Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter and actor. Known for his distinctive deep gravelly singing voice, his lyrics are characterized by their focus on characters living on the underside of U.S. society. His early music during the 1970s was primarily in the jazzgenre, but later work moved towards blues, vaudeville, and experimental music.

Waits was raised in a middle-class family in Whittier, California and then San Diego. Inspired by Bob Dylan and the Beat Generation, as a teenager he began singing on the San Diego folk music scene. Relocating to Los Angeles, he worked as a songwriter before signing a recording contract with Asylum Records. His first albums, the jazz-oriented Closing Time (1973) and The Heart of Saturday Night (1974), reflected his lyrical interest in nightlife, poverty, and criminality. Repeatedly touring the U.S., Europe, and Japan, he attracted greater critical recognition and commercial success with Small Change (1976), which he followed with Blue Valentine (1978) and Heartattack and Vine (1980). He produced the soundtrack for Francis Ford Coppola‘s 1981 film One from the Heart and subsequently made cameo appearances in several Coppola films.

In the early 1980s, Waits married Kathleen Brennan, broke from his manager and record label, and moved to New York City. Under Brennan’s influence, he pursued a new musical aesthetic, reflected in a series of albums released by Island Records: Swordfishtrombones (1983), Rain Dogs(1985), and Franks Wild Years (1987). He continued appearing in film, taking a leading role in Jim Jarmusch‘s Down by Law (1986). In the 1990s, his albums—Bone Machine (1992), The Black Rider (1993), and Mule Variations (1999)—earned him increasing critical acclaim and various Grammy Awards. In the late 1990s he switched to the record label Anti-, who released Blood Money (2002), Alice (2002), Real Gone (2004), and Bad as Me(2011).