Michael Moran may refer to:

Michael Moran (golfer), Irish golfer successful in the early 20th century, see Irish PGA Championship

Micheál Ó Móráin (1912–1983), Irish Fianna Fáil politician from County Mayo

Michael J. Moran (c. 1794–1846), popularly known as Zozimus, Irish street rhymer also known as the Blind Bard of the Liberties

Michael P. Moran (1944–2004), American actor and playwright.

Michael Moran (journalist), pioneering new media journalist and broadcaster, editor of CFR.org

Mike Moran (music producer) (born 1948), English keyboard musician and producer

Micky Moran, the human alter ego of Marvelman

Mickey Moran, Gaelic footballer

Michael Moran (Tuam), 1893-1921

Mike Moran (Ohio politician), former Democratic member of the Ohio House of Representatives

Coordinates	44°25′57″N26°6′14″N
Name	Tom Waits
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Thomas Alan Waits
Born	December 07, 1949Pomona, California, United States
Instrument	Vocals, keyboards, guitar
Genre	Rock, experimental music
Occupation	Singer-songwriter, musician, actor, composer
Years active	1972–present
Label	Asylum Records, Island Records, ANTI-
Url	http://www.tomwaits.com/

Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer and actor. 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 musical plays and as a supporting actor in films, including Down By Law and Bram Stoker's Dracula. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his soundtrack work on One from the Heart.

Lyrically, Waits' songs frequently present atmospheric portrayals 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 to the general public in the form of cover versions by more visible artists: "Jersey Girl", performed by Bruce Springsteen and "Downtown Train", performed 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. In 2010, Waits was chosen to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.

Waits currently lives in Sonoma County, California with his wife, Kathleen Brennan, and three children.

Origins and musical beginnings

Waits was born at Park Avenue hospital in Pomona, California to Jesse Frank Waits and Alma Johnson McMurray, both schoolteachers. Waits, who taught himself how to play the piano on a neighbor's instrument, often took trips to Mexico with his father, who taught Spanish; he would later say that he found his love of music during these trips through a Mexican ballad that was "probably a Ranchera, you know, on the car radio with my dad."

By 1965, while attending the Hilltop High School within the Sweetwater Union High School District, Chula Vista, Five years later, he was working as a doorman at the Heritage nightclub (now the Liar's Club) in San Diego—where artists of every genre performed—when he did his first paid gig for $25. he took his newly formed act to Monday nights at The Troubadour in Los Angeles, where musicians would line up all day for the opportunity to perform on stage that night. In 1971, Waits moved to the Echo Park neighborhood of L.A. (at the time, also home to musicians Glenn Frey of the Eagles, J. D. Souther, Jackson Browne, and Frank Zappa) and signed with Herb Cohen at the age of 21. From August to December 1971, Waits made a series of demo recordings for Cohen's Bizarre/Straight label, including many songs for which he would later become known. These early tracks were eventually to be released twenty years later on The Early Years, Volume One and Volume Two.

1970s

Waits signed to Asylum Records in 1972, and after numerous abortive recording sessions, his first record — the jazzy, folk-tinged Closing Time — was released in 1973. The album, which was produced and arranged by former Lovin' Spoonful member Jerry Yester, received positive reviews, but Waits did not gain widespread attention until a number of the album's tracks were covered by more prominent artists. Later in 1973, Tim Buckley released the album Sefronia, which contained a cover version of Waits' song "Martha" from Closing Time, the first-ever cover of a Tom Waits song by a known artist. This cover later appeared in the 1995 compilation . The album's opening track, "Ol' '55", was recorded by the Eagles in 1974 for their On the Border album. Waits described the album as:

...a comprehensive study of a number of aspects of this search for the center of Saturday night, which Jack Kerouac relentlessly chased from one end of this country to the other, and I've attempted to scoop up a few diamonds of this magic that I see.

In 1975, Waits moved to the Tropicana Motel on Santa Monica Boulevard and released the double album Nighthawks at the Diner, recorded in a studio with a small audience in order to capture the ambience of a live show. The record exemplifies this phase of his career, including the lengthy spoken interludes between songs that punctuated his live act. That year, he also contributed backing vocals to Bonnie Raitt's "Sweet and Shiny Eyes," from her album Home Plate.

By this time, Waits was drinking heavily, and life on the road was starting to take its toll. Waits, looking back at the period, has said,

I was sick through that whole period [...] It was starting to wear on me, all the touring. I'd been traveling quite a bit, living in hotels, eating bad food, drinking a lot — too much. There's a lifestyle that's there before you arrive and you're introduced to it. It's unavoidable.

In reaction to these hardships, Waits recorded Small Change (1976), which finds him in a much more cynical and pessimistic mood, lyrically, with many songs such as "The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me) (An Evening With Pete King)" and "Bad Liver and a Broken Heart (In Lowell)". With the album, Waits asserted that he "tried to resolve a few things as far as this cocktail lounge, maudlin, crying-in-your-beer image that I have. There ain't nothin' funny about a drunk [...] I was really starting to believe that there was something amusing and wonderfully American about being a drunk. I ended up telling myself to cut that shit out." The album, which also included long-time fan favorite "Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)," featured famed drummer Shelly Manne and was, like his previous albums, heavily influenced by jazz.

Small Change, which was accompanied by the double A-side single "Step Right Up"/"The Piano Has Been Drinking," was a critical and commercial success and far outsold any of Waits's previous albums. With it, Waits broke onto Billboard's Top 100 Albums chart for the first time in his career (a feat Waits would not repeat until 1999 with the release of Mule Variations). This resulted in a much higher public profile, which brought with it interviews and articles in Time, Newsweek, and Vogue. Waits put together a regular touring band, The Nocturnal Emissions, which featured Frank Vicari on tenor saxophone, Fitzgerald Jenkins on bass guitar, and Chip White on drums and vibraphone. Tom Waits and the Nocturnal Emissions toured the United States and Europe extensively from October 1976 until May 1977,

Foreign Affairs (1977) was musically in a similar vein to Small Change, but showed further artistic refinement and exploration into jazz and blues styles. Particularly noteworthy is the long cinematic spoken-word piece, "Potter's Field", set to an orchestral score. The album also features Bette Midler singing a duet with Waits on "I Never Talk to Strangers." The album Blue Valentine (1978) displayed Waits's biggest musical departure to date, with much more focus on electric guitar and keyboards than on previous albums and nearly no strings (with the exception of album-opener "Somewhere" — a cover of Leonard Bernstein's song from West Side Story — and "Kentucky Avenue") for a darker, more blues-oriented sound. The song "Blue Valentines" was also unique for Waits in that it featured a desolate arrangement of solo electric guitar played by Ray Crawford, accompanied by Waits' vocal. Around this time, Waits had a high-profile romantic relationship with Rickie Lee Jones (who appears on the sleeve art of the Foreign Affairs and Blue Valentine albums). In 1978, Waits also appeared in his first film role, in Paradise Alley as Mumbles the pianist, and contributed the original compositions "(Meet Me in) Paradise Alley" and "Annie's Back in Town" to the film's soundtrack.

