Tom Waits

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

2000's

Singer John Hammond's Wicked Grin was issued in 2001. Hammond and Waits are close friends, and the album is a collection of cover songs originally written by Waits, who appears on most songs (playing guitar, piano or offering backing vocals).

Related Topics:
John Hammond - Wicked Grin - 2001 - Cover songs

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2001 also saw the release of trumpeter Dave Douglas's Witness; the 25-minute "Mahfouz" features Waits reading an excerpt from a work by Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz.

Related Topics:
Dave Douglas - Egypt - Naguib Mahfouz

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In 2002, Waits simultaneously released two albums, Alice and Blood Money. Both were the fruits of theatrical collaborations with Wilson; the former was originally intended as a musical play about Lewis Carroll. The two albums revisit the tango, Tin Pan Alley, and spoken word influences of Swordfishtrombones, while the lyrics are both profoundly cynical ("Misery is the River of the World") and melancholy ("No One Knows I'm Gone").

Related Topics:
2002 - Alice - Blood Money - Musical - Lewis Carroll

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Real Gone was released in 2004. While more refined than Bone Machine and more commercially viable than Alice or Blood Money, its sound is mostly rough and experimental (Waits beatboxes on the opening track, "Top of the Hill") as well as more rock-oriented and, in a first for Waits, political: the album-closing "The Day After Tomorrow" takes on the persona of a soldier in Iraq writing home that he is disillusioned with the war and is thankful to be leaving.

Related Topics:
Real Gone - 2004 - Beatboxes - Iraq - The war

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