Tom Waits

Tuesday, 01 January 2013

Tom Waits - The Piano Has Been Drinking - 1977

Tom Waits - Chicago - David Letterman 7-9-12

Tom Waits - Closing Time (1973) Debut Album Full

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Avery Fisher Hall
Coordinates: 40°46′22″N 73°58′59″W / 40.77278°N 73.98306°W / 40.77278; -73.98306
Avery Fisher Hall, a concert hall in New York City, is part of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts complex. It is the home of the New York Philharmonic, with a capacity of 2,738 seats.
Designed by Max Abramovitz, the hall opened in 1962 as Philharmonic Hall, as the new home concert venue of the New York Philharmonic, after the orchestra moved from Carnegie Hall. The hall was renamed for Avery Fisher, a member of the Philharmonic board of directors, following his $10.5 million donation to the orchestra in 1973.
The acoustical consulting firm of Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) was hired to design the interior acoustics for the hall. Based on their experience designing and analyzing existing concert halls, BBN acousticians recommended that the hall be designed as a "shoebox" with narrowly-spaced parallel sides (similar in shape to the acoustically-acclaimed Symphony Hall, Boston), with seating for no more than 2,400 patrons. Lincoln Center initially agreed with the recommendation, and BBN provided a series of design specifications and recommendations. However, the New York Herald Tribune began a campaign to increase the seating capacity of the new hall. Late in the design stage, the hall was redesigned to accommodate the critics' desires, but these changes invalidated much of BBN's acoustical design. BBN engineers told Lincoln Center that the hall would sound different from how they had intended it to, but they could not predict what the changes would do.

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Baghdad
Baghdad (Arabic: بغداد‎, Baġdād, IPA: [bæɣˈdæːd]) is the capital of Republic of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Province. The population of Baghdad as of 2011 is approximately 7,216,040, making it the largest city in Iraq, the second largest city in the Arab World (after Cairo, Egypt), and the second largest city in Western Asia (after Tehran, Iran).
Located along the Tigris River, the city was founded in the 8th century and became the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. Within a short time of its inception, Baghdad evolved into a significant cultural, commercial, and intellectual center for the Islamic World. This in addition to housing several key academic institutions (e.g. House of Wisdom) garnered the city a worldwide reputation as the "Center of Learning". Throughout the High Middle Ages, Baghdad was considered to be the largest city in the world with an estimated population of 1,200,000 people. The city was largely destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258, resulting in a decline that would linger through many centuries due to frequent plagues and multiple successive empires. With the recognition of Iraq as an independent state (formerly the British Mandate of Mesopotamia) in 1938, Baghdad gradually regained some of its former prominence as a significant center of Arabic culture.

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Hamburg
Hamburg ( /ˈhæmbɜrɡ/; German pronunciation: [ˈhambʊɐ̯k], local pronunciation [ˈhambʊɪç]; Low German/Low Saxon: Hamborg [ˈhaˑmbɔːx]), officially Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, is the second-largest city in Germany, the thirteenth largest German state, and the sixth-largest city in the European Union. The city is home to over 1.8 million people, while the Hamburg Metropolitan Region (including parts of the neighbouring Federal States of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein) has more than 4.3 million inhabitants. Situated on the river Elbe, the port of Hamburg is the second largest port in Europe (after the Port of Rotterdam) and 11th-largest worldwide.
Hamburg's official name, Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (German: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg), reflects Hamburg's history as a member of the medieval Hanseatic League, as a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire, and that Hamburg is a city-state and one of the sixteen States of Germany.
Hamburg is a major transport hub in Northern Germany and is one of the most affluent cities in Europe. It has become a media and industrial centre, with plants and facilities belonging to Airbus, Blohm + Voss and Aurubis. The radio and television broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk and publishers such as Gruner + Jahr and Spiegel-Verlag are pillars of the important media industry in Hamburg. In total, there are more than 120,000 enterprises.

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Prague
Prague ( /ˈprɑːɡ/; Czech: Praha pronounced [ˈpraɦa] ( listen)) is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic and fourteenth largest city in European Union. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of nearly 2.0 million. The city has a temperate oceanic climate with warm summers and chilly winters.
Prague has been a political, cultural, and economic centre of central Europe with waxing and waning fortunes during its 1,100 year existence. Founded during the Romanesque and flourishing by the Gothic and Renaissance eras, Prague was the seat of two Holy Roman Emperors and thus then also the capital of the Holy Roman Empire. It was an important city to the Habsburg Monarchy and its Austro-Hungarian Empire and after World War I became the capital of Czechoslovakia. The city played major roles in the Protestant Reformation, the Thirty Years' War, and in modern history generally as the principal conurbation in Bohemia and Moravia whose second city is Brno.

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San Diego
San Diego /ˌsæn diːˈeɪɡoʊ/ is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round climate, natural deep-water harbor, extensive beaches, long association with the U.S. Navy, and recent emergence as a healthcare and biotechnology enclave. The population was 1,301,617 at the 2010 census.
Historically home to the Kumeyaay people, San Diego was the first site visited by Europeans on what is now the West Coast of the United States. Upon landing in San Diego Bay in 1542, Juan Cabrillo claimed the entire area for Spain, forming the basis for the settlement of Alta California 200 years later. The Presidio and Mission of San Diego, founded in 1769, were the first European settlement in what is now California. In 1821, San Diego became part of newly independent Mexico, and in 1850, became part of the United States following the Mexican-American War and the admission of California to the union.

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Tin Pan Alley
Coordinates: 40°44′44″N 73°59′22.5″W / 40.74556°N 73.989583°W / 40.74556; -73.989583
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The name originally referred to a specific place: West 28th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, and a plaque (see below) on the sidewalk on 28th Street between Broadway and Sixth commemorates it. This block is now considered to be part of Manhattan's NoMad neighborhood and the Flower District.
The start of Tin Pan Alley is usually dated to about 1885, when a number of music publishers set up shop in the same district of Manhattan. The end of Tin Pan Alley is less clear cut. Some date it to the start of the Great Depression in the 1930s when the phonograph and radio supplanted sheet music as the driving force of American popular music, while others consider Tin Pan Alley to have continued into the 1950s when earlier styles of American popular music were upstaged by the rise of rock & roll.

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Al Pacino
Alfredo James "Al" Pacino (/pəˈtʃiːnɵ/; born April 25, 1940) is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy and Tony Montana in Scarface, though he has also appeared several times on the other side of the law — as a police officer, a detective and a lawyer. His role as Frank Slade in Scent of a Woman won him the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1993 after receiving seven previous Oscar nominations, one of them being in the same year.
He made his feature film debut in the 1969 film Me, Natalie in a minor supporting role, before playing the leading role in the 1971 drama The Panic in Needle Park. Pacino made his major breakthrough when he was given the role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather in 1972, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Other Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor were for Dick Tracy and Glengarry Glen Ross. Oscar nominations for Best Actor include The Godfather Part II, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, ...And Justice for All and Scent of a Woman.

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Alison Krauss
Alison Maria Krauss (born July 23, 1971) is an American bluegrass-country singer, songwriter and fiddler. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of ten and recording for the first time at fourteen. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in 1987. She was invited to join the band with which she still performs, Alison Krauss and Union Station (AKUS), and later released her first album with them as a group in 1989.
She has released fourteen albums, appeared on numerous soundtracks, and helped renew interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Her soundtrack performances have led to further popularity, including the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, an album also credited with raising American interest in bluegrass, and the Cold Mountain soundtrack, which led to her performance at the 2004 Academy Awards. As of 2012, she has won 27 Grammy Awards from 41 nominations, making her the most awarded living recipient, and three back of the most honoured artist, classical conductor Sir Georg Solti. She is also the most awarded singer and the most awarded female artist in Grammy history. At the time of her first award, at the 1991 Grammy Awards, she was the second youngest winner ever (currently tied as third youngest).

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Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht (German: [ˈbɛɐ̯tɔlt ˈbʁɛçt] ( listen); born Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (help·info); 10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956) was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.
An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the Berliner Ensemble – the post-war theatre company operated by Brecht and his wife, long-time collaborator and actress Helene Weigel.
Bertolt Brecht was born in Augsburg, Bavaria, (about 50 miles (80 km) north-west of Munich) to a conventionally-devout Protestant mother and a Catholic father (who had been persuaded to have a Protestant wedding). His father worked for a paper mill, becoming its managing director in 1914. Thanks to his mother's influence, Brecht knew the Bible, a familiarity that would impact on his writing throughout his life. From her, too, came the "dangerous image of the self-denying woman" that recurs in his drama. Brecht's home life was comfortably middle class, despite what his occasional attempt to claim peasant origins implied. At school in Augsburg he met Caspar Neher, with whom he formed a lifelong creative partnership, Neher designing many of the sets for Brecht's dramas and helping to forge the distinctive visual iconography of their epic theatre.

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Bette Midler
Bette Midler (born December 1, 1945) is an American singer, actress, and comedian, also known by her informal stage name, The Divine Miss M. She became famous as a cabaret and concert headliner, and went on to star in successful and acclaimed films such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys. During her more than forty-year career, Midler has been nominated for two Academy Awards, and won three Grammy Awards, four Golden Globes, three Emmy Awards, and a special Tony Award. She has sold over 30 million albums worldwide. Her voice type is categorized as deep mezzo soprano.
Midler was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. Her parents moved from Paterson, New Jersey to Honolulu before she was born, and hers was one of the few Jewish families in a mostly Asian neighborhood. Her mother, Ruth (née Schindel), was a seamstress and housewife, and her father, Fred Midler, worked at a Navy base in Hawaii as a painter. She was named after actress Bette Davis, though Davis pronounced her first name in two syllables, and Midler uses one, /ˈbɛt/. She was raised in Aiea and attended Radford High School, in Honolulu. She was voted "Most Talkative" in the 1961 school Hoss Election, and in her Senior Year (Class of 1963), "Most Dramatic". Midler majored in drama at the University of Hawaii, but left after three semesters. She earned money in the 1966 film Hawaii as an extra, playing an uncredited seasick passenger named Miss David Buff.

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Bill Pullman
William James "Bill" Pullman (born December 17, 1953) is an American film, television, and stage actor. Pullman made his film debut in the supporting role of Earl Mott in the 1986 film Ruthless People. He has since gone on to star in other films, including Spaceballs, Independence Day, Lost Highway, Casper and Scary Movie 4. He has starred in a number of plays and is also a Jury Member for Filmaka.
Pullman was born in Hornell, New York, the son of James Pullman, a physician, and his wife Johanna (née Blaas), a nurse. His father's family descends from England, and his maternal grandparents immigrated from the Netherlands. After graduating from Hornell High School in 1971, he attended the State University of New York at Delhi and the State University of New York at Oneonta in the 1970s. He eventually received his Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Pullman taught theater at SUNY Delhi and Montana State University's School of Film and Photography, where he was convinced by his students to attempt film.

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Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artistes of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation.
A multimedia star, from 1934 to 1954 Bing Crosby was a leader in record sales, radio ratings and motion picture grosses. His early career coincided with technical recording innovations; this allowed him to develop a laid-back, intimate singing style that influenced many of the popular male singers who followed him, including Perry Como,Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin. Yank magazine recognized Crosby as the person who had done the most for American G.I. morale during World War II and, during his peak years, around 1948, polls declared him the "most admired man alive," ahead of Jackie Robinson and Pope Pius XII. Also in 1948, the Music Digest estimated that Crosby recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours allocated to recorded radio music.