Heartattack and Vine, Waits's last studio album for Asylum, was released in 1980, featuring a developing sound that included both ballads ("Jersey Girl") and rougher-edged rhythm and blues. The same year, he began a long working relationship with Francis Ford Coppola, who asked Waits to provide music for his film One from the Heart. For Coppola's film, Waits originally wanted to work with Bette Midler; she was unavailable due to prior engagements, however. Waits ended up working with singer/songwriter Crystal Gayle as his vocal foil for the album.

1980s

In August 1980, Waits married Kathleen Brennan, a screenwriter, who he had met while working on the set of the Francis Ford Coppola movie One from the Heart. Brennan is regularly credited as co-author of many songs in his later albums, and Waits often cites her as a major influence on his work. She introduced him to the music of Captain Beefheart. Despite having shared a manager with Beefheart in the 1970s, Waits says, "I became more acquainted with him when I got married." Waits would later describe his relationship with Brennan as a paradigm shift in his musical development. After leaving Asylum, the label released the first Tom Waits "Best of" album in 1981, a collection called Bounced Checks, notable for including an alternate, stripped down version of "Jersey Girl" and the otherwise unreleased "Mr. Henry", as well as an alternate master of "Whistlin' Past the Graveyard" and a live performance of "The Piano Has Been Drinking". During this period, Waits appeared in a series of minor movie roles, including a cameo role in Wolfen (1981) as an inebriated piano player, and his song "Jitterbug Boy" also appeared on the movie's soundtrack. One from the Heart received its official theatrical release in 1982, with Waits appearing in a cameo as a trumpet player as well as receiving an Oscar nomination for Original Song Score (eventually losing out to Victor Victoria, by Henry Mancini and Leslie Bricusse). This marked the first in a series of collaborations between Waits and Coppola, with Waits appearing in cameos in Coppola's movies The Outsiders (1983), Rumble Fish (1983), and The Cotton Club (1984), and a major role in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

After leaving Asylum for Island Records, Waits released Swordfishtrombones in 1983, a record that marked a sharp turn in his musical direction. While Waits had before played either piano or guitar, he now gravitated towards less common instruments, saying, "Your hands are like dogs, going to the same places they've been. You have to be careful when playing is no longer in the mind but in the fingers, going to happy places. You have to break them of their habits or you don't explore; you only play what is confident and pleasing. I'm learning to break those habits by playing instruments I know absolutely nothing about, like a bassoon or a waterphone." Swordfishtrombones also introduced instruments such as bagpipes ("Town with No Cheer") and marimba ("Shore Leave") to Waits' repertoire, as well as pump organs, percussion (sometimes reminiscent of the music of Harry Partch), horn sections (often featuring Ralph Carney playing in the style of brass bands or soul music), experimental guitar, and obsolete instruments (many of Waits' albums have featured a damaged, unpredictable Chamberlin, and more recent albums have included the little-used Stroh violin).

His songwriting shifted as well, moving away from the traditional piano-and-strings ballad sound of his 1970s output towards a number of styles largely ignored in pop music, including primal blues, cabaret stylings, rumbas, theatrical approaches in the style of Kurt Weill, tango music, early country music and European folk music as well as the Tin Pan Alley-era songs that influenced his early output. He also recorded a spoken word piece, "Frank's Wild Years," influenced by Ken Nordine's "word jazz" records of the 1950s. Apart from Captain Beefheart and some of Dr. John's early output, there was little precedent in popular music.

Waits's new emphasis on experimenting with various styles and instrumentation continued on 1985's Rain Dogs, a sprawling, 19-song collection which received glowing reviews (the album was ranked #21 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s. In 2003, the album was ranked number 397 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.) Contributions from guitarists Marc Ribot, Robert Quine, and Keith Richards accompanied Waits' move away from piano-based songs, in juxtaposition with an increased emphasis on instruments such as marimba, accordion, double bass, trombone, and banjo. The album also spawned the 12" single "Downtown Train/Tango Till They're Sore/Jockey Full of Bourbon," with Jean Baptiste Mondino filming a promotional music video for "Downtown Train" (which would later become a hit for Rod Stewart), featuring a cameo from boxing legend Jake La Motta. The album peaked at #188 on Billboard's Top 200 albums chart; however, its reputation has come to far outshine low initial sales.

Franks Wild Years, a musical play by Waits and Brennan, was staged as an off-Broadway musical in 1986, directed by Gary Sinise, in a successful run at Chicago's famed Steppenwolf Theater. Waits himself played the lead role. Waits developed his acting career with several supporting roles and a lead role in Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law in 1986, which also featured two of Waits's songs from Rain Dogs in the soundtrack. In the same year, Waits also contributed vocals to the song "Harlem Shuffle" on The Rolling Stones' album Dirty Work.

In 1987, he released Franks Wild Years (subtitled "Un Operachi Romantico in Two Acts"), which included studio versions from Waits' play of the same name. Rolling Stone summed up the album's myriad styles this way: "Everything from sleazy strip-show blues to cheesy waltzes to supercilious lounge lizardry is given spare, jarring arrangements using various combinations of squawking horns, bashed drums, plucked banjo, snaky double bass, carnival organ and jaunty accordion." Waits also continued to further his acting career with a supporting role as Rudy the Kraut in Ironweed (an adaptation of William Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel) alongside Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, in which Waits performed the song "Big Rock Candy Mountain", as well as a part in Robert Frank's Candy Mountain, in which Waits also performed "Once More Before I Go." In 1988, Waits performed in Big Time, a surreal concert movie and soundtrack which he cowrote with his wife.

In 1989, Waits appeared in his final theatrical stage role to date, appearing as Curly in Thomas Babe's Demon Wine, alongside Bill Pullman, Philip Baker Hall, Carol Kane, and Bud Cort. The play opened at the Los Angeles Theater Center in February 1989 to mixed reviews, although Waits' performance was singled out by a number of critics, including John C. Mahoney, who described it as "mesmerizing." Waits finished the decade with appearances in three movies: as the voice of a radio DJ in Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train; as Kenny the Hitman in Robert Dornhelm's Cold Feet; and the lead role of Punch & Judy man Silva in Bearskin: An Urban Fairytale. His only musical output of the year consisted of contributing his cover of Phil Phillips' "Sea of Love" to the soundtrack of the Al Pacino movie of the same name and contributing vocals to The Replacements song "Date to Church", which appeared as a B-side to their single "I'll Be You".

1990s

The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets — a theatrical collaboration of Waits, director Robert Wilson, and writer William S. Burroughs — premiered at Hamburg's Thalia Theatre on March 31, 1990. The project was based on a German folktale called Der Freischütz, with Wilson responsible for the design and direction, Burroughs for writing the book, and Waits for music and lyrics, which were heavily influenced by the works of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. In the same year, Waits contributed a cover of Cole Porter's "It's All Right with Me" to Red Hot + Blue, the first in the series of compilation albums from the Red Hot Organization — one of the first major AIDS benefits in the music business — which sold over a million copies worldwide. Jim Jarmusch directed a promotional music video for the song. Waits also collaborated with photographer Sylvia Plachy in the same year; her book Sylvia Plachy's Unguided Tour includes a short Waits record to accompany the photographs and text.

