Tom Ain't Waiting

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Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer and actor. 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." 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. He has worked as a composer for movies and musical plays and as a supporting actor in films, including Down By Law and Bram Stoker's Dracula. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his soundtrack work on One from the Heart.

Lyrically, Waits' songs frequently present atmospheric portrayals of grotesque, often seedy characters and places – although he has also shown a penchant for more conventional ballads. He has a cult following and has influenced subsequent songwriters despite having little radio or music video support. His songs are best-known to the general public in the form of cover versions by more visible artists: "Jersey Girl", performed by Bruce Springsteen and "Downtown Train", performed by Rod Stewart. Although Waits' albums have met with mixed commercial success in his native United States, they have occasionally achieved gold album sales status in other countries. He has been nominated for a number of major music awards and has won Grammy Awards for two albums, Bone Machine and Mule Variations.

Waits currently lives in Sonoma County, California with his wife, Kathleen Brennan, and three children.

On top of numerous career paths, he also appeared in several films:

The Book of Eli
Engineer

2009 The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Mr. Nick

2006 Wristcutters: A Love Story
Kneller

2005 Domino
Wanderer

2003 Coffee and Cigarettes
Tom (segment "Somewhere in California")

1999 Mystery Men
Doc Heller

1993 Short Cuts
Earl Piggot

1993 Coffee and Cigarettes III (short)
Tom

1992 Dracula
R.M. Renfield

1991 At Play in the Fields of the Lord
Wolf

1991 The Fisher King
Disabled Veteran (uncredited)

1991 Queens Logic
Monte

1990 Bearskin: An Urban Fairytale
Silva

1990 The Two Jakes
Plainclothes Policeman (uncredited)

1989 Mystery Train
Radio D.J (segment "Lost In Space") (voice)

1989 Cold Feet
Kenny

1988 Candy Mountain
Al Silk

1988 Greasy Lake (video)
Narrator

1987 Ironweed
Rudy

1986 Down by Law
Zack

1984 The Cotton Club
Irving Stark

1984 The Stone Boy
Petrified man at carnival (uncredited)

1983 Rumble Fish
Benny

1983 The Outsiders
Buck Merrill

1982 One from the Heart
Trumpet player (uncredited)

1981 Wolfen
Drunken Bar Owner (uncredited)

1978 Paradise Alley
Mumbles