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Blue Cheer
Blue Cheer was an American rock band that initially performed and recorded in the late 1960s and early 1970s and was sporadically active until 2009. Based in San Francisco, Blue Cheer played in a psychedelic blues-rock style, and is also credited as being pioneers of heavy metal (their cover of "Summertime Blues" is sometimes cited as the first in the genre), punk rock,stoner rock,doom metal,experimental rock, and grunge. According to Tim Hills in his book, The Many Lives of the Crystal Ballroom, "Blue Cheer was the epitome of San Francisco psychedelia." Jim Morrison of The Doors called the group "The single most powerful band I've ever seen."
The band is said to have been named after a street brand of LSD and promoted by renowned LSD chemist and former Grateful Dead patron, Owsley Stanley.
Blue Cheer came together in 1966. It was co-founded by Eric Albronda and Jerry Russell, music aficionados who wanted to become involved with the San Francisco music scene of the 1960s. Both moved with Dickie Peterson from Davis, California, to San Francisco. Peterson had previously been with the Davis-based band Andrew Staples & The Oxford Circle, as well as future Blue Cheer members Paul Whaley and Gary Lee Yoder. The original Blue Cheer personnel were singer/bassist Dickie Peterson, guitarist Leigh Stephens and Eric Albronda as drummer. Albronda was later replaced by Paul Whaley, who was joined by Dickie's brother Jerre Peterson (guitar), Vale Hamanaka (keyboards), and Jerry Whiting (vocals, harmonica). Albronda continued his association with Blue Cheer as a member of Blue Cheer management, as well as being the producer or co-producer of five Blue Cheer albums.

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Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan ( /ˈdɪlən/), born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, is an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist. He has been an influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly reluctant figurehead of social unrest. A number of Dylan's early songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", became anthems for the US civil rights and anti-war movements. Leaving his initial base in the culture of folk music behind, Dylan's six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone" has been described as radically altering the parameters of popular music in 1965. However, his recordings employing electric instruments attracted denunciation and criticism from others in the folk movement.
Dylan's lyrics incorporated a variety of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences. They defied existing pop music conventions and appealed hugely to the then burgeoning counterculture. Initially inspired by the songs of Woody Guthrie,Robert Johnson, and Hank Williams, as well as the music and performance styles of Buddy Holly and Little Richard, Dylan has both amplified and personalized musical genres. His recording career, spanning fifty years, has explored numerous distinct traditions in American song—from folk, blues and country to gospel, rock and roll, and rockabilly to English, Scottish, and Irish folk music, embracing even jazz and swing.

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Bob Forrest
Bob Forrest (born February 15, 1961) is the lead vocalist and lyricist for Los Angeles bands Thelonious Monster and The Bicycle Thief. In September 2006 he released his first solo album, Modern Folk And Blues Wednesday. He is also a drug counselor, appearing alongside Dr. Drew Pinsky on Celebrity Rehab and Sober House. He contributed the song "Moonshiner" to the I'm Not There soundtrack.
Forrest is the former Chemical Dependency Program Director at Las Encinas Hospital. In 2010, he and co-founder Shelly Sprague launched Hollywood Recovery Services.
Forrest is also well known as a close friend of Red Hot Chili Peppers bandmates Flea and Anthony Kiedis who was once a drug buddy to Forrest and who later got clean with Forrest's help. The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Forrest's bands also have a longtime connection. In 1988, John Frusciante was originally intended to join Thelonious Monster however he joined the Red Hot Chili Peppers instead while current Chili Peppers guitarist, Josh Klinghoffer played with both Thelonious Monster and The Bicycle Thief. Forrest has performed many times with the Red Hot Chili Peppers dating back to the mid-80s and most recently in 2009 at an awards event honoring Kiedis for his commitment to helping other addicts with the addiction and recovery process.

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Bones Howe
Dayton Burr "Bones" Howe (born 1933) is a Grammy-award-winning record producer and recording engineer associated with 1960s and 1970s hits, mostly of the sunshine pop genre, including most of the hits of The 5th Dimension and The Association, as well as music supervision of several films. He was one of the first industry members to serve as both producer and engineer of the hit records on which he worked. In addition, he was occasionally credited as a musician on recordings under the name "Dayton Howe".
He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and moved to Sarasota, Florida in 1941, attending Sarasota High School in 1951, becoming a drummer with a dance band and a jazz quintet, before moving to Georgia Tech, receiving a Bachelor's degree in Electronics and Communication in 1956.
While at Georgia Tech he played with large numbers of local bands, and after graduation decided to combine his love of music and his Electronics degree, moving to Hollywood to start a career as an audio engineer at Radio Recorders. From 1956 to 1962 he became well known within the industry and helped develop multi-track and multi-microphone techniques for studio recording.

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Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Lynn Raitt (born November 8, 1949) is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially accessible recordings in the 1990s including "Nick of Time", "Something to Talk About", "Love Sneakin' Up on You", and the slow ballad "I Can't Make You Love Me". Raitt has received nine Grammy Awards in her career and is a lifelong political activist.
Raitt, the daughter of Broadway musical star John Raitt and his first wife, pianist Marjorie Haydock, began playing guitar at an early age, something few of her high school female friends did. Later she would become famous for her bottleneck-style guitar playing. "I had played a little at school and at camp", she later recalled in a July 2002 interview. The camp Raitt refers to is Camp Regis-Applejack, located in the heart of the Adirondacks.

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Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949), nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter-performer who records and tours with the E Street Band. Springsteen is widely known for his brand of heartland rock, poetic lyrics, and Americana sentiments centered on his native New Jersey.
Springsteen's recordings have included both commercially accessible rock albums and more somber folk-oriented works. His most successful studio albums, Born in the U.S.A. and Born to Run, showcase a talent for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily American life; he has sold more than 65 million albums in the United States and more than 120 million worldwide and he has earned numerous awards for his work, including 21 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award. He is widely regarded by many as one of the most influential songwriters of the 20th century, and in 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him as the 23rd Greatest Artist of all time.
Springsteen was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, and spent his childhood and high school years in Freehold Borough. He lived on South Street in Freehold Borough and attended Freehold Borough High School. His father, Douglas Frederick Springsteen, was of Dutch and Irish ancestry and worked, among other vocations, as a bus driver, although he was frequently unemployed; his surname is Dutch for jump stone. His mother, Adele Ann (née Zerilli), was a legal secretary and was of Italian ancestry. His maternal grandfather was born in Vico Equense, a city near Naples. He has two younger sisters, Virginia and Pamela. Pamela had a brief film career, but left acting to pursue still photography full time; she took photos for the Human Touch and Lucky Town albums.

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Bud Cort
Bud Cort (born Walter Edward Cox; March 29, 1948) is an American film and stage actor, writer, and director. He is best known for his portrayals of Harold in Hal Ashby's 1971 film Harold and Maude and the titular hero in Robert Altman's 1970 film Brewster McCloud. Both films have large cult followings today.
Cort was born in New Rochelle, New York, but eventually grew up in Rye, New York. His father, Joseph Parker Cox, was a bandleader and pianist, as well as a World War II veteran and merchant. His mother, Alma Mary Cox (née Court), was a reporter and a merchant, who also worked in MGM studios. Cort has four siblings—three younger sisters and one older brother. His parents ran a clothing business in downtown Rye from the 1950s until the mid-1980s. Most of Cort's adolescence was spent caring for his sisters and father; his father had multiple sclerosis and died of it in 1971. He also engaged in reading and painting. As a teenager he was a local portrait painting prodigy and began taking acting lessons. He was educated in Catholic schools and graduated from Iona Preparatory School in New Rochelle in 1966.

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Captain Beefheart
Don Van Vliet ( /væn ˈvliːt/, born Don Glen Vliet; January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010) was an American musician, singer-songwriter, artist and poet best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. His musical work was conducted with a rotating ensemble of musicians called The Magic Band, active between 1965 and 1982, with whom he recorded 13 studio albums. Noted for his powerful singing voice with its wide range, Van Vliet also played the harmonica, saxophone and numerous other wind instruments. His music blended rock, blues and psychedelia with avant-garde and contemporary experimental composition. Beefheart was also known for exercising an almost dictatorial control over his supporting musicians, and for often constructing myths about his life.

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Carol Kane
Carolyn Laurie "Carol" Kane (born June 18, 1952) is an American actress. Kane has worked on the stage, on the screen and in television. She appeared on the television series Taxi in the early 1980s, as the wife of the character played by Andy Kaufman. She received two Emmy Awards for her work. She has played the character of Madame Morrible in the musical Wicked, both in regional productions and on Broadway from 2005 to 2009.
Kane was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of Joy, a jazz singer, teacher, dancer, and pianist, and Michael Kane, an architect who worked for the World Bank. Her family is Jewish, her grandparents having emigrated from Russia. Her parents divorced when she was 12 years old. She attended the Cherry Lawn School, a progressive boarding school in Darien, Connecticut, until 1965. She attended the Professional Children's School, in New York City, and made her professional theatre debut in a 1966 production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, starring Tammy Grimes.
Kane is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Simka Dahblitz-Gravas, wife of Latka Gravas (Andy Kaufman), on the American television series Taxi, from 1981 to 1983, and also for her role as Allison Portchnik in Woody Allen's Annie Hall. Kane earned two Emmy Awards for her work in the series and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the film Hester Street. She also appeared in The Princess Bride (1987) and Scrooged (1988), with Bill Murray, in which Variety called her "unquestionably [the] pic's comic highlight."

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Charles Bukowski
Henry Charles Bukowski (born Heinrich Karl Bukowski; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles. It is marked by an emphasis on the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women and the drudgery of work. Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over sixty books. In 1986 Time called Bukowski a "laureate of American lowlife". Regarding Bukowski's enduring popular appeal, Adam Kirsch of The New Yorker wrote, "the secret of Bukowski’s appeal. . . [is that] he combines the confessional poet’s promise of intimacy with the larger-than-life aplomb of a pulp-fiction hero."
Charles Bukowski was born as Heinrich Karl Bukowski in Andernach, Germany, to Heinrich Bukowski and Katharina (née Fett). Bukowski's mother was a native German and his father was an American serviceman of German descent. His paternal grandfather Leonard had emigrated to America from Germany in the 1880s. In Cleveland, Leonard met Emilie Krausse who had emigrated from Danzig, then part of Germany. They married and settled in Pasadena. He worked as a carpenter, setting up his own very successful construction company. The couple had four children, including Henry, Charles Bukowski's father.

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Charlie Rich
Charles (Charlie) Rich (December 14, 1932 – July 25, 1995) was an American country music singer and musician. A Grammy Award winner, his eclectic-style of music was often hard to classify in a single genre, playing in the rockabilly, jazz, blues, country, and gospel genres.
In the latter part of his life, Rich acquired the nickname The Silver Fox. He is perhaps best remembered for a pair of 1973 hits, "Behind Closed Doors" and "The Most Beautiful Girl". "The Most Beautiful Girl" topped the U.S. country singles charts, as well as the pop singles charts.
Though he resided in Benton, Arkansas, most of his life, Rich was born in Colt, Arkansas, to rural cotton farmers. His professional musical career began while he was in the U.S. Air Force in the early 1950s. His first musical group, the Velvetones, played jazz and blues and featured his fiancée, Margaret Ann, on lead vocals. Rich left the military in 1955 and tried to farm five acres in Tennessee. He also began performing in clubs around the Memphis area, playing both jazz and R&B. It was during these hard times that he began writing his own material.