The following year, Waits was extremely busy working on movie soundtracks, acting, and contributing to a number of music projects by other artists. First, Waits appeared on the Primus album Sailing the Seas of Cheese as the voice of "Tommy the Cat", which exposed him to a new audience in alternative rock. This was the first of several collaborations between Waits and the group; Frontman Les Claypool would appear on several subsequent Waits releases. The same year saw Waits provide spoken word contributions to Devout Catalyst, an album by one of Waits' greatest influences, Ken Nordine, on the songs "A Thousand Bing Bangs" and "The Movie." Waits also contributed vocals to a duet with singer Bob Forrest on the song "Adios Lounge" on the Thelonious Monster album Beautiful Mess. He also contributed vocals to two songs ("Little Man" and "I'm Not Your Fool Anymore") on jazz tenor saxophonist Teddy Edwards' album Mississippi Lad. Edwards was extremely complimentary of Waits' contributions, saying:

Tom Waits is the one who got me my contract with PolyGram. He's wonderful, he's America's best lyricist since Johnny Mercer. He came down to the studio on the Mississippi Lad album, that's the first one I did for PolyGram, and he sang two of my songs, wouldn't accept any money, just trying to give me the best boost that he could.

The only collection of exclusively Waits-performed material of 1991 appeared when Waits composed and conducted the almost exclusively instrumental music for Jim Jarmusch's 1991 film Night on Earth, which was released as an album the following year. In July 1991, Screamin' Jay Hawkins released the album Black Music for White People, which features covers of two Waits compositions: "Heartattack & Vine" (which later that year was used in a European Levi's advertisement without Waits' permission, resulting in a lawsuit) and "Ice Cream Man". Waits continued to appear in movie acting roles, the most significant of which was his uncredited cameo as a disabled veteran in Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King. He also appeared alongside Kevin Bacon, John Malkovich, and Jamie Lee Curtis in Steve Rash's Queens Logic, and opposite Tom Berenger and Kathy Bates in Hector Babenco's film At Play in the Fields of the Lord, adapted from Peter Matthiessen's 1965 novel.

Bone Machine, Waits's first studio album in five years, was released in 1992. The stark record featured a great deal of percussion and guitar (with little piano or sax), marking another change in Waits' sound. Critic Steve Huey calls it "perhaps Tom Waits's most cohesive album... a morbid, sinister nightmare, one that applied the quirks of his experimental '80s classics to stunningly evocative — and often harrowing — effect... Waits' most affecting and powerful recording, even if it isn't his most accessible." Bone Machine was awarded a Grammy in the Best Alternative Album category. On December 19, 1992 Alice, Waits's second theatrical project with Robert Wilson, premiered at the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg. Paul Schmidt adapted the text from the works of Lewis Carroll (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, in particular), with songs by Waits and Kathleen Brennan presented as intersections with the text rather than as expansions of the story, as would be the case in conventional musical theater. These songs would be recorded by Waits as a studio album 10 years later on Alice. 1992 also saw Waits featuring in Francis Ford Coppola's film Bram Stoker's Dracula, as the possessed lunatic Renfield.

In 1993, he released The Black Rider, which contained studio versions of the songs that Waits had written for the musical of the same name three years previously, with the exceptions of "Chase the Clouds Away" and "In the Morning," which appeared in the theatrical production but not on the studio album. William S. Burroughs also guests on vocals on "'Tain't No Sin". In the same year, Waits lent his vocals to Gavin Bryars' 75-minute reworking of his 1971 classical music piece Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet; appeared in Robert Altman's film version of Raymond Carver's stories Short Cuts and Jim Jarmusch's , a short black and white movie with Iggy Pop; and his third child, Sullivan, was born. In 1997, Waits and Brennan wrote and performed the music for Bunny the animated short film by 20th Century Fox's Blue Sky Studios, which was awarded Best Animated Short Film by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

In 1995, Holly Cole released Temptation, a tribute album consisting entirely of Waits covers.

In 1998, after Island Records released the compilation Beautiful Maladies: The Island Years, Waits left the label for Epitaph, whose president, Andy Kaulkin, said the label was "...blown away that Tom would even consider us. We are huge fans." Waits himself was full of praise for the label, saying "Epitaph is rare for being owned and operated by musicians. They have good taste and a load of enthusiasm, plus they're nice people. And they gave me a brand-new Cadillac, of course." The album was Waits' first release to feature a turntablist. The album won a Grammy in 2000; As an indicator of how difficult it is to classify Waits's music, he was nominated simultaneously for Best Contemporary Folk Album (which he won) and Best Male Rock Vocal Performance (for the song "Hold On"), both different from the genre for which he won his previous Grammy. The album was also his highest-charting album in the U.S. to date, reaching #30.

The same year, Waits made a foray into producing music for other artists, teaming up with his old friend Chuck E. Weiss to coproduce (with his wife, Kathleen Brennan) Extremely Cool, as well as appearing on the record as a guest vocalist and guitarist. He also contributed a cover of Skip Spence's "Books of Moses" to , a collection of covers of the singer's songs on Birdman Records. an official version would not be released until 2007. The same year, Waits contributed a version of "The Return of Jackie and Judy" Waits was also a judge for the 10th annual Independent Music Awards.

Waits released Real Gone, his first nontheatrical studio album since Mule Variations, in 2004. It is Waits's only album to date to feature absolutely no piano on any of its tracks. Waits beatboxes on the opening track, "Top of the Hill," and most of the album's songs begin with Waits's "vocal percussion" improvisations. It is also more rock-oriented, with less blues influence than he has previously demonstrated, and it contains an explicitly political song — a first for Waits. In the album-closing "Day After Tomorrow", he adopts the persona of a soldier writing home that he is disillusioned with war and is thankful to be leaving. The song does not mention the Iraq war specifically, and, as Tom Moon writes, "It could be the voice of a Civil War soldier singing a lonesome late-night dirge." Waits himself does describe the song as something of an "elliptical" protest song about the Iraqi invasion, however. Critic Thom Jurek describes "Day After Tomorrow" as "one of the most insightful and understated antiwar songs to have been written in decades. It contains not a hint of banality or sentiment in its folksy articulation." The same year, Waits contributed backing vocals to the track "Go Tell It on the Mountain" on the Grammy Award (Best Traditional Gospel Album)-winning album of the same name by The Blind Boys of Alabama. He also contributed a version of Daniel Johnston's "King Kong" since 2000 at #10 and #20, respectively (as of November 2009). The same years, Waits appeared on Sparklehorse's album Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain, playing piano on the track "Morning Hollow."

Five different versions of Waits's song "Way Down in the Hole" have been used as the opening theme songs for the HBO television show The Wire. Waits's own version, from Franks Wild Years, was used for season two. The other versions used for the series were performed by, in season order, The Blind Boys of Alabama, The Neville Brothers, "DoMaJe" and Steve Earle.

Recently, Waits has made a number of high-profile television and concert appearances. In November 2006, Waits appeared on The Daily Show and performed "The Day After Tomorrow." This was significant for his having been only the third performing guest on the show, the first being Tenacious D and the second The White Stripes. On May 4, 2007, Waits performed "Lucinda" and "Ain't Goin' Down to the Well" from Orphans on the last show of a week Late Night with Conan O'Brien spent in San Francisco. There was a short interview after the last performance. Waits also played in the Bridge School Benefit on October 27–28, 2007 with Kronos Quartet.

On July 10, 2007, Waits released the download-only digital single "Diamond In Your Mind". The version of the song was recorded with Kronos Quartet, with Greg Cohen, Philip Glass, and The Dalai Lama at the benefit concert "Healing The Divide: A Concert for Peace and Reconciliation" at Avery Fisher Hall, recorded on September 21, 2003.

Waits's song "Trampled Rose" (from Real Gone) appeared on the critically acclaimed album Raising Sand, a collaboration between Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. Waits also provided guest vocals on the song "Pray" by fellow ANTI- artists The Book of Knots on their album Traineater.

He played the role of Kneller in the film , which opened in November 2007.

On January 22, 2008, Waits made a rare live appearance in Los Angeles, performing at a benefit for Bet Tzedek Legal Services—The House of Justice, a nonprofit poverty law center.

On May 7, 2008, Waits announced the Glitter and Doom Tour starting in June 2008, touring cities in the southern United States and subsequently announced a series of dates in the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe. Waits was awarded the key to the city of El Paso, Texas during a concert on June 20, 2008. In his generally positive review of the opening show of the tour, The Wall Street Journal critic Jim Fusilli described Waits' music thus: }}

On May 20, 2008 Scarlett Johansson's debut album, entitled Anywhere I Lay My Head, featured covers of ten Tom Waits songs. Waits made an appearance on the album The Spirit of Apollo by alternative hip hop project N.A.S.A., on the track "Spacious Thoughts."

Waits wrote the following introduction for the Tompkins Square compilation People Take Warning – Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs, 1913–1938:

In late 2009, Terry Gilliam's film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was released, with Waits in the role of Mr. Nick. Production began in December 2007 in London. Star Heath Ledger's death in January 2008 cast doubt on the film's future, but the production was salvaged with the addition of new actors playing his character in scenes he did not complete.

Waits played the role of "The Engineer" in the film The Book of Eli, opposite Denzel Washington, which opened in January 2010.

He is currently working on a new stage musical with director (and long-time collaborator) Robert Wilson and playwright Martin McDonagh.

Record companies

Waits has often switched to smaller independent record companies over the years; he signed to Asylum Records before they were bought out by Elektra Records and Warner Bros. During his time with Island Records, that label expanded from a small company to a music industry giant. He then signed to Anti Records, a division of Epitaph Records.

Lawsuits

Waits has steadfastly refused to allow the use of his songs in commercials and has joked about other artists who do. ("If Michael Jackson wants to work for Pepsi, why doesn't he just get himself a suit and an office in their headquarters and be done with it?") He has filed several lawsuits against advertisers who used his material without permission. He has been quoted as saying, "Apparently, the highest compliment our culture grants artists nowadays is to be in an ad — ideally, naked and purring on the hood of a new car," he said in a statement, referring to the Mercury Cougar. "I have adamantly and repeatedly refused this dubious honor."

Waits filed his first lawsuit in 1988 against Frito-Lay. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed an award of $2.375-million in his favor (Waits v. Frito-Lay, 978 F. 2d 1093 (9th Cir. 1992)). Frito-Lay had approached Waits to use one of his songs in an advertisement. Waits declined the offer, and Frito-Lay hired a Waits soundalike to sing a jingle similar to Small Change's "Step Right Up," which is, ironically, a song Waits has called "an indictment of advertising". Waits won the lawsuit, becoming one of the first artists to successfully sue a company for using an impersonator without permission.

In 1993, Levi's used Screamin' Jay Hawkins' version of Waits' "Heartattack and Vine" in a commercial. Waits sued, and Levi's agreed to cease all use of the song and offered a full page apology in Billboard. Waits found himself in a situation similar to his earlier one with Frito Lay in 2000 when Audi approached him, asking to use "Innocent When You Dream" (from Franks Wild Years) for a commercial broadcast in Spain. Waits declined, but the commercial ultimately featured music very similar to that song. Waits undertook legal action, and a Spanish court recognized that there had been a violation of Waits's moral rights in addition to the infringement of copyright. The production company, Tandem Campany Guasch, was ordered to pay compensation to Waits through his Spanish publisher. Waits was later quoted as jokingly saying the company got the name of the song wrong, thinking it was called "Innocent When You Scheme".

In 2005, Waits sued Adam Opel AG, claiming that, after having failed to sign him to sing in their Scandinavian commercials, they had hired a sound-alike singer. In 2007, the suit was settled, and Waits gave the sum to charity.

Waits has also filed a lawsuit unrelated to his music. He was arrested in 1977 outside Duke's Tropicana Coffee Shop in Los Angeles. Waits and a friend were trying to stop some men from bullying other patrons. The men were plainclothes police, and Waits and his friend were taken into custody and charged with disturbing the peace. The jury found Waits not guilty; he took the police department to court and was awarded $7,500 compensation.

Discography and filmography

Tours

1973: Closing Time touring

1974–1975: The Heart of Saturday Night touring

1975–1976: Small Change touring

1977: Foreign Affairs touring

1978–1979: Blue Valentine touring

1980–1982: Heartattack and Vine touring

1985: Rain Dogs touring

1987: Big Time touring

1999: Get Behind the Mule Tour

2004: Real Gone Tour

2006: The Orphans Tour

2008: Glitter and Doom Tour

Further reading

References

External links

Discography at the Tom Waits Library

Interview with Amanda Petrusich, Pitchfork Media, November 27, 2006

Interview with Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, November 28, 2006

Tom Waits at NPR Music, contains interviews

Category:1949 births Category:Living people Category:1970s singers Category:1980s singers Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:American actors of Norwegian descent Category:American composers Category:American film actors Category:American male singers Category:American multi-instrumentalists Category:American musicians of Norwegian descent Category:American people of Scotch-Irish descent Category:American rock singers Category:American singer-songwriters Category:Eels (band) members Category:English-language singers Category:Epitaph Records artists Category:Grammy Award winners Category:People from Chula Vista, California Category:People from Pomona, California Category:People from the San Fernando Valley Category:People from Sonoma County, California Category:Singers from California Category:Songwriters from California Category:Writers from California Category:Sebastopol, California Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees

Coordinates	44°25′57″N26°6′14″N
Name	Jack Herer
Birth date	June 18, 1939
Birth place	New York City, New York,United States
Death date	April 15, 2010
Death place	Eugene, Oregon,United States
Occupation	Cannabis activist
Website	http://www.jackherer.com

Jack Herer (June 18, 1939 – April 15, 2010) was an American cannabis activist and the author of The Emperor Wears No Clothes, a book which has been used in efforts to decriminalize cannabis.

A former Goldwater Republican, Herer was a pro-cannabis (marijuana) and hemp activist. He wrote two books, the aforementioned The Emperor Wears No Clothes and Grass. There has also been a documentary made about his life called, The Emperor of Hemp. He believed that the cannabis sativa plant should be decriminalized because it has been shown to be a renewable source of fuel, food, and medicine, and can be grown in virtually any part of the world, and that the U.S. government deliberately hides the proof of this.

A specific strain of cannabis has been named after Jack Herer in honor of his work. This strain has won several awards, including the 7th High Times Cannabis Cup. Jack Herer was also inducted into the Counterculture Hall of Fame at the 16th Cannabis Cup in recognition of his first book.

Herer ran for United States President twice, in 1988 (1,949 votes) and 1992 (3,875 votes) as the Grassroots Party candidate.

In July 2000, Herer suffered a minor heart attack and a major stroke, resulting in difficulties speaking and moving the right side of his body. Herer mostly recovered, and claimed in May 2004 that treatment with the amanita muscaria, a psychoactive mushroom was the "secret".

On September 12, 2009 Herer suffered another heart attack while backstage at the Hempstalk Festival in Portland, Oregon. He spent nearly a month in critical condition in a Portland hospital, including several days in a medically induced coma. He was discharged to another facility on October 13, 2009. Paul Stanford of The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation said "He is waking up and gazing appropriately when someone is talking... but he is not really communicating in any way." He died aged 70 on April 15, 2010 in Eugene, Oregon, from complications related to the September 2009 heart attack. Herer was buried at the Eden Memorial Park Cemetery in Mission Hills, California.

Criticism

European experts on hemp, like Dr. Hayo M.G. van der Werf author of the doctoral thesis Crop physiology of fibre hemp (1994) and Dr. Ivan Bûcsa have criticized Herer for making unrealistic claims regarding the potential of hemp, for example:

- Herer claimed that hemp produces higher yields than other crops. Van der Werf argue that is simply wrong. Under most favorable growing conditions, other crops such as maize, sugar beet or potato produced similar dry matter yields. Fiber hemp is in no way exceptional.

- Herer claimed that hemp hurds, which make up 60 to 80 % of the stem dry weight, contain 77 % cellulose. Van der Werf argue that is wrong. Cellulose content of hemp hurds has been found to vary between 32 and 38 % (Bedetti and Ciaralli 1976, van der Werf 1994). Possibly, Herer confused the hurds, which form the woody core of the hemp stem, with the bark, which forms the outer layer of the hemp stem. The bark contains the long bast fibers which are used in textile manufacturing. The total reported area in the world cultivated with hemp fiber and hemp seed has only been a fraction of Herers claim: 0.3 million hectares in 1965, 0.076 million hectares in 2004.

References

External links

Official site

Erowid Jack Herer Vault

Blog in Swedish about the death and Jack Herer

The 420 Times Jack Herer, Emperor of Hemp, Passes Away

Category:1939 births Category:2010 deaths Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:American non-fiction writers Category:American cannabis activists Category:United States presidential candidates, 1988 Category:United States presidential candidates, 1992 Category:Grassroots Party politicians

Coordinates	44°25′57″N26°6′14″N
Name	Elvis Costello
Landscape	no
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Declan Patrick MacManus
Alias	D.P. CostelloThe ImposterLittle Hands of ConcreteNapoleon DynamiteD.P.A. MacManusDeclan Patrick Aloysius MacManus
Born	August 25, 1954Paddington, London, England
Instrument	Vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass, drums
Genre	Pub rockPunk/New Wave
Occupation	Musician, singer-songwriter, record producer
Years active	1970–present
Label	Stiff, Radar, F-Beat, Demon, Columbia, Warner Bros., Mercury, Island, Deutsche Grammophon, Lost Highway, Verve, Hip-O
Associated acts	The Attractions, The Imposters, Diana Krall, Burt Bacharach, Brodsky Quartet
Url	Elvis Costello.com
Notable instruments	Fender JazzmasterFender Telecaster

Declan Patrick MacManus (born 25 August 1954), known by the stage name Elvis Costello, is a British singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the Punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader than that of most popular songs. His music has drawn on many diverse genres; the young American critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine describes him as a "pop encyclopedia," able to "reinvent the past in his own image".

Early life

Costello was born Declan Patrick MacManus in St Mary's Hospital, London, the son of Lilian (née Ablett) and Ross MacManus, a musician and bandleader. He is of Irish heritage. Costello lived in Twickenham, attending Hounslow Secondary Modern School, which is now St Mark's Catholic Secondary School, in neighbouring Hounslow. With a musically inclined father (who sang with The Joe Loss Orchestra), Costello's first broadcast recording was alongside his dad in a television commercial for R. White's Lemonade (I'm a Secret Lemonade Drinker). His father wrote and sang the song; Costello provided backing vocals. The advertisement won a silver award at the 1974 International Advertising Festival.

Costello moved with his Liverpool-born mother to Birkenhead in 1971. There, he formed his first band, a folk duo called Rusty, with Allan Mayes. After completing secondary school at St. Francis Xavier's College, he moved back to London where he next formed a band called Flip City, which had a style very much in the pub rock vein. They were active from 1974 through early 1976. Around this time, Costello adopted the stage name D.P. Costello. His father had performed under the name Day Costello, and Elvis has said in interviews that he took this name as a tribute to his father.

To support himself, he worked at a number of office jobs, most famously at Elizabeth Arden — immortalised in the lyrics of "I'm Not Angry" as the "vanity factory" — where he worked as a data entry clerk. He worked for a short period as a computer operator at the Midland Bank computer centre in Bootle. He continued to write songs, and began actively looking for a solo recording contract. On the basis of a demo tape, he was signed to independent label Stiff Records. His manager at Stiff, Jake Riviera, suggested a name change, combining Elvis Presley's first name and Costello, his paternal grandmother's maiden name.

Career

1970s

Costello's first single for Stiff was "Less Than Zero," released on 25 March 1977. Two months later, his debut album, My Aim Is True (1977), was released to moderate commercial success (No. 14 in the UK and, later, Top 40 in the US) with Costello appearing on the cover in what became his trademark oversize glasses, bearing a striking resemblance to Buddy Holly. Stiff's records were initially distributed only in the UK, which meant that Costello's first album and singles were initially available in the US as imports only. In an attempt to change this, Costello was arrested for busking outside a London convention of CBS Records executives, protesting that no US record company had yet seen fit to release Costello records in the United States. Costello signed to CBS' Columbia Records label in the US a few months later.

Costello's backing on the debut album was provided by American West Coast band Clover, a country outfit living in England whose members would later go on to join Huey Lewis and the News and The Doobie Brothers. Later in 1977, Costello formed his own permanent backing band, The Attractions, consisting of Steve Nieve (born Steve Nason; piano), Bruce Thomas (bass guitar), and Pete Thomas (drums; unrelated to Bruce Thomas). He released his first major hit single, "Watching the Detectives," which was recorded with Nieve and the pair of Steve Goulding (drums) and Andrew Bodnar (bass), both members of Graham Parker's backing band The Rumour (whom he had used to audition for The Attractions). On 17 December 1977, Costello and The Attractions appeared as the musical guest act on the episode of Saturday Night Live as a last minute fill-in for the Sex Pistols. Scheduled to play "Less Than Zero," he surprised the SNL crew by abruptly stopping the song mid-intro, and launching into "Radio Radio." This stunt helped ensure he would not appear on the show again until 1989. Following a whirlwind tour with other Stiff artists – captured on the Live Stiffs album, notable for Costello's recording of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David standard "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself" – the band recorded This Year's Model (1978). Some of the more popular tracks include the British hit "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea" and "Pump It Up." His U.S. record company saw Costello as such a priority that his last name replaced the word Columbia on the label of the disc's original pressing.

A tour of the U.S. and Canada also saw the release of the much-bootlegged Canadian promo-only Live at the El Mocambo, recorded at a Toronto rock club, which finally saw an official release as part of the 2½ Years box set in 1993. It was during the ensuing United States tour that Costello met and developed a relationship with former Playboy model Bebe Buell (mother of Liv Tyler). Their on-again-off-again courtship would last until 1984 and would allegedly become a deep well of inspiration for Costello's songwriting. In 1979, he released Armed Forces (originally to have been titled Emotional Fascism, a phrase that appeared on the LP's inner sleeve). Both the album and the single "Oliver's Army" went to #2 in the UK. Costello also found time in 1979 to produce the debut album for 2 Tone ska revival band, The Specials.

Costello's standing in the U.S. was bruised for a time when in March 1979, during a drunken argument with Stephen Stills and Bonnie Bramlett in a Columbus, Ohio Holiday Inn bar, the singer referred to James Brown as a "jive-ass nigger", then upped the ante by pronouncing Ray Charles a "blind, ignorant, nigger". Costello apologised at a New York City press conference a few days later, claiming that he had been drunk and had been attempting to be obnoxious in order to bring the conversation to a swift conclusion, not anticipating that Bramlett would bring his comments to the press. According to Costello, "it became necessary for me to outrage these people with about the most obnoxious and offensive remarks that I could muster." In his liner notes for the expanded version of Get Happy!!, Costello writes that some time after the incident he had declined an offer to meet Charles out of guilt and embarrassment, though Charles himself had forgiven Costello saying "Drunken talk isn't meant to be printed in the paper." Costello worked extensively in Britain's Rock Against Racism campaign both before and after the incident. The incident inspired his Get Happy!! song "Riot Act."

Costello is also an avid country music fan and has cited George Jones as his favourite country singer. In 1977, he appeared in Jones' duet album My Very Special Guests, contributing "Stranger In The House," which they later performed together on an HBO special dedicated to Jones.

1980s

The soul-infused Get Happy!! would be the first, and—along with King of America — possibly most successful, of Costello's many experiments with genres beyond those he is normally associated with. The single, "I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down" was an old Sam and Dave song (though Costello increased the tempo considerably). Lyrically, the songs are full of Costello's signature word play, to the point that he later felt he had become something of a self-parody and toned it down on later releases; he has mockingly described himself in interviews as "rock and roll's Scrabble champion." His only 1980 appearance in North America was at the Heatwave festival in August near Toronto.

In 1981, the band released Trust amidst growing tensions within the band, particularly between Bruce and Pete Thomas. In the U.S., the single "Watch Your Step" was released and played live on Tom Snyder's Tomorrow show, and received airplay on FM rock radio. In the UK, the single "Clubland" scraped the lower reaches of the charts; follow-up single "From A Whisper To A Scream" (a duet with Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze) became the first Costello single in over four years to completely miss the charts.

Following Trust, Costello released Almost Blue, an album of country music cover songs written by the likes of Hank Williams ("Why Don't You Love Me (Like You Used To Do?)"), Merle Haggard ("Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down") and Gram Parsons ("How Much I Lied"). The album was a tribute to the country music he had grown up listening to, especially George Jones. It received mixed reviews. The first pressings of the record in the UK bore a sticker with the message: "WARNING: This album contains country & western music and may cause a radical reaction in narrow minded listeners." Almost Blue did spawn a surprise UK hit single in a version of George Jones' "Good Year For The Roses" (written by Jerry Chesnut), which reached #6.

Imperial Bedroom (1982) marked a much darker sound, due in part to the production of Geoff Emerick, famed for engineering several Beatles records. Imperial Bedroom remains one of his most critically acclaimed records, but again failed to produce any hit singles. Costello has said he disliked the marketing pitch for the album. The album also featured Costello's song "Almost Blue"; jazz singer and trumpeter Chet Baker would later perform and record a version of this song.

In 1983, he released Punch the Clock, featuring female backing vocals (Afrodiziak) and a four-piece horn section (The TKO Horns), alongside The Attractions. Clive Langer (who co-produced with Alan Winstanley), provided Costello with a melody which eventually became "Shipbuilding," which featured a trumpet solo by Chet Baker. Prior to the release of Costello's own version, a version of the song was a minor UK hit for former Soft Machine drummer Robert Wyatt.

Under the pseudonym The Imposter, Costello released "Pills And Soap," an attack on the changes in British society brought on by Thatcherism, released to coincide with the run-up to the 1983 UK general election. Punch the Clock also generated an international hit in the single "Everyday I Write the Book," aided by a music video featuring lookalikes of the Prince and Princess of Wales undergoing domestic strife in a suburban home. The song became Costello's first Top 40 hit single in the U.S. Also in the same year, Costello provided vocals on a version of the Madness song "Tomorrow's Just Another Day" released as a B-side on the single of the same name.

Tensions within the band were beginning to tell, and Costello announced his retirement and the break-up of the group shortly before they were to record Goodbye Cruel World (1984). Costello would later say of this record that they had "got it as wrong as you can in terms of the execution". The record was poorly received upon its initial release; the liner notes to the 1995 Rykodisc re-release, penned by Costello, begin with the words "Congratulations!, you've just purchased our worst album". Costello's retirement, although short-lived, was accompanied by two compilations, Elvis Costello: The Man in the UK, Europe and Australia, and The Best of Elvis Costello & The Attractions in the U.S.

In 1985, he appeared in the Live Aid benefit concert in England, singing the Beatles' "All You Need is Love" as a solo artist. (The event was overrunning and Costello was asked to "ditch the band"). Costello introduced the song as an "old northern English folk song," and the audience was invited to sing the chorus. In the same year Costello teamed up with friend T-Bone Burnett for the single "The People's Limousine" under the moniker of The Coward Brothers. That year, Costello also produced Rum Sodomy & the Lash for the Irish punk/folk band The Pogues. By 1986, Costello was preparing to make a comeback. Working in the U.S. with Burnett, a band containing a number of Elvis Presley's sidemen (including James Burton and Jerry Scheff), and minor input from the Attractions, he produced King of America an acoustic guitar-driven album with a country sound. Around this time he legally changed his name back to Declan MacManus, adding Aloysius as an extra middle name. Costello retooled his upcoming tour to allow for multiple nights in each city; playing one night with The Confederates (James Burton et al.), one night with The Attractions, and one night solo acoustic. In May 1986, Costello performed at Self Aid, a benefit concert held in Dublin that focused on the chronic unemployment which was widespread in Ireland at that time. Later that year, he returned to the studio with the Attractions and recorded Blood and Chocolate, which was lauded for a post-punk fervour not heard since 1978's This Year's Model. It also marked the return of producer Nick Lowe, who had produced Costello's first five albums. While Blood and Chocolate failed to chart a hit single of any significance, it did produce what has since become one of Costello's signature concert songs, "I Want You." On this album, Costello adopted the alias Napoleon Dynamite, the name he later attributed to the character of the emcee that he played during the vaudeville-style tour to support Blood and Chocolate. (The pseudonym had previously been used in 1982, when the B-side single "Imperial Bedroom" was credited to Napoleon Dynamite & The Royal Guard, and was later appropriated by the 2004 film Napoleon Dynamite). In 1989, Costello, with a new contract with Warner Bros., released Spike, which spawned his biggest single in America, the Top Twenty hit "Veronica," one of several songs Costello co-wrote with Paul McCartney in that period (see Collaborations).

1990s

In 1991, having grown a long beard, Costello released Mighty Like a Rose, which featured the single "The Other Side of Summer." He also found time to co-compose and co-produce, with Richard Harvey, the title and incidental music for the mini-series G.B.H. by Alan Bleasdale. This entirely instrumental, and largely orchestral, soundtrack garnered a BAFTA, for Best Music for a TV Series for the pair.

In 1993, Costello experimented with classical music with a critically acclaimed collaboration with the Brodsky Quartet on The Juliet Letters. During this period, Costello wrote a full album's worth of material for Wendy James, and these songs became the tracks on her 1993 solo album Now Ain't the Time for Your Tears. Costello returned to rock and roll the following year with a project that reunited him with The Attractions, Brutal Youth. In 1995, Costello released Kojak Variety, an album of cover songs recorded five years earlier, and followed in 1996 with an album of songs originally written for other artists, All This Useless Beauty. This was the final album of original material that he issued under his Warner Bros. contract. In the spring of 1996, Costello played a series of intimate club dates, backed only by Nieve on the piano, in support of All This Useless Beauty. An ensuing summer and fall tour with the Attractions proved to be the death knell for the band. With relations between Costello and bassist Bruce Thomas at a breaking point, Costello announced that the current tour would be the Attractions' last. The quartet performed their final U.S. show in Seattle, Washington on 1 September 1996, before wrapping up their tour in Japan. To fulfill his contractual obligations to Warner Bros., Costello released a greatest hits album titled Extreme Honey (1997). It contained an original track titled "The Bridge I Burned," featuring Costello's son, Matt, on bass. In the intervening period, Costello had served as artistic chair for the 1995 Meltdown Festival, which gave him the opportunity to explore his increasingly eclectic musical interests. His involvement in the festival yielded a one-off live EP with jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, which featured both cover material and a few of his own songs.

In 1998, Costello signed a multi-label contract with Polygram Records, sold by its parent company the same year to become part of the Universal Music Group. Costello released his new work on what he deemed the suitable imprimatur within the family of labels. His first new release as part of this contract involved a collaboration with Burt Bacharach. Their work had commenced earlier, in 1996, on a song called "God Give Me Strength" for the movie Grace of My Heart. This led the pair to write and record Painted From Memory, released under his new contract in 1998, on the Mercury Records label. They also recorded an updated version of Bacharach's "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" for the soundtrack to , with both appearing in the film to perform the song. He also wrote "I Throw My Toys Around" for The Rugrats Movie and performed it with No Doubt. The same year, he collaborated with Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains on "The Long Journey Home" on the soundtrack of the PBS/Disney mini-series of the same name. The soundtrack won a Grammy that year.

In 1999, Costello contributed a version of "She," released in 1974 by Charles Aznavour and Herbert Kretzmer, for the soundtrack of the film Notting Hill, with Trevor Jones producing. For the 25th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, Costello was invited to the program, where he re-enacted his abrupt song-switch: This time, however, he interrupted the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage," and they acted as his backing group for Radio Radio.

2000 to present

In 2000, Costello appeared at the Town Hall Theatre, New York, in Steve Nieve's opera Welcome to the Voice, alongside Ron Sexsmith and John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants.In 2001, Costello was artist in residence at UCLA and wrote the music for a new ballet. He produced and appeared on an album of pop songs for opera singer, Anne Sofie von Otter. He released the album When I Was Cruel in 2002 on Island Records, and toured with a new band, the Imposters (essentially the Attractions but with a different bass player, Davey Faragher, formerly of Cracker). He appeared as himself in the How I Spent My Strummer Vacation episode of The Simpsons. On 23 February 2003, Costello, along with Bruce Springsteen, Steve Van Zandt, and Dave Grohl performed a version of The Clash's "London Calling" at the 45th Grammy Awards ceremony, in honour of Clash frontman Joe Strummer, who had died the previous December. In March, Elvis Costello & The Attractions were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He announced his engagement in May to Canadian jazz singer and pianist Diana Krall who he had seen in concert and then met backstage at the Sydney Opera House in Sydney Australia. That September, he released North, an album of piano-based ballads concerning the breakdown of his former marriage, and his falling in love with Krall. Also that year, Costello made an appearance in the television show Frasier as a folk singer in the Cafe Nervosa, sending Frasier and Niles on a search for a new coffee bar.

The song Scarlet Tide (co-written by Costello and T-Bone Burnett and used in the film Cold Mountain) was nominated for a 2004 Academy Award; he performed it at the awards ceremony with Alison Krauss, who sang the song on the official soundtrack. Costello co-wrote many songs on Krall's 2004 CD, The Girl in the Other Room, the first of hers to feature several original compositions. In July 2004 Costello's first full-scale orchestral work, Il Sogno, was performed in New York. The work, a ballet after Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, was commissioned by Italian dance troupe Aterballeto, and received critical acclaim from the classical music critics. Performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, the recording was released on CD in September by Deutsche Grammophon. Costello released the album The Delivery Man, recorded in Oxford, Mississippi, and released on Lost Highway Records, which was hailed as one of his best albums. .]]

CD recording of a collaboration with Marian McPartland on her show Piano Jazz was released in 2005. It featured Costello singing six jazz standards and two of his own songs, accompanied by McPartland on piano. In November Costello started recording a new album with Allen Toussaint and producer Joe Henry. The River in Reverse was released in the UK on the Verve label in May the following year.

A 2005 tour included a gig at Glastonbury that Costello considered to be so dreadful that he said "I don't care if I ever play England again. That gig made up my mind I wouldn't come back. I don't get along with it. We lost touch. It's 25 years since I lived there. I don't dig it, they don't dig me....British music fans don't have the same attitude to age as they do in America, where young people come to check out, say Willie Nelson. They feel some connection with him and find a role for that music in their lives." In a performance in 2007 directed by Kasper Bech Holten at the Opera's studio theatre (Takelloftet), finished songs were interspersed with pieces from Costello's 1993 collaborative classical album The Juliet Letters, featuring Danish soprano Sine Bundgaard as Lind. The 2009 album Secret, Profane & Sugarcane includes material from Secret Songs.

On 6 May 2008, Fender Musical Instruments released Elvis Costello Jazzmaster, an exact representation of the late 1960s heavily modified Fender Jazzmaster guitar he had used to record his first 1977 album, My Aim Is True. Its features include a post-1968 neck design, a walnut stain finish and a tremolo with easier and greater travel, essential for that "Watching the Detectives" tone, or what Costello called "that spy movie sound".

On 22 April 2008, Momofuku was released on Lost Highway Records, the same imprint that released his last studio album, The Delivery Man. The album was, at least initially, released exclusively on vinyl (with a code to download a digital copy of the album). That summer, in support of the album, Costello toured with The Police on the final leg of their 2007/2008 Reunion Tour. Costello played a homecoming gig at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall on 25 June 2006. and, that month, gave his first performance in Poland, appearing with The Imposters for the closing gig of the Malta theatre festival in Poznań.

In July 2008, Costello (as Declan McManus) was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Music from the University of Liverpool.

Costello is the host for a Sundance Channel series entitled in which Costello talks and performs with stars in various fields. It airs on Wednesdays, beginning 3 December 2008.

Costello was featured on Fall Out Boy's 2008 album Folie à Deux, providing vocals on the track "What a Catch, Donnie", along with other artists who are friends with the band.

Costello appeared in Stephen Colbert's television special ; in the program, he was eaten by a bear, but later saved by Santa Claus; he also sang a duet with Colbert. The special was first aired on 23 November 2008. Costello released Secret, Profane & Sugarcane, a collaboration with T-Bone Burnett, on 9 June 2009. Burnett previously worked with Costello on King of America and Spike. It was his first on the Starbucks Hear Music label and a return to country music in the manner of Good Year for the Roses.

Costello appeared as himself in the finale of the third season of 30 Rock and sang in the episode's celebrity telethon, Kidney Now!. The episode references Costello's given name when Jack Donaghy accuses him of concealing his true identity: "Declan McManus, international art thief."

In May 2009, Costello made a surprise cameo appearance on-stage at the Beacon Theater in New York as part of Spinal Tap's Unwigged and Unplugged show, singing their fictional 1965 hit "Gimme Some Money" with the band backing him up.

On 15 May 2010, Costello announced he would withdraw from a concert performed in Israel in opposition to Israel's treatment of Palestinians. In a statement on his website, Costello wrote, "It has been necessary to dial out the falsehoods of propaganda, the double game and hysterical language of politics, the vanity and self-righteousness of public communiqués from cranks in order to eventually sift through my own conflicted thoughts."

Costello released the album National Ransom in autumn 2010.

Personal life

Costello has been married three times, the first time to Mary Burgoyne in 1974, with whom he had a son.

In 1985, Costello became involved with Cait O'Riordan, former bassist for the British group The Pogues, while he was producing The Pogues' album Rum Sodomy and the Lash. They married in 1986 and had split up by the end of 2002.

Humanitarian causes

Costello sits on the Advisory Committee of the Board of Directors of the Jazz Foundation of America. Costello began working with the Jazz Foundation in 2001, and has been a featured performer in their annual benefit A Great Night in Harlem since 2006. Costello has donated his time working with the Jazz Foundation of America. to save the homes and the lives of America's elderly jazz and blues musicians, including musicians that survived Hurricane Katrina.

Collaborations

In addition to his major recorded collaborations with Bacharach, the Brodsky Quartet, and von Otter, Costello has frequently been involved in other collaborations.

In 1987, Costello began a long-running songwriting collaboration with Paul McCartney. They wrote a number of songs together, including:

"Back On My Feet", the B-side of McCartney's 1987 single "Once Upon A Long Ago", later added as a bonus track on the 1993 re-issue of McCartney's Flowers in the Dirt

Costello's "Veronica" and "Pads, Paws and Claws" from Spike (1989) (Also, McCartney plays Hofner bass but does not have a writing credit for "This Town" - the opening song for the album.)

"So Like Candy" and "Playboy to a Man" from Mighty Like a Rose (1991)

McCartney's "My Brave Face", "Don't Be Careless Love", "That Day Is Done" and "You Want Her Too" from Flowers in the Dirt (1989)

"The Lovers That Never Were" and "Mistress and Maid" from Off the Ground (1993).

"Shallow Grave" from All This Useless Beauty (1996).

Costello talked about their collaboration:

}}

In 1987, he appeared on the HBO special Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night, which featured his long-time idol Roy Orbison, and was invited back to Saturday Night Live for the first time since 1977.

In 1988, Costello co-wrote "At the Other End (of the Telescope)" with Aimee Mann; this song appears on the Til Tuesday album Everything's Different Now.

In 2000, Costello wrote lyrics to "Green Song", a solo cello piece by Svante Henryson; this song appears on the Anne Sofie von Otter album For the Stars.

In 2005, Costello performed with Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong. They played both Costello and Green Day songs together, including "Alison", "No Action", "Basket Case" and "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)".

In 2007, Costello collaborated with the Argentinean/Uruguay an electro-tango band Bajofondo on the song "Fairly Right" from the album Mar Dulce.

In 2008, Costello collaborated with Fall Out Boy on the track "What A Catch, Donnie" from their album Folie a Deux.

In Jenny Lewis' 2008 release, Acid Tongue, Costello provided vocals for the song "Carpetbaggers".

In December 2009, it was announced that Costello would be portraying The Shape in the upcoming album Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, a collaboration between rock singer John Mellencamp and novelist Stephen King.

In February 2010, Costello appeared in the live cinecast of Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion, singing some of his own songs, and participating in many of the show's other musical and acting performances.

Artistic significance

Costello has worked with Paul McCartney, Tony Bennett, Lucinda Williams, Lee Konitz, Brian Eno, and Rubén Blades, as well as many other musicians not listed above.

Costello is also a music fan, and often champions the works of others in print. He has written several pieces for the magazine Vanity Fair, including the summary of what a perfect weekend of music would be. He has contributed to two Grateful Dead tribute albums and covered Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter tunes such as Ship of Fools, Friend of the Devil and Tennessee Jed in concert. His collaboration with Bacharach honoured Bacharach's place in pop music history. Costello also appeared in documentaries about singers Dusty Springfield, Brian Wilson, Wanda Jackson, and Memphis, Tennessee-based Stax Records. He has also interviewed one of his own influences, Joni Mitchell.

In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him #80 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

==Discography==

Costello has released over 30 studio albums on his own and with the Attractions, the Imposters, or others. He has also released five live albums: Live at the El Mocambo, Deep Dead Blue, Costello & Nieve, My Flame Burns Blue, and Live at Hollywood High. There have also been numerous compilations, box sets, and reissues by labels such as Rykodisc, Demon, Rhino, and Universal Music Enterprises.

Filmography

Actor

1979 film debut as "The Earl of Manchester" in Americathon

1984 as "Henry Scully" in the UK TV series, Scully

1985 as inept magician "Rosco de Ville" in the Alan Bleasdale film, No Surrender

1987 as "Hives the Butler" in the Alex Cox film, Straight to Hell, starring Joe Strummer and Courtney Love

1994 as himself on The Larry Sanders Show in the episode "People's Choice"

1997 as a barman in Spice World.

1999 as himself performing "I'll Never Fall In Love Again" with Burt Bacharach in

1999 as a younger version of himself in 200 Cigarettes

2003 as Ben on "Frasier," one episode

2004 as himself in Two and a Half Men - Season 2, Episode 1

2006 as himself in Delirious

2006 as himself in

2008 as himself in

2009 as himself on the episode of 30 Rock, "Kidney Now!"

2010 as himself on Treme

Soundtrack

2003 Academy Award nomination for best original song, "The Scarlet Tide", in Cold Mountain

Bibliography

Costello, Elvis. A Singing Dictionary. London: Plangent Visions Music; New York, N.Y.: Exclusive selling agent for the United States and Canada, Warner Bros. Publications, 1980. ISBN 0-7692-1505-X. Sheet music, chords, and lyrics for works 1977–1980.

References

External links

ElvisCostello.com

Official Elvis Costello Lost Highway Records Artist Page

The Elvis Costello Home Page Wiki

Category:1954 births Category:Living people Category:1970s singers Category:1980s singers Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:Columbia Records artists Category:Elvis Costello & the Attractions members Category:English buskers Category:English expatriates in the United States Category:English male singers Category:English rock guitarists Category:English rock keyboardists Category:English rock singers Category:English singer-songwriters Category:English people of Irish descent Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Lost Highway Records artists Category:Musicians from London Category:People from Paddington Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees‎ Category:Warner Bros. Records artists