Tom Waits & Kathleen Brennan

It’s been nearly 40 years since Tom Waits made his recording debut. In that time his music has taken adventurous twists and turns, from confessional country-blues and jazz-flavored lounge to primal rock and avant-garde musical theatre. By turns tender and poignant, strange and twisted, his songs have tended to explore the dark underbelly of society as he has given his voice to a litany of characters and tales on the fringe and in the fray. Waits and his wife and collaborator Kathleen Brennan were recently named number four in a list of the “100 Best Living Songwriters” published by America’s Paste magazine. “In literature only a handful of writers have pulled off the near impossible. In music, it happens on every Tom Waits recording,” said the magazine. His official site is www.tomwaits.com.