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Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre. After a slow start, he began to achieve success in the 1920s, and by the 1930s he was one of the major songwriters for the Broadway musical stage. Unlike most successful Broadway composers, Porter wrote both the lyrics and the music for his songs.
After a serious horseback riding accident in 1937, Porter was left disabled and in constant pain, but he continued to work. His shows of the early 1940s did not contain the lasting hits of his best work of the 1920s and 30s, but in 1948 he made a triumphant comeback with his most successful musical, Kiss Me, Kate.
Porter's other musicals include Fifty Million Frenchmen, DuBarry Was a Lady, Anything Goes and Can-Can, and his numerous hit songs include "Night and Day", "I Get a Kick out of You", "Well, Did You Evah!" and "I've Got You Under My Skin". He also composed scores for films from the 1930s to the 1950s. He was noted for his sophisticated, suggestive lyrics, clever rhymes and complex forms.

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Crystal Gayle
Crystal Gayle (born Brenda Gail Webb on January 9, 1951) is an American country music singer best known for her 1977 country-pop hit, "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue". An award-winning singer, she accumulated 20 number one country hits during the 1970s and 1980s (18 #1's on Billboard and 2 on Cashbox). Also famous for her nearly floor-length hair she was voted one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world by People Magazine in 1983. She is the youngest sister (by 19 years) of singer Loretta Lynn and a distant cousin of singer Patty Loveless. Crystal Gayle has a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, near Loretta Lynn's star.
Brenda Gail Webb was born in Paintsville, Kentucky to Melvin "Ted" Webb (1906–1959) and Clara Marie (Ramey) Webb (1912–1981). The youngest of eight children of a poor family, she was the only child born in hospital. Her family moved north to Wabash, Indiana when she was four. She sang along with country and pop songs on the radio, and though a shy child, she was encouraged by her mother to sing for visitors to the house. Inspired by her sister Loretta Lynn's success, she learned to play the guitar and sing backup in her brothers' folk band. While still in high school, she began to tour with her sister for a few weeks each summer.

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Daniel Johnston
Daniel Dale Johnston (born January 22, 1961) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and artist. Johnston was the subject of the 2006 documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston. He currently lives in Waller, Texas.
Johnston has been diagnosed with manic depression and schizophrenia which has been a recurring problem throughout his life.
Johnston was born in Sacramento, California, and grew up in the northern panhandle of West Virginia between Ohio and Pennsylvania near Chester and New Cumberland, West Virginia. He began recording music in the late 1970s on a $59 Sanyo monaural Boombox, singing and playing piano and chord organ. Following graduation from Oak Glen High School, Johnston spent a few weeks at Abilene Christian University in West Texas, but soon dropped out. Later he attended the East Liverpool branch of Kent State University.
Johnston's musical work gained some notoriety when he moved to Austin, Texas. Johnston began to attract the attention of the local press and gain a following augmented in numbers by his habit of handing out tapes to people he met. Live performances were well-attended and hotly anticipated.

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Denzel Washington
Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. (born December 28, 1954) is an American actor, screenwriter, director, and film producer. He first rose to prominence when he joined the cast of the medical drama, St. Elsewhere, playing Dr. Philip Chandler for six years. He has received much critical acclaim for his work in film since the 1990s, including for his portrayals of real-life figures, such as Steve Biko, Malcolm X, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Melvin B. Tolson, Frank Lucas and Herman Boone.
Washington has received two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe awards, and a Tony Award. He is notable for winning the Best Supporting Actor for Glory in 1989; and the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2001 for his role in the film Training Day.
Denzel Washington was born in Mount Vernon, near New York City, New York on December 28, 1954. His mother, Lennis "Lynne", was a beauty parlor-owner and operator born in Georgia and partly raised in Harlem. His father, Reverend Denzel Hayes Washington, Sr., a native of Buckingham County, Virginia, served as an ordained Pentecostal minister, and also worked for the Water Department and a local department store, S. Klein.

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Drew McWeeny
Drew McWeeny (born May 26, 1970 ), also known by his pseudonym Moriarty, is a film critic, screenwriter, and the former west coast editor of the Ain't It Cool News website. In a December 2008 review of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, McWeeny announced that he would be leaving Ain't It Cool News to work for HitFix.com.
He attended, but did not graduate from, Florida State University, instead choosing to focus on a career in entertainment in Los Angeles. He has two sons, Toshiro Lucas McWeeny, born in 2005 and Allen Miles McWeeny, born in 2008. He includes his sons in his work on the Motion/Captured blog under the subheading Film Nerd 2.0, chronicling how he introduces them to notable cinema works and individuals.
McWeeny was the subject of controversy in 1999 when a screenplay he had co-written was favorably reviewed by Harry Knowles on the website "Ain't It Cool News". In reviewing the script, Knowles did not disclose that McWeeny was a regular contributor to the website under the name "Moriarty". Film Threat magazine would later accuse Knowles of lacking journalistic integrity. At the time McWeeny was working as a closed caption editor at VITAC.

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Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola ( /ˈkoʊpələ/ KOH-pə-lə; born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors. He epitomized the group of filmmakers known as the New Hollywood, that includes Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, Robert Altman, Woody Allen, William Friedkin, Philip Kaufman, and George Lucas who emerged in the early 1970s with unconventional ideas that challenged contemporary film-making.
He co-wrote the script for Patton (1970), which won an Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay). His directorial fame escalated with the release of The Godfather (1972), a film which revolutionized movie-making in the gangster genre, earning praise from critics and public alike. It won three Academy Awards, including his second, for Academy Award for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), and was instrumental in cementing his position as a prominent American film director.
Coppola followed it with a critically successful sequel, The Godfather Part II (1974), which became the first sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. The film was highly praised and won him three Academy Awards—for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture. The Conversation, which Coppola directed, produced and wrote, was released that same year, winning the Palme d'Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival. He next directed Apocalypse Now (1979); notorious for its overlong and strenuous production, but critically acclaimed for its vivid and stark depiction of the Vietnam War, winning the Palme d'Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival. To this day, Coppola is one of only seven filmmakers to win two Palme d'Or awards, and is the only filmmaker to win both in the same decade.

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Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra, /sɨˈnɑːtrə/, (December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and film actor.
Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the "bobby soxers", he released his first album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra in 1946. His professional career had stalled by the 1950s, but it was reborn in 1953 after he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in From Here to Eternity.
He signed with Capitol Records in 1953 and released several critically lauded albums (such as In the Wee Small Hours, Songs for Swingin' Lovers, Come Fly with Me, Only the Lonely and Nice 'n' Easy). Sinatra left Capitol to found his own record label, Reprise Records in 1961 (finding success with albums such as Ring-a-Ding-Ding!, Sinatra at the Sands and Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim), toured internationally, was a founding member of the Rat Pack and fraternized with celebrities and statesmen, including John F. Kennedy. Sinatra turned 50 in 1965, recorded the retrospective September of My Years, starred in the Emmy-winning television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music, and scored hits with "Strangers in the Night" and "My Way".

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Frank Vicari
Frank Vicari (died New York City, October 20, 2006) was a New York-based jazz saxophonist.
After serving in the Air Force from 1951–55, where he played in various service bands, Vicari returned to New York City and played in various bands until he joined Maynard Ferguson's big band in 1960. When the Ferguson band was dismantled in 1965, Vicari briefly joined Buddy Rich but that same year joined Woody Herman and his Thundering Herd and remained until 1970.
Closely associated with New York's vibrant music scene of the 70s and 80s, Vicari frequently played alongside fellow NY-based session and studio musicians such as Steve Gadd, Mike Mainieri, Randy and Michael Brecker, etc.
Among the many artists and groups Vicari played and/or recorded with are Dave Matthews, the White Elephant Orchestra, George Benson, Tony Bennett, Dionne Warwick, Billy Eckstein, Tom Waits, John Lennon, Woody Herman, and the Saturday Night Live Band.
With George Benson
With Art Farmer
With Urbie Green

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Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, recording engineer, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. Zappa produced almost all of the more than 60 albums he released with the band The Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. While in his teens, he acquired a taste for percussion-based avant-garde composers such as Edgard Varèse and 1950s rhythm and blues music. He began writing classical music in high school, while at the same time playing drums in rhythm and blues bands; he later switched to electric guitar.
He was a self-taught composer and performer, and his diverse musical influences led him to create music that was often impossible to categorize. His 1966 debut album with The Mothers of Invention, Freak Out!, combined songs in conventional rock and roll format with collective improvisations and studio-generated sound collages. His later albums shared this eclectic and experimental approach, irrespective of whether the fundamental format was one of rock, jazz or classical. His lyrics—often humorously—reflected his iconoclastic view of established social and political processes, structures and movements. He was a strident critic of mainstream education and organized religion, and a forthright and passionate advocate for freedom of speech, self-education, political participation and the abolition of censorship.

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Gary Sinise
Gary Alan Sinise ( /səˈniːs/; born March 17, 1955) is an American actor, film director and musician. During his career, Sinise has won various awards including an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1992, Sinise directed, and played the role of George Milton in the successful film adaptation of Of Mice and Men. Sinise was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1994 for his role as Lt. Dan Taylor in Forrest Gump. He won a Golden Globe Award for his role in Truman, as Harry S. Truman. In 1996, he played a corrupt police officer in the dramatic hit Ransom, Detective Jimmy Shaker. In 1998, Sinise was awarded an Emmy Award for the television film George Wallace, a portrayal of the late George C. Wallace. Since 2004, Sinise has starred in CBS's CSI: NY as Detective Mac Taylor.
Sinise was born in Blue Island, Illinois, the son of Mylles S. (née Alsip; b. 1932) and Robert L. Sinise (b. 1931), the latter of whom was a film editor. He is of part Italian ancestry (from his paternal grandfather). He attended Highland Park High School in Highland Park, Illinois. In 1974, Sinise and two friends, Terry Kinney and Jeff Perry, founded the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Since its founding, Steppenwolf has showcased the talents of such notable actors as Joan Allen, Kevin Anderson, Gary Cole, Ethan Hawke, Glenne Headly, John Mahoney, John Malkovich, Laurie Metcalf, Martha Plimpton, Jim True-Frost and most recently William Petersen. At Steppenwolf, Sinise honed his acting and directing skills, received a Joseph Jefferson Award for his direction of Lyle Kessler's play Orphans, that took him from Chicago, to New York City to London's West End, and worked on more than thirty of the company's productions.

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Gavin Bryars
Richard Gavin Bryars (born 16 January 1943) is an English composer and double bassist. He has been active in, or has produced works in, a variety of styles of music, including jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, historicism, experimental music, avant-garde and neoclassicism.
Born in Goole, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, Bryars initially studied philosophy at Sheffield University before studying music for three years.
The first musical work for which he is remembered was his role as bassist in the trio Joseph Holbrooke, alongside guitarist Derek Bailey and drummer Tony Oxley. The trio began by playing relatively traditional jazz before moving into free improvisation. However, Bryars became dissatisfied with this when he saw a young bassist (later revealed to be Johnny Dyani) play in a manner which seemed to him to be artificial, and he became interested in composition instead.
Bryars's first works as a composer owe much to the New York School of John Cage (with whom he briefly studied), Morton Feldman, Earle Brown and minimalism. One of his earliest pieces, The Sinking of the Titanic (1969), is an indeterminist work which allows the performers to take a number of sound sources related to the sinking of the RMS Titanic and make them into a piece of music. The first recording of this piece appeared on Brian Eno's Obscure Records in 1975. The 1994 recording of this piece was remixed by Aphex Twin as Raising the Titanic (later collected on the 26 Mixes for Cash album).

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Georg Büchner
Karl Georg Büchner (17 October 1813 – 19 February 1837) was a German dramatist and writer of poetry and prose. He was the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Büchner. Büchner's talent is generally held in great esteem in Germany. It is widely believed that, but for his early death, he might have attained the significance of such central German literary figures as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller.
Born in Goddelau near Darmstadt, Hesse-Darmstadt, the son of a doctor, Büchner attended a Humanist secondary school that focused on modern languages, including French, Italian, and English. Nevertheless Büchner studied medicine in Strasbourg.
In 1828 he became interested in politics and joined a circle of William Shakespeare aficionados which later on probably became the Gießen and Darmstadt section of the "Gesellschaft für Menschenrechte" (Society for Human Rights). In Strasbourg, he immersed himself in French literature and political thought.

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George Gershwin
George Gershwin (September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known. Among his best known works are the orchestral compositions Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris, as well as the opera Porgy and Bess.
Born in Brooklyn to a Ukrainian father of Jewish descent and a Russian mother, Gershwin studied piano under Charles Hambitzer and composition with Rubin Goldmark and Henry Cowell. He began his career as a song plugger, but soon thereafter started composing Broadway theatre works with his brother Ira Gershwin and Buddy DeSylva. He moved to Paris in an attempt to study with Nadia Boulanger, where he began to compose An American in Paris. After returning to New York City, he wrote Porgy and Bess with Ira and author DuBose Heyward. Initially a commercial failure, Porgy and Bess is now considered one of the most important American operas of the Twentieth Century. Gershwin moved to Hollywood and composed numerous film scores until his death in 1937 from a brain tumor.

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Glenn Frey
Glenn Lewis Frey (pronounced Fry; born November 6, 1948) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and actor, best known as a founding member of the Eagles. Frey formed the Eagles after he met drummer Don Henley in 1970 and the two eventually joined Linda Ronstadt's backup band for her summer tour. The Eagles formed in 1971 and released their debut album in 1972. Glenn Frey would play guitar with the Eagles as well as piano and keyboards, and shared lead vocals with Don Henley. The Eagles broke up in 1980 after becoming one of the most successful bands of all time. Frey sang lead vocals on many Eagles hits such as "Take It Easy", "Peaceful Easy Feeling", "Tequila Sunrise", "Already Gone", "Lyin' Eyes", "New Kid in Town", and "Heartache Tonight". After the breakup of the Eagles in 1980, Frey embarked on a successful solo career. He released his debut album in 1982 and would go on to record such Top 40 hits like "The One You Love", "Smuggler's Blues", "Sexy Girl", "The Heat Is On", and "You Belong to the City". As a member of the Eagles, Frey has won six Grammys, and five American Music Awards. The Eagles have sold over 120 million albums worldwide and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. As a solo artist and with the Eagles combined, Frey has released 24 Top 40 singles on the Billboard Hot 100.

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Greg Cohen
Greg Cohen is a jazz bassist. He is perhaps best known for his work with John Zorn's Masada quartet; more recently he has been touring with Ornette Coleman, and performed on Coleman's much-praised Sound Grammar album. He has also often played traditional jazz, including work with Ken Peplowski, Kenny Davern and the filmmaker/clarinettist Woody Allen. He has worked with many musicians, including Tom Waits, David Byrne, and Elvis Costello.
His bass playing credits include work with artists such as Dagmar Krause, David Sanborn, Susana Baca, Gal Costa, Marisa Monte, Laurie Anderson, Willie Nelson, Bill Frisell, Norah Jones, Dave Douglas, Tricky, Jesse Harris, Keith Richards and Charlie Watts, Joey Baron, Donovan, Crystal Gayle, Bob Dylan, Alan Watts, Lee Konitz, Richie Havens, Dino Saluzzi, Lou Reed, Marianne Faithfull, Odetta, Danny Barker, Tim Sparks, and Antony and the Johnsons.
In August/September 2006 he was musical director of the Century of Song series at the German arts festival RuhrTriennale. He invited songwriters and performers such as David Byrne, Holly Cole and Laurie Anderson.

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Hank Williams III
Shelton Hank Williams, also known as Hank Williams III and Hank 3 (born December 12, 1972), is a singer, drummer, bassist, and guitarist. In addition to his honky tonk recordings, Williams' style alternates between country, punk and metal. He is the principal member of the punk metal band Assjack, the drummer for the Southern hardcore punk band Arson Anthem, and was the bassist for Pantera singer Phil Anselmo's band Superjoint Ritual. He has released seven studio albums, including five for Curb Records. Williams is the grandson of country music legend Hank Williams and the son of Hank Williams Jr.. Williams has dabbled in feature length films, most notably a small role in the famous Mark Wahlberg film "Shooter".
Hank spent much of his early career playing drums in punk rock bands during the late 1980s and early to mid 1990s. Williams signed a contract with Nashville, Tennessee, music industry giant Curb Records. Three Hanks: Men With Broken Hearts was issued shortly thereafter, which spliced together recordings to make it seem that three generations of Williams men were singing alongside one another. In the late 1980s, upon first meeting Hank Williams III, Minnie Pearl, a friend of the late Hank Williams Sr., reportedly said "Lord, honey, you're a ghost," as she was astonished by his striking resemblance to his grandfather.

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Harry Partch
Harry Partch (June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974) was an American composer and instrument creator. He was one of the first twentieth-century composers to work extensively and systematically with microtonal scales, writing much of his music for custom-made instruments that he built himself, tuned in 11-limit (43-tone) just intonation.
Partch was born on June 24, 1901 in Oakland, California soon after his parents, both Presbyterian missionaries, fled the Boxer Rebellion in China. He spent his childhood in small, remote towns in Arizona and New Mexico, where he heard and sang songs in Mandarin, Spanish, and American Indian languages.
As a child, he learned to play the clarinet, harmonium, viola, piano, and guitar. He began to compose at an early age, using the equal-tempered chromatic scale, the tuning system most common in Western music. However, Partch grew frustrated with what he felt were imperfections of the standard system of musical tuning, believing that this system was unsuitable for reflecting the subtle melodic contours of dramatic speech and, as a result, he burned all of his early works.

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Heath Ledger
Heath Andrew Ledger (4 April 1979 – 22 January 2008) was an Australian television and film actor. After performing roles in Australian television and film during the 1990s, Ledger left his homeland for the United States in 1998 to develop his film career. His work comprised nineteen films, including 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), The Patriot (2000), A Knight's Tale (2001), Brokeback Mountain (2005), and The Dark Knight (2008). In addition to acting, he produced and directed music videos and aspired to be a film director.
For his portrayal of Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain, Ledger won the 2005 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor and the 2006 "Best Actor" award from the Australian Film Institute and was nominated for the 2005 Academy Award for Best Actor as well as the 2006 BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. Posthumously he shared the 2007 Independent Spirit Robert Altman Award with the rest of the ensemble cast, the director, and the casting director for the film I'm Not There, which was inspired by the life and songs of American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. In the film, Ledger portrayed a fictional actor named Robbie Clark, one of six characters embodying aspects of Dylan's life and persona. Ledger received numerous accolades for his critically acclaimed portrayal of the Joker in The Dark Knight, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, a Best Actor International Award at the 2008 Australian Film Institute Awards, for which he became the first actor to win an award posthumously, the 2008 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor, the 2009 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and the 2009 BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor.

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Henry Mancini
Enrico Nicola "Henry" Mancini (April 16, 1924 – June 14, 1994) was an American composer, conductor and arranger, best remembered for his film and television scores. He won a record number of Grammy Awards (20), plus a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 1995. His best-known works include the jazz-idiom theme to The Pink Panther film series ("The Pink Panther Theme"), the Peter Gunn Theme from the television series, and back-to-back Academy Awards for the songs "Moon River" from the Blake Edwards film Breakfast at Tiffany's and "Days of Wine and Roses" from Edwards' film Days of Wine and Roses. He also composed the score of famous films such as Charade, The Great Race, Wait Until Dark or Silver Streak.
Mancini was born in the Little Italy neighborhood of Cleveland, and grew up near Pittsburgh, in the steel town of West Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. His parents emigrated from the Abruzzo region of Italy. Mancini's father, Quinto, (born March 13, 1893, Scanno, Italy) was a steelworker, who made his only child begin piccolo lessons at the age of eight. When Mancini was 12 years old, he began piano lessons. Quinto and Henry played flute together in the Aliquippa Italian immigrant band, "Sons of Italy". After graduating from Aliquippa High School in 1942, Mancini attended the renowned Juilliard School of Music in New York. In 1943, after roughly one year at Juilliard, his studies were interrupted when he was drafted into the United States Army. In 1945, he participated in the liberation of a concentration camp in southern Germany.

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Herb Cohen
Herbert "Herb" Cohen (December 30, 1932 – March 16, 2010) was an American personal manager, record company executive, and music publisher, best known as the manager of Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, and many other Los Angeles-based musicians in the 1960s and 1970s.
Cohen was born in New York. After a period in the army in 1952, he moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1950s, and started to put on concerts with folk singers such as Pete Seeger and Odetta. He began running coffee bars and folk clubs, such as The Unicorn and Cosmo Alley, during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
He began acting as manager for many artists, his eventual roster including Screamin' Jay Hawkins, George Duke, Alice Cooper, Tom Waits, Tim Buckley, Lenny Bruce, and Linda Ronstadt. He also managed the all girl band Fanny in the late 1960s and got them signed to Warner Bros. after a performance at The Troubadour.^{[citation needed]} He was best known as the manager of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention from 1965, arranging their first club dates and, after encouraging record producer Tom Wilson to see them perform, securing their first record deal. He and Zappa went on to set up and jointly own the Straight, Bizarre, and DiscReet Records labels. After a ten year association, he and Zappa parted company amid litigation in 1976. Zappa claimed that Cohen and his brother were profiting unduly from his earnings, and Cohen countersued, claiming that Zappa had taken his album Zoot Allures to a rival record label contrary to a contract between them.

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Holly Cole
Holly Cole (born November 25, 1963 in Halifax, Nova Scotia) is a Canadian jazz singer, particularly popular in Canada and Japan for both her versatile and distinctive voice, along with her adventurous repertoire, which spans such divergent genres as show tunes, rock, and country music.
In 1983, Cole travelled to Toronto to seek a musical career. In 1986, she founded a trio with bassist David Piltch and pianist Aaron Davis. Offered a record deal in 1989, the Holly Cole Trio released an EP, Christmas Blues, that year, which featured a version of The Pretenders' "2,000 Miles." This was followed by their first full album, Girl Talk, in 1990.
A succession of releases followed through the early 1990s. For example, 1991's Blame It On My Youth, covered songs by Tom Waits ("Purple Avenue," aka "Empty Pockets"), Lyle Lovett ("God Will"), includes show tunes such as "If I Were a Bell" (from Guys and Dolls) and "On the Street Where You Live" (from My Fair Lady), and even remakes "Trust In Me," from Disney's The Jungle Book, into a strikingly sultry and sinister song of seduction and death. Also recorded in this period was a reinterpretation of Elvis Costello's "Alison."

