 compilation Step Right Up: The Songs of Tom Waits.

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.

" Waits would later describe his relationship with Brennan as a paradigm shift in his musical development.

In July 1991, Screamin ' Jay Hawkins released the album Black Music for White People, which features covers of two Waits compositions: " Heartattack & Vine " ( which later that year was used in a European Levi's advertisement without Waits ' permission, resulting in a lawsuit ) and " Ice Cream Man ".

These songs would be recorded by Waits as a studio album 10 years later on Alice.

Among them: Trace, Steve Hackett, Third Eye Blind, The Clash, Elvis Costello, Jon Brion, Blur, Marco Benevento, Fiona Apple, Kraftwerk ( Orchestron ), Money Mark, Ani DiFranco, Michael Penn, Steve Fisk, Tom Waits, Nan Vernon, Hala Strana, TISM, The Real Tuesday Weld, and Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo — who mixed in parts of the " Banjo Sing-Along " disc on a later remix of Devo's 1981 single, " Beautiful World.

Popular artist Tom Waits, whose 1988 movie " Big Time " which features a mixture of music and recitations in a character that appear to be a further, earlier inspiration, Waits even sports the same hair style that Richards would later adopt for his character.

The title character played by Keira Knightley is later described as the Angel of Fire by their rescuer, played by Tom Waits.

While Waits had before played either piano or guitar, he now gravitated towards less common instruments, saying, " Your hands are like dogs, going to the same places they've been.

" Waits himself was full of praise for the label, saying " Epitaph is rare for being owned and operated by musicians.

Former Village Voice editor Robert Christgau gave the album an A – rating and praised Waits and Brennan's songwriting, saying " together they humanize the percussion-battered Bone Machine sound, reconstituting his ' 80s alienation effects into a Delta harshness with more give to it.

The company had approached Waits to use one of his songs in an advertisement, which Waits declined.

Waits won the lawsuit, becoming one of the first artists to successfully sue a company for using an impersonator without permission.

The production company, Tandem Campany Guasch, was ordered to pay compensation to Waits through his Spanish publisher.

This was part of a bigger plan to get the a picture of Tom with Russell and Judah and send it out with a tongue-in-cheek press release (" Tom Waits Blues Explosion ") to see if the story would get picked-up by the mainstream press but before the event took place a record company publicist took the text direct from the Blues Explosion website and sent it out as a legitimate press release and very nearly led to the show being called off.

Despite having shared a manager with Beefheart in the 1970s, Waits says, " I became more acquainted with him when I got married.

Some guys got it down-Leonard Cohen, Paul Brady, Lou Reed, secret heroes ,- John Prine, David Allen Coe, Tom Waits.

In 1987, he released Franks Wild Years ( subtitled " Un Operachi Romantico in Two Acts "), which included studio versions from Waits ' play of the same name.

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 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.

* " Little Boy Blue " is also the name of a song written by Tom Waits and sung by Nastassja Kinski in the film One from the Heart directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1982.

Manifesto Records is the name of an independent record label based in Los Angeles, California that has released records by The Wedding Present, Dead Kennedys, Tom Waits, Tim Buckley, Lilys, Concrete Blonde, Screamin ' Jay Hawkins and others.

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

The soundtrack of the same name is by Tom Waits.

The film takes its name from a line in the Tom Waits song " 9th and Hennepin " which goes as follows: