Tom Waits
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 Tom Waits facts

• 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 musicals and has acted in supporting roles in films, including Paradise Alley and Bram Stoker's Dracula
• He also starred in Jim Jarmusch's 1986 film Down by Law
• He was nominated for an Academy Award for his soundtrack work on One from the Heart
• Waits' lyrics frequently present atmospheric portraits 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 through cover versions by more commercial artists: "Jersey Girl", performed by Bruce Springsteen, "Ol' '55", by the Eagles, and "Downtown Train", 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