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Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop (born James Newell "Jim" Osterberg, Jr.; April 21, 1947) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though considered an innovator of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues. Pop became known as 'Iggy' in high school, during which time he served as drummer for local blues band The Iguanas. He is vocalist of influential protopunk band The Stooges (Pop and the other surviving members of the group reunited in 2003), having become known, since the late 1960s, for his outrageous and unpredictable stage antics.
Though the singer's popularity has waned and waxed throughout his career, Pop has recorded a number of well-known songs, including "Lust for Life", "Real Wild Child", "I Wanna Be Your Dog," "Candy" (a duet with Kate Pierson of The B-52's), "China Girl", "Nightclubbing", "Search and Destroy", and "The Passenger". The Stooges were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010
Iggy Pop (AKA Iggy Stooge) was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the son of Louella (née Christensen) and James Newell Osterberg, Sr., a former high school English teacher and baseball coach at Fordson High School in Dearborn, Michigan. Osterberg was raised in a trailer park in Ypsilanti, Michigan. He is of Irish and English descent on his father's side, and of Norwegian and Danish ancestry on his mother's. His father was adopted by a Swedish American family and took on their surname (Österberg).

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Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin (May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989) was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history. He published his first song, "Marie from Sunny Italy", in 1907 and had his first major international hit, "Alexander's Ragtime Band" in 1911.
"Alexander's Ragtime Band" sparked an international dance craze in places as far away as Berlin's native Russia, which also "flung itself into the ragtime beat with an abandon bordering on mania." Over the years he was known for writing music and lyrics in the American vernacular: uncomplicated, simple and direct, with his aim being to "reach the heart of the average American" whom he saw as the "real soul of the country."
He wrote hundreds of songs, many becoming major hits, which made him "a legend" before he turned thirty. During his 60-year career he wrote an estimated 1,500 songs, including the scores for 19 Broadway shows and 18 Hollywood films, with his songs nominated eight times for Academy Awards. Many songs became popular themes and anthems, including "Easter Parade", "White Christmas", "Happy Holiday", "This is the Army, Mr. Jones", and "There's No Business Like Show Business". His Broadway musical and 1942 film, This is the Army, with Ronald Reagan, had Kate Smith singing Berlin's "God Bless America" which was first performed in 1938. Smith still performed the song on her 1960 CBS television series, The Kate Smith Show. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, Celine Dion recorded it as a tribute, making it #1 on the charts.

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Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Kerouac ( /ˈkɛruːæk/ or /ˈkɛrɵæk/; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969) was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic spirituality, jazz, promiscuity, Buddhism, drugs, poverty, and travel. His writings have inspired other writers, including Ken Kesey, Bob Dylan, Richard Brautigan, Curtis Meanor, Morrissey, Thomas Pynchon,Lester Bangs, Tom Robbins, Will Clarke, Ben Gibbard, Haruki Murakami, Jacquelyn Landgraf.^{[citation needed]} Kerouac became an underground celebrity and, with other beats, a progenitor of the hippie movement, although he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements. In 1969, at age 47, Kerouac died from internal bleeding due to long-standing abuse of alcohol. Since his death Kerouac's literary prestige has grown and several previously unseen works have been published. All of his books are in print today, among them: On the Road, Doctor Sax, The Dharma Bums, Mexico City Blues, The Subterraneans, Desolation Angels, Visions of Cody and Big Sur.

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Jack Nicholson
Not to be confused with Nicholas Jackson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. His twelve Oscar nominations make him the second most nominated actor of all time, behind only Meryl Streep, and tied with Katharine Hepburn.
Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and for As Good as It Gets. He also won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the 1983 film Terms of Endearment. He is tied with Walter Brennan for most acting wins by a male actor (three). Nicholson is well known for playing villainous roles such as Jack Torrance in The Shining, Frank Costello in The Departed, and the Joker in 1989's Batman, among many other roles.
Nicholson is one of only two actors who have been nominated for an Academy Award for acting in every decade from the 1960s to 2000s; the other is Michael Caine. He has won seven Golden Globe Awards, and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2001. In 1994, he became one of the youngest actors to be awarded the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award. Notable films in which he has starred include Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Passenger, The Shining, Reds, Terms of Endearment, Batman, A Few Good Men, As Good as It Gets, About Schmidt, The Departed and Anger Management .

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Jackson Browne
Clyde Jackson Browne (born October 9, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has sold over 17 million albums in the United States alone.
Coming to prominence in the 1970s, Browne has written and recorded several notable songs throughout his career including "These Days", "The Pretender", "Running On Empty", "Lawyers in Love", "Doctor My Eyes", "Take It Easy", "For a Rocker", and "Somebody's Baby". In 2004, he was both inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, and bestowed an Honorary Doctorate of Music by Occidental College in Los Angeles, California.
Browne was born in Heidelberg, Germany, where his father, an American serviceman, was stationed. Browne's mother, Beatrice Amanda (née Dahl), was a Minnesota native of Norwegian ancestry. Browne has three siblings: Roberta "Berbie" Browne who was born in 1946 in Nuernberg, Germany (Nuremberg) and Edward Severin Browne who was born in 1949 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. His younger sister, Gracie Browne, was born a number of years later. Browne moved to the Highland Park district of Los Angeles, California, at the age of 3 and in his teens began singing folk music in local venues like the Ash Grove and The Troubador Club. He attended Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton, California, graduating in 1966.

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Jake LaMotta
Giacobbe "Jake" LaMotta (born July 10, 1921), nicknamed "The Bronx Bull" and "The Raging Bull," is an American retired professional boxer and former World Middleweight Champion. He was portrayed by Robert De Niro in the 1980 film Raging Bull.
LaMotta is an Italian-American born in New York City in the borough of the Bronx. He was forced by his father into fighting other children to entertain neighborhood adults, who threw pocket change into the ring. LaMotta's father collected the money and used it to help pay the rent. His cousin was the inventor Richard LaMotta.
In 1941, at the age of 19, LaMotta turned professional. During World War II, he was rejected for military service because of a mastoid operation on one of his ears.
LaMotta went 14-0-1 (3 KOs) as a middleweight in his first fifteen bouts before losing a highly controversial split decision to Jimmy Reeves in Reeves' hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. Chaos erupted after the decision was announced. Fights broke out around the ring and the crowd continued to boo for 20 minutes. The arena's organist tried to calm down the crowd by playing the Star Spangled Banner.

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Jamie Lee Curtis
Jamie Lee Curtis (born November 22, 1958) is an American actress and author. Although she was initially known as a "scream queen" because of her starring roles in several horror films early in her career, such as Halloween, The Fog, Prom Night, and Terror Train, Curtis has since compiled a body of work that spans many genres, and has won BAFTA and Golden Globe awards. Her 1998 book, Today I Feel Silly, and Other Moods That Make My Day, made the best-seller list in The New York Times. Curtis has appeared in advertisements, and is a blogger for The Huffington Post online newspaper. She is married to actor, screenwriter, and director Christopher Guest.
Curtis was born in Santa Monica, California, to actor Tony Curtis and actress Janet Leigh. Her paternal grandparents were Hungarian Jewish immigrants and two of her maternal great-grandparents were Danish. Curtis's parents divorced in 1962, after which her mother married Robert Brandt. Curtis has an older sister, Kelly Curtis, who is also an actress, and several half-siblings (all from her father's remarriages), Alexandra, Allegra, Ben, and Nicholas Curtis (who died in 1994 of a drug overdose). Curtis attended Westlake School in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills High School, and graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall. Returning to California in 1976, she attended the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. She considered majoring in social work, but quit after one semester to pursue an acting career.

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Jerry Yester
Jerry Yester (born 9 January 1943, Birmingham, Alabama) is an American folk rock musician, record producer, and arranger.
Growing up in Burbank, California, Yester formed a duo with brother Jim Yester, the Yester Brothers, and starting playing folk clubs in Los Angeles in 1960. While Jim was in the army, Jerry joined first The New Christy Minstrels, and then, in 1963, the Modern Folk Quartet. The MFQ issued two folk-pop albums in the next two years, and Yester also branched out into other recordings, playing piano on the Lovin' Spoonful's "Do You Believe in Magic?" in 1965.
The MFQ split up in 1966, and Yester began work as a solo artist and as a producer, with his wife Judy Henske, his brother Jim's band The Association, The Turtles, and Tim Buckley, for whom he produced Goodbye and Hello and Happy Sad. The following year he joined the Lovin’ Spoonful, replacing Zal Yanovsky, for whom he also later worked as producer, but soon afterwards the Spoonful split up for some years. In 1969, Henske, Yester and Yanovsky put together the cult album Farewell Aldebaran, on which Yester played nearly a dozen different instruments. The following year Yester and Henske formed a new band, Rosebud, but the band dissolved in 1971; the couple then divorced.

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Jim Jarmusch
James R. "Jim" Jarmusch ( /ˈdʒɑrməʃ/; born January 22, 1953) is an American independent film director, screenwriter, actor, producer, editor and composer. Jarmusch has been a major proponent of independent cinema, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s.
The key, I think, to Jim, is that he went gray when he was 15 ... As a result, he always felt like an immigrant in the teenage world. He's been an immigrant – a benign, fascinated foreigner – ever since. And all his films are about that.
Jarmusch was born to a family of middle-class suburbanites in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio in 1953. His mother, of Irish and German descent, had been a reviewer of film and theatre for the Akron Beacon Journal before marrying his father, a businessman of Czech and German descent who worked for the B.F. Goodrich Company. She introduced the future director, the middle of three children, to the world of cinema by leaving him at a local cinema to watch matinee double features such as Attack of the Crab Monsters and Creature From the Black Lagoon while she ran errands. The first adult film he recalls having seen was the 1958 cult classic Thunder Road (starring Robert Mitchum) the violence and darkness of which left an impression on the seven-year-old Jarmusch. Another B-movie influence from his childhood was Ghoulardi, an eccentric Cleveland television show which featured horror films.

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John Malkovich
John Gavin Malkovich (born December 9, 1953) is an American actor, producer, director and fashion designer with his label Technobohemian. Over the last 25 years of his career, Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award nominations. He has also appeared in critically acclaimed films such as Empire of the Sun, The Killing Fields, Dangerous Liaisons, Of Mice and Men, Con Air, Being John Malkovich, and Red. He will produce the film version of the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
Malkovich was born in Christopher, Illinois. His paternal grandparents were Croats, natives of Ozalj in Croatia. His mother was of Scottish and German ancestry. He grew up in Benton, Illinois, in a large house on South Main Street. His father, Daniel Leon Malkovich, was a state conservation director and publisher of Outdoor Illinois, a conservation magazine. His mother, Joe Anne (née Choisser), owned the Benton Evening News (a local newspaper in Benton, Il.), as well as Outdoor Illinois. Malkovich attended Logan Grade School,^{[citation needed]} Webster Junior High, and Benton Consolidated High School, in Benton, Illinois. During his high school years, he appeared in various plays and the musical, Carousel. He was also a member of a folk/rock musical trio, and was a member of a local summer theater/comedy project in Benton in 1972, where he co-starred in Jean-Claude van Itallie's America Hurrah. Upon graduation from high school, he entered Eastern Illinois University, and then transferred to Illinois State University, where he majored in theatre.

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Johnny Mercer
John Herndon "Johnny" Mercer (November 18, 1909 – June 25, 1976) was an American lyricist, songwriter and singer. He is best known as a lyricist, but he also composed music. He was also a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as those written by others. From the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s, many of the songs Mercer wrote and performed were among the most popular hits of the time. He wrote the lyrics to more than fifteen hundred songs, including compositions for movies and Broadway shows. He received nineteen Academy Award nominations, and won four. Mercer was also a co-founder of Capitol Records.
Mercer was born in Savannah, Georgia. His father, George Anderson Mercer, was a prominent attorney and real estate developer, and his mother, Lillian Elizabeth (née Ciucevich), George Mercer’s secretary and then second wife, was the daughter of Croatian-Irish immigrants who came to America in the 1850s. Lillian's father was a merchant seaman who ran the Union blockade during the U.S. Civil War. Mercer was George's fourth son, first by Lillian. His great-grandfather was Confederate General Hugh Weedon Mercer and he was a direct descendant of American Revolutionary War General Hugh Mercer, a Scottish soldier-physician who died at the Battle of Princeton. Mercer was also a distant cousin of General George S. Patton. The construction of Mercer House in Savannah was started by General Hugh Weedon Mercer in 1860 (although never finished by him; the next owners of the house finished it), later the home of Jim Williams, whose trial for murder was the centerpiece of John Berendt's book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, although neither the General nor Johnny ever lived there.

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Kathleen Brennan
Kathleen Brennan is an American musician, songwriter, record producer and artist. She was born in Johnsburg, Illinois, as noted by her husband and musical collaborator Tom Waits, in the song of the same name. Brennan and Waits met in 1980 during the filming of the Francis Ford Coppola film One from the Heart. Waits was composing the original soundtrack for the film, while Brennan worked at the film's studio, named American Zoetrope, as a script analyst.
Waits said in a March 31, 1998 radio interview with Chris Douridas on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic: "We met on New Year's Eve at a party in Hollywood. I was leaving the next day. I was moving to New York City and I was never coming back here to the Los Angeles area ever again. That was what I said. But I'd said that before. So we met on New Year's and then I left. I was gone for about four months and then I got a call to do One from the Heart. I came back and I got a little office with a piano in it and I was writing songs and Kathleen was working at Zoetrope. She was a story analyst. Somebody told her to go down and knock on my door and she did and I opened the door and there she was and that was it. That was it for me. Love at first sight. Love at second sight." They were married on August 10, 1980, reportedly at the Always Forever Wedding Chapel, open 24 hours a day.

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Kathy Bates
Kathleen Doyle "Kathy" Bates (born June 28, 1948) is an American actress and film director. After appearing in several minor roles in film and television during the 1970s and the 1980s, Bates rose to prominence with her performance in Misery (1990), for which she won both the Academy Award for Best Actress and a Golden Globe. She followed this with major roles in Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) and Dolores Claiborne (1995), before playing a featured role as Margaret "Molly" Brown in Titanic (1997). During this time, she began her directing career, primarily in television.
Bates received a Tony Award nomination for her 1983 performance in the Broadway play 'night, Mother. She won a Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance in Primary Colors (1998), for which she also received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for About Schmidt (2002). Her television work has resulted in nine Emmy Award nominations. Diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2003, Bates has stated that she has made a full recovery.

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Keith Richards
Keith Richards (born 18 December 1943) is an English musician and songwriter, and a founder member of The Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards has created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and has named him the 4th greatest guitarist of all time. Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting partner Mick Jagger, The Rolling Stones' lead vocalist, are listed among Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Richards' notoriety for illicit drug use stems in part from several drug busts during the late 1960s and 1970s.
Keith Richards is the only child of Bert Richards and Doris Dupree Richards. He was born at Livingston Hospital in Dartford, Kent. His father was a factory worker injured in World War II during the Normandy invasion.
Richards' paternal grandparents were socialists and civic leaders whose family originated from Wales. His maternal grandfather, Augustus Theodore Dupree, who toured Britain with a jazz big band, "Gus Dupree and his Boys", fostered Richards' interest in guitar.

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Ken Nordine
Ken Nordine (born April 13, 1920) is an American voiceover and recording artist best known for his series of Word Jazz albums. His deep, resonant voice has also been featured in many commercial advertisements and movie trailers. One critic wrote that "you may not know Ken Nordine by name or face, but you'll almost certainly recognize his voice."
The son of Theresia and Nore S. Nordine, a contractor, Ken Nordine was born in Cherokee, Iowa. The family later moved to Chicago, where he attended Lane Technical College Prep High School and the University of Chicago. He has three sons with his wife Beryl whom he married in 1945. During the 1940s, he was heard on The World's Great Novels and other radio programs broadcast from Chicago. He attracted wider attention when he recorded the aural vignettes on Word Jazz (Dot, 1957). Word Jazz, Son of Word Jazz (Dot, 1958) and his other albums in this vein feature Nordine's narration over cool jazz by the Chico Hamilton jazz group, recording under the alias of Fred Katz, who was then the cellist with Hamilton's quintet.

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Kevin Bacon
Kevin Norwood Bacon (born July 8, 1958) is an American film and theater actor whose notable roles include Animal House, Diner, Footloose, Flatliners, Wild Things, A Few Good Men, JFK, Apollo 13, Hollow Man, Mystic River, The Woodsman, Friday the 13th, Tremors, Death Sentence, Frost/Nixon, and X-Men: First Class.
Bacon has won Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards, was nominated for an Emmy Award, and was named by The Guardian as one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.
In 2003, Bacon received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Bacon, one of six children, was born and raised in a close-knit family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His mother, Ruth Hilda (née Holmes; 1916–1991), taught at an elementary school and was a liberal activist, while his father, Edmund Norwood Bacon (May 2, 1910 – October 14, 2005), was a well-respected architect and a prominent Philadelphian who had been Executive Director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission for many years. At 16, in 1975, Bacon won a full scholarship to and attended the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts at Bucknell University, a state-funded five-week arts program where he studied Theatre under Dr. Glory Van Scott, which helped solidify Bacon's passion for the arts.

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Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill (March 2, 1900 – April 3, 1950) was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht. With Brecht, he developed productions such as his most well known work The Threepenny Opera, a Marxist critique of capitalism, which included the ballad "Mack the Knife". Weill was a socialist^{[unreliable source?]} who held the ideal of writing music that served a socially useful purpose. He also wrote a number of works for the concert hall, as well as several Judaism-themed pieces.
Kurt Julian Weill was born on March 2, 1900, the third of four children to Albert Weill (1867–1950) and Emma Weill née Ackermann (1872–1955). He grew up in a religious Jewish family in the "Sandvorstadt", the Jewish quarter in Dessau, Germany, where his father was a cantor. At the age of twelve, Kurt Weill started taking piano lessons and made his first attempts at writing music; his earliest preserved composition was written in 1913 and is titled Mi Addir. Jewish Wedding Song.

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Larry Taylor
Larry Taylor (born Samuel Taylor; June 26, 1942) is an American bass guitarist, best known for his work as a member of Canned Heat from 1967. Before joining Canned Heat he had been a session bassist for The Monkees and Jerry Lee Lewis. He is the younger brother of Mel Taylor, long-time drummer for The Ventures.
Taylor was born in New York, New York. His mother was Jewish and his father was a "WASP" from Tennessee. Taylor played bass guitar in The Gamblers, one of the first rock groups to play instrumental surf music. Its personnel also included Elliot Ingber, a future member of Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention, Fraternity of Man and Captain Beefheart's The Magic Band; Bruce Johnston, half of the Bruce and Terry duo with Terry Melcher from 1962-66 and longtime "sixth" member of The Beach Boys, for a time brother Mel Taylor, and guitarist-songwriter-bandleader Derry Weaver, who would record and perform in several capacities during the early 1960s. The Gamblers had a local hit in the Los Angeles area with "Moon Dawg" and Taylor played on the recording.

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Les Claypool
Leslie Edward "Les" Claypool (born September 29, 1963) is an American musician and writer, best known as the lead vocalist and bassist in the band Primus. Claypool's playing style on the electric bass mixes tapping, flamenco-like strumming, whammy bar bends and slapping.
Claypool has also self produced and engineered his solo releases from his own studio "Rancho Relaxo". 2006 saw the release of a full-length feature film Electric Apricot written and directed by Claypool as well as a debut novel South of the Pumphouse.
Claypool was born September 29, 1963 in Richmond, California, but was raised in El Sobrante, California in a working class family with a history of working as auto mechanics. A close family friend, Rhys Hickman, taught him the basics of the slap bass technique, which he mastered throughout his educational period. His early education included Collins Elementary School and De Anza High School, where he was a personal friend of Kirk Hammett.
In 1986, after the death of Metallica bassist Cliff Burton, school friend Kirk Hammett encouraged Claypool to audition for Metallica as Burton's successor. In Metallica's Behind the Music, Claypool said that he jokingly asked the others if they wanted to "jam on some Isley Brothers tunes" during the audition, a reference to his little experience of the thrash metal scene. James Hetfield remarked that Claypool was not awarded the job because "he was too good" and "should do his own thing." Claypool would later admit that he wouldn't have fit in with the band and "would've looked like a freak". The bass slot was instead given to Jason Newsted, who played with Metallica until his departure in 2001. For several years before forming Primus, Claypool worked as a carpenter in El Sobrante. Claypool has cited Larry Graham, Chris Squire, Tony Levin, Geddy Lee, Paul McCartney, Geezer Butler, Bootsy Collins, Stanley Clarke, John Paul Jones, and Sting as his musical influences.

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Leslie Bricusse
Leslie Bricusse (born 29 January 1931) is an English composer, lyricist, and playwright.
Although best known for his partnership with Anthony Newley, Bricusse has worked with many other composers. He was educated at University College School in London and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge University, he was Secretary of Footlights between 1952 and 1953 and Footlights President during the following year. He currently lives in California in the United States, and he is married to the actress Yvonne Romain.
Sammy Davis, Jr. had hits with two of Bricusse's songs - "What Kind of Fool Am I?" (from Stop the World - I Want to Get Off) and the #1 hit "The Candy Man" (from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory). Other recording artists who have had popular success with his songs include Matt Monro and Frank Sinatra ("My Kind of Girl"), Shirley Bassey ("Goldfinger"), Harry Secombe ("If I Ruled the World"), Nancy Sinatra ("You Only Live Twice"), Maureen McGovern ("Can You Read My Mind"), and Diana Krall ("When I Look in Your Eyes"). Bricusse also partnered with George Tipton to write the opening theme of the U.S. television series It's a Living.

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Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson ( /ˈtʃɑrlz ˈlʌtwɪdʒ ˈdɒdʒsən/ CHARLZ LUDT-wij DOJ-sən; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll (/ˈkærəl/ KARR-əl), was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the Snark" and "Jabberwocky", all examples of the genre of literary nonsense. He is noted for his facility at word play, logic, and fantasy, and there are societies dedicated to the enjoyment and promotion of his works and the investigation of his life in many parts of the world, including the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, and New Zealand.
Dodgson's family was predominantly northern English, with Irish connections. Conservative and High Church Anglican, most of Dodgson's ancestors were army officers or Church of England clergy. His great-grandfather, also named Charles Dodgson, had risen through the ranks of the church to become the Bishop of Elphin. His grandfather, another Charles, had been an army captain, killed in action in Ireland in 1803 when his two sons were hardly more than babies. His mother's name was Frances Jane Lutwidge.

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Lord Buckley
Lord Richard Buckley (Richard Myrle Buckley; April 5, 1906 - November 12, 1960, New York City) was an American stage performer, recording artist, monologist, and hip poet/comic. Buckley's unique stage persona never found more than a cult audience during his life, but anticipated aspects of the Beat Generation sensibility, and influenced figures as various as Bob Dylan, Ken Kesey, George Harrison, Tom Waits and Dizzy Gillespie.
Born to English immigrants in Tuolumne, California, Buckley's earliest years are unclear, although he's referred to as an "ex-lumberjack". By the mid-1930s he was performing as emcee in Chicago at Leo Seltzer's dance marathons at the Chicago Coliseum, and worked his own club, Chez Buckley, on Western Avenue through the early 1940s. During World War II Buckley performed extensively for armed services on USO tours, where he formed a lasting friendship with Ed Sullivan.
In the 1950s Buckley hit his stride with a combination of his exaggeratedly aristocratic bearing (including waxed mustache, tuxedo and pith helmet) and carefully enunciated rhythmic hipster slang. Occasionally performing to music, he punctuated his monologues with scat singing and sound effects. His most significant tracks are retelling of historical or legendary events, like "My Own Railroad" and "The Nazz". The latter, first recorded in 1952, describes Jesus' working profession as "carpenter kitty." Other historical figures include Gandhi ("The Hip Gahn") and the Marquis de Sade ("The Bad-Rapping of the Marquis de Sade, the King of Bad Cats"). He retold several classic documents such as the Gettysburg Address and a version of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven." In "Mark Antony's Funeral Oration", he recast Shakespeare's "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears" as "Hipsters, flipsters and finger-poppin' daddies: knock me your lobes."

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Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana.
Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an "inventive" cornet and trumpet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the music's focus from collective improvisation to solo performance. With his instantly recognizable deep and distinctive gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also greatly skilled at scat singing (vocalizing using sounds and syllables instead of actual lyrics).
Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over," whose skin-color was secondary to his music in an America that was severely racially divided. It allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society that were highly restricted for a black man. While he rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, he was privately a strong supporter of the Civil Rights movement in America.^{[citation needed]}

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Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot ( /ˈriːboʊ/; born May 21, 1954) is an American guitarist and composer.
His own work has touched on many styles, including no wave, free jazz, and Cuban music. Ribot is also known for collaborating with other musicians, most notably Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and composer John Zorn.
Ribot was born in Newark, New Jersey. He has worked extensively as a session guitarist. He has performed and recorded with Tom Waits, John Zorn, David Sylvian, Jack McDuff, Wilson Pickett, The Lounge Lizards, Arto Lindsay, T-Bone Burnett, Medeski, Martin and Wood, Cibo Matto, Elysian Fields, Sam Phillips, Elvis Costello, David Poe, Allen Ginsberg, Foetus, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Susana Baca, The Black Keys, Stan Ridgway, Vinicio Capossela, Alain Bashung, Lyenn, Hector Zazou, McCoy Tyner, Elton John, Madeline Peyroux, Marianne Faithfull, Leonid Fedorov, Tonio K, Andres Calamaro, Anarchist Republic of Bzzz and others.
Ribot's earliest session work was featured on Tom Waits' Rain Dogs (1985) and helped define Waits' new musical direction. Ribot worked with Waits on many of his following albums including Franks Wild Years (1987), Mule Variations (1999), Real Gone (2004) and Bad as Me (2011). He has appeared on Elvis Costello's Spike, Mighty Like a Rose (1991), and Kojak Variety (1995). Ribot has appeared on numerous recordings by John Zorn, including many of Zorn's Filmworks recordings, solo performances on Zorn's Masada Guitars (also featuring Bill Frisell and Tim Sparks), and is a member of Zorn's Bar Kokhba Sextet and Electric Masada . Ribot's first two albums featured The Rootless Cosmopolitans, followed by an album of works by Frantz Casseus for solo guitar. Further releases found him working in a variety of band and solo contexts including two albums with his self-described "dance band", Marc Ribot y Los Cubanos Postizos (The Prosthetic Cubans), featuring compositions by Arsenio Rodríguez.

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Martin McDonagh
Martin McDonagh (born 26 March 1970) is a London-born Irish playwright, filmmaker, and screenwriter. Although he has lived in England his entire life, he is considered one of the most important living Irish playwrights.
McDonagh was born in Camberwell, London, England to Irish parents. His mother (originally from Killeenduff, Easky, County Sligo) and his father (originally from Lettermullen, Connemara, County Galway) later moved back to Galway, leaving Martin and his brother (writer-director John Michael McDonagh) to grow up in London.
He was awarded Critics' Circle Theatre Awards for Most Promising Playwright in 1996. Separated into two trilogies, McDonagh’s first six plays are located in and around County Galway, where he spent his holidays as a child. The first is set in Leenane, a small village on the west coast of Ireland, and consists of The Beauty Queen of Leenane (1996), A Skull in Connemara (1997) and The Lonesome West (1997). His second trilogy consists of The Cripple of Inishmaan (1997), The Lieutenant of Inishmore (2001) and The Banshees of Inisheer (which was never published, as McDonagh insisted it "isn't any good"), scattered across a trio of islands just off the coast of County Galway. His first non-Irish play, The Pillowman, is set in a fictitious totalitarian state, and premiered at the National Theatre in 2003, having been presented in a rehearsed reading in Galway in 1997. He has also penned two prize-winning radio plays, including The Tale of the Wolf and the Woodcutter.

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Meat Loaf
Michael Lee Aday (born Marvin Lee Aday; September 27, 1947), better known by his stage name, Meat Loaf, is an American hard rock musician and actor. He is noted for the Bat Out of Hell album trilogy consisting of Bat Out of Hell, Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell and Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose. Bat Out of Hell has sold more than 43 million copies. After more than 30 years, it still sells an estimated 200,000 copies annually and stayed on the charts for over nine years, making it one of the best selling albums of all time.
Although he enjoyed success with Bat Out of Hell and Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell and earned a Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Solo for the song "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" on the latter album, Meat Loaf experienced some initial difficulty establishing a steady career within his native US. However, he has retained iconic status and popularity in Europe, especially the UK, where he ranks 23rd for the number of weeks overall spent on the charts. He ranked 96th on VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock".

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Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television, and film. She is widely regarded as one of the most talented actors of all time.
Streep made her professional stage debut in The Playboy of Seville (1971), before her screen debut in the television movie Deadliest Season (1977). In that same year, she made her film debut with Julia (1977). Both critical and commercial success came quickly with roles in The Deer Hunter (1978) and Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), the former giving Streep her first Academy Award nomination and the latter her first win. She later won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in Sophie's Choice (1982) and The Iron Lady (2011).
Streep has received 17 Academy Award nominations, winning three, and 26 Golden Globe nominations, winning eight, more nominations than any other actor in the history of either award. Her work has also earned her two Emmy Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Cannes Film Festival award, five New York Film Critics Circle Awards, two BAFTA awards, an Australian Film Institute Award, five Grammy Award nominations, and a Tony Award nomination, amongst others. She was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2004 and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2009 for her contribution to American culture through performing arts, the youngest actress in each award's history.

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Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Often referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records. His contribution to music, dance, and fashion, along with a much-publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades. The seventh child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene along with his brothers as a member of The Jackson 5 in 1964, and began his solo career in 1971.
In the early 1980s, Jackson became a dominant figure in popular music. The music videos for his songs, including those of "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Thriller", were credited with transforming the medium into an art form and a promotional tool, and the popularity of these videos helped to bring the relatively new television channel MTV to fame. Videos such as "Black or White" and "Scream" made him a staple on MTV in the 1990s. Through stage performances and music videos, Jackson popularized a number of complicated dance techniques, such as the robot and the moonwalk, to which he gave the name. His distinctive musical sound and vocal style influenced numerous hip hop, post-disco, contemporary R&B, pop and rock artists.

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Mose Allison
Mose John Allison, Jr. (born November 11, 1927, Tippo, Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, United States) is an American jazz blues pianist and singer.
Allison played piano in grammar school and trumpet in high school. He went to college at the University of Mississippi for a while, then enlisted in the U.S. Army for two years. Fresh out of the Army, he enrolled at Louisiana State University, from which he was graduated in 1952 with a BA in English with a minor in Philosophy. It was at that point that he moved to New York City and launched his jazz career performing with artists such as Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, and Phil Woods. His debut album, Back Country Suite, was issued on the Prestige label in 1957. He formed his own trio in 1958.
It was not until 1963 that his record label allowed him to release an album entirely of vocals. Entitled Mose Allison Sings, it was an inspired collection of songs that paid tribute to artists of the Mojo Triangle: Sonny Boy Williamson ("Eyesight to the Blind"), Jimmie Rodgers ("That's All Right") and Willie Dixon ("The Seventh Son"). However, it was an original composition in the album that brought him the most attention, "Parchman Farm." For more than two decades, "Parchman Farm" was his most requested song. He dropped it from his playlist in the 1980s because some critics felt it was politically incorrect. Explained Allison to Nine-O-One Network Magazine: "I don't do the cotton sack songs much anymore. You go to the Mississippi Delta and there are no cotton sacks. It's all machines and chemicals.".

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Neil Young
Neil Percival Young,OC,OM (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation.
Young began performing as a solo artist in Canada in 1960, before moving to California in 1966, where he co-founded the band Buffalo Springfield along with Stephen Stills and Richie Furay, and later joined Crosby, Stills & Nash as a fourth member in 1969. He forged a successful and acclaimed solo career, releasing his first album in 1968; his career has since spanned over 40 years and 34 studio albums, with a continual and uncompromising exploration of musical styles. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website describes Young as "one of rock and roll’s greatest songwriters and performers". He has been inducted into the Hall of Fame twice: first as a solo artist in 1995, and second as a member of Buffalo Springfield in 1997.
Young's work is characterized by his distinctive guitar work, deeply personal lyrics and signature alto or high tenor singing voice. Although he accompanies himself on several different instruments, including piano and harmonica, his idiosyncratic electric and clawhammer acoustic guitar playing are the defining characteristics of a varyingly ragged and melodic sound. While Young has experimented with differing music styles, including swing and electronic music throughout a varied career, his best known work usually falls into two primary styles: acoustic (folk and country rock) and electric (amplified hard rock, very often in collaboration with the band Crazy Horse). Young has also adopted elements from newer styles such as alternative rock and grunge. His influence on the latter caused some to dub him the "Godfather of Grunge".

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Norwegian American
Norwegian Americans (Norwegian: norskamerikanere) are Americans of Norwegian descent. Norwegian immigrants went to the United States primarily in the later half of the 19th century and the first few decades of the 20th century. There are more than 4.5 million Norwegian Americans according to the most recent U.S. census, and most live in the Upper Midwest. Norwegian Americans currently comprise the 10th largest American ancestry group.
Norsemen from Greenland and Iceland were the first Europeans to reach North America. Leif Ericson reached North America via Norse settlements in Greenland around the year 1000. Norse settlers from Greenland founded the settlement of L'Anse aux Meadows in Vinland, in what is now Newfoundland, Canada. These settlers failed to establish a permanent settlement.
There was a Norwegian presence in New Amsterdam (New York after 1664) in the early part of 17th century. Hans Hansen Bergen, a native of Bergen, Norway, was one of the earliest settlers of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam having immigrated in 1633. Another of the first Norwegian settlers was Albert Andriessen Bradt who arrived in New Amsterdam in 1637. Pieter Van Brugh, Mayor of Albany, New York was the grandson of Norwegian immigrants. His mother's parents were Roelof Janse (1602–1637), born in Marstrandsön, a small island situated in Båhuslen province in Norway (it was ceded to Sweden in 1658) and Anneke Jans (1605–1663), born on Flekkerøy, an island situated outside the town of Kristiansand, Vest-Agder county, Norway.

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Peter Matthiessen
Peter Matthiessen (born May 22, 1927, in New York City) is a three-time National Book Award-winning American novelist and non-fiction writer, as well as an environmental activist. His nonfiction has featured nature and travel, as in The Snow Leopard (1978). Or American Indian issues and history, as in his detailed study of the Leonard Peltier case, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (1983). His story "Travelin' Man" was adapted by Luis Buñuel as the film The Young One (1960).
Matthiessen received the National Book Award for Fiction in November 2008, at age 81, for Shadow Country, an 890-page revision of three novels set in frontier Florida that were published in the 1990s. For The Snow Leopard he won the 1979 Award in category Contemporary Thought and the 1980 Award in category Nonfiction (paperback).
Along with George Plimpton, Harold L. Humes, Thomas Guinzburg and Donald Hall, in 1953 Matthiessen founded the literary magazine The Paris Review. At the time he was working for the CIA.
In 1959, Mathiessen published the first edition of Wildlife in America, a history of the extinction and endangerment of animal and bird species as a consequence of human settlement, throughout North American history, and of the human effort to protect endangered species. It was one of the first books to call attention to climate change (then called global warming), by mentioning that polar ice cap formation caused the lowering of the seas, and that the isthmus Mongoloid people crossed from Asia to present-day Alaska (North America's first human immigration) is now submerged by the Bering Strait.

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Phil Phillips
This article is about the singer; for others with the same name, see Philip Phillips (disambiguation).
Phil Phillips (born Philip Baptiste, March 14, 1926, Lake Charles, Louisiana) is an American singer and songwriter, best known for his 1959 hit, "Sea of Love".
Philip Baptiste was encouraged to pursue a career as a singer after a school performance of a song called "Sweet Slumber". He performed with his brothers in a gospel group called the Gateway Quartet and worked as a bellhop before he recorded "Sea of Love" in 1959.
The song was arranged and produced by Eddie Shuler for neighbor George Khoury's Khoury Records. After three months of work on the arrangement, building up the vocal group and trying out different musicians, the song was ready for release. Baptiste changed his name to Phil Phillips, and dubbed his backing vocalists The Twilights. After a Baton Rouge disc jockey played the song repeatedly, the recording sold heavily and was leased to Mercury Records.
"Sea of Love" went to #2 in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 pop chart and spent 14 weeks in the top 40, as well as reaching #1 on the R&B chart. In 1959 it sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. Nonetheless, Phillips was paid only $6800, and received no further royalties for the song or its recording.

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Philip Baker Hall
Philip Baker Hall (born September 10, 1931) is an American actor.
Hall was born in Toledo, Ohio, the son of a factory worker father who was from Montgomery, Alabama. He attended the University of Toledo. As a younger man, Hall served in the military, started a family, and became a high school English teacher. In 1961, he decided to become an actor. He moved to New York, enjoying success in Off Broadway and Broadway productions.
In 1975, Hall moved to Los Angeles to make a career in television. Since then, he has had over 200 guest roles on television shows.
He starred in many films, including Robert Altman's Secret Honor in which he played the film's only role, Richard Nixon. Hall got his first high-profile film role when Paul Thomas Anderson wrote a role in his film Hard Eight, specifically for Hall. Hall went on to have roles in two of Anderson's subsequent films, Boogie Nights and Magnolia. He also had a minor role as Captain Diel in the Rush Hour trilogy (though his scenes were cut from the theatrical release of Rush Hour 2).

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Philip Glass
Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer. One of the highest profile composers writing "classical" music today, he is often said to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. His music is also often controversially described as minimalist, along with the work of the other "major minimalists" La Monte Young, Terry Riley and Steve Reich.
He has lately distanced himself from the "minimalist" label, describing himself instead as a composer of "music with repetitive structures." Though his early mature music shares much with what is normally called "minimalist", he has since evolved stylistically. Currently, he describes himself as a "Classicist", pointing out that he is trained in harmony and counterpoint and studied such composers as Franz Schubert, Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with Nadia Boulanger.
Glass is a prolific composer: he has written works for the musical group which he founded, the Philip Glass Ensemble (with which he still performs on keyboards), as well as operas, musical theatre works, ten symphonies, eleven concertos, solo works, chamber music including string quartets and instrumental sonatas, and film scores. Three of his film scores have been nominated for Academy Awards.

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Ralph Carney
Ralph Carney (born January 23, 1956, Akron, Ohio) is an American musician. While his primary instruments are various saxophones and clarinets, Carney collects and plays many instruments, often unusual or obscure ones.
He was a founding member of Tin Huey, and is perhaps best known for his long association with singer Tom Waits. He has also recorded or performed with Dieselhed, Marc Ribot, The B-52's, Elvis Costello, Jonathan Richman, Les Claypool, Stan Ridgway, Medeski, Martin & Wood, Jed Davis and Bill Laswell, among others. Carney has released several solo albums and was a member of the Oranj Symphonette with fellow Waits alumni Joe Gore and Matt Brubeck. He also heads up San Francisco's Carneyball Johnson, playing on saxophones, Turkish clarinet, piccolo, trumpet, percussion and vocals. The band also features Channel 23 alumnus Kimo Ball on guitar and vocals; Scott Johnson on drums and vocals; and Allen Whitman on bass and vocals.
Ralph is the uncle of The Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney and collaborated with them on their album Attack & Release. He occasionally joined them on stage when they toured that record. He toured with They Might Be Giants, in the fall of 2009. He recorded and performed with Black Francis in 2008 a score for the Silent film Der Golem, he guested with Yo La Tengo and Medeski Martin & Wood for live shows in 2010 and 2011. He recorded on a T-Bone Burnett-produced project the Ghost Brothers of Darkland County with Marc Ribot and Elvis Costello—it has yet to be released. He performed on many Hal Willner-produced shows at UCLA's Royce Hall including a Tribute to Harry Smith in 2001, with a huge number of performers including Todd Rundgren, Phillip Glass, and David Johanson.

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Ramones
The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first punk rock group. Despite achieving only limited commercial success, the band was a major influence on the punk rock movement both in the United States and the United Kingdom.
All of the band members adopted pseudonyms ending with the surname "Ramone", though none of them were related. They performed 2,263 concerts, touring virtually nonstop for 22 years. In 1996, after a tour with the Lollapalooza music festival, the band played a farewell concert and disbanded. Little more than eight years after the breakup, the band's three founding members—lead singer Joey Ramone, guitarist Johnny Ramone, and bassist Dee Dee Ramone—had died.
Their only record with enough U.S. sales to be certified gold was the compilation album Ramones Mania. However, recognition of the band's importance built over the years, and they are now cited in many assessments of all-time great rock music, such as the Rolling Stone list of the 50 Greatest Artists of All Time and VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock. In 2002, the Ramones were ranked the second-greatest band of all time by Spin magazine, trailing only The Beatles. On March 18, 2002, the Ramones—including the three founders and drummers Tommy and Marky Ramone—were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2011, the group was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

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Randy Newman
Randall Stuart "Randy" Newman (born November 28, 1943) is an American singer-songwriter,arranger, composer, and pianist who is known for his mordant (and often satirical) pop songs and for film scores.
Newman often writes lyrics from the perspective of a character far removed from his own experiences, sometimes using the point of view of an unreliable narrator. For example, the 1972 song "Sail Away" is written as a slave trader's sales pitch to attract slaves, while the narrator of "Political Science" is a U.S. nationalist who complains of worldwide ingratitude toward America and proposes a brutally ironic final solution. One of his biggest hits, "Short People" was written from the perspective of "a lunatic" who hates short people. Since the 1980s, Newman has worked mostly as a film composer. His film scores include Ragtime, Awakenings, The Natural, Leatherheads, James and the Giant Peach, Meet the Parents, Cold Turkey, Seabiscuit and The Princess and the Frog. He has scored six Disney-Pixar films: Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Cars and most recently Toy Story 3.

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Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004), known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records. He also helped racially integrate country and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, most notably with his Modern Sounds albums. While with ABC, Charles became one of the first African-American musicians to be given artistic control by a mainstream record company.Frank Sinatra called Charles “the only true genius in show business.”
The influences upon his music were mainly jazz, blues, rhythm and blues and country artists of the day such as Art Tatum, Nat King Cole, Louis Jordan, Charles Brown, Louis Armstrong. His playing reflected influences from country blues and barrelhouse, and stride piano styles.
Rolling Stone ranked Charles number ten on their list of "100 Greatest Artists of All Time" in 2004, and number two on their November 2008 list of "100 Greatest Singers of All Time". In honoring Charles, Billy Joel noted: "This may sound like sacrilege, but I think Ray Charles was more important than Elvis Presley. I don't know if Ray was the architect of rock & roll, but he was certainly the first guy to do a lot of things . . . Who the hell ever put so many styles together and made it work?"

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Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. (May 25, 1938 – August 2, 1988) was a short story writer and poet. Carver was a major writer of the late 20th century and a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s.
Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon, a mill town on the Columbia River, and grew up in Yakima, Washington. His father, a skilled sawmill worker from Arkansas, was a fisherman and a heavy drinker. Carver's mother worked on and off as a waitress and a retail clerk. His one brother, James Franklin Carver, was born in 1943.
Carver was educated at local schools in Yakima, Washington. In his spare time he read mostly novels by Mickey Spillane or publications such as Sports Afield and Outdoor Life and hunted and fished with friends and family. After graduating from Yakima High School in 1956, Carver worked with his father at a sawmill in California. In June 1957, aged 19, he married 16-year-old Maryann Burk, who had just graduated from a private Episcopal school for girls. Their daughter, Christine La Rae, was born in December 1957. When their second child, a boy named Vance Lindsay, was born the next year, Carver was 20. Carver supported his family by working as a janitor, sawmill laborer, delivery man, and library assistant. During their marriage, Maryann worked as a waitress, salesperson, administrative assistant, and high school English teacher.

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Renfield
R. M. Renfield is a fictional character and the secondary antagonist of Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula.
A description of Renfield from the novel:
R. M. Renfield, aetat 59. Sanguine temperament, great physical strength, morbidly excitable, periods of gloom, ending in some fixed idea which I cannot make out. I presume that the sanguine temperament itself and the disturbing influence end in a mentally-accomplished finish, a possibly dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish. In selfish men, caution is as secure an armour for their foes as for themselves. What I think of on this point is, when self is the fixed point the centripetal force is balanced with the centrifugal. When duty, a cause, etc., is the fixed point, the latter force is paramount, and only accident or a series of accidents can balance it. — From Dr. John Seward's journal
He is an inmate at the lunatic asylum overseen by Dr. John Seward. He suffers from delusions which compel him to eat living creatures in the hope of obtaining their life-force for himself. He starts by consuming flies, then develops a scheme of feeding the flies to spiders, and the spiders to birds, in order to accumulate more and more life. When denied a cat to accommodate the birds, he eats the birds himself. He also changes his ideas to accommodate Mina Harker by quickly eating all flies and stating that it was an old habit. Doctor John Seward diagnoses him as a "zoophagous maniac".

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Rickie Lee Jones
Rickie Lee Jones (born November 8, 1954) is an American vocalist, musician, songwriter, and producer. Over the course of a five-decade career, Jones has recorded in various musical styles including rock, R&B, blues, pop, soul, and jazz standards. Her songwriting has been characterized as "a blend of bravado and vulnerability [that] wavers on indefinable borders." She is also known for her unique singing style, especially in live performances. One concert reviewer, describing her rendering of "We Belong Together," states she "reached her apex, skating from swells into near screams into breathy whispers, from pontillist stacatto scats into brassy, trumpetlike bursts."
In 1999, Jones was listed at #30 in the VH1 list of 100 greatest women of rock.
Rickie Lee Jones was born on the north side of Chicago to Bettye and Richard Jones. Her paternal grandfather, Frank 'Peg Leg' Jones, and her grandmother, Myrtle Lee, a dancer, were Vaudevillians based in Chicago, Illinois. A singer/dancer/comedian, Peg Leg Jones' routine consisted of playing the ukelele, singing ballads, and telling stories. One of four children, her father was a WW2 veteran. A singer, