Tom Waits

In the work of American songwriter Tom Waits, swampy blues, Beat poetry, West Coast jazz, Tin Pan Alley, country, 1930s-era cabaret, and post-Civil War parlor songs meet neon-lit carnival music and wheezing, clattering, experimental rhythms (often played by makeshift musical instruments), forming a keenly individual musical universe. It has often been imitated but never replicated. Since the '70s, Waits has charted a path from playing fleabag dive bars to opera theaters and prestigious concert halls all over the world. His recordings -- from early masterpieces such as Small Ch...