Thomas Alan (Tom) Waits (born December 7, 1949 in Pomona, California) is an American singer, composer, writer, and actor. His voice can be described as a low, raw, almost growling voice, and sometimes hoarsely like a whisper singer. At first he worked mainly in a jazzy style, but his music from the 1980s onwards reflects more influences from blues, rock, vaudeville, theatre music and experimental genres. His lyrics reflect the bottom of society; they are about drunkards, hookers, junkies, voyeurs and other dropouts. According to his wife Kathleen Brennan, Waits only makes two types of songs, grand weepers and grim reapers, a division that is somewhat parallel to his Asylum Records period and his Island Records period.


Hundreds of artists cover his work, including Bruce Springsteen, Rod Stewart and Eagles,


During the seventies and eighties, Tom Waits was extremely productive, with a new album almost every year. Although they are not millionsellers, there are numerous well-known artists who record his songs for their own records, including Bette Midler, Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash, Norah Jones, Queens Of The Stone Age, Tori Amos, Meat Loaf, Joan Baez, Paul Young, Ricki Lee Jones, Bette Hart, Ralph McTell, Sarah McLachlan, and Bob Seger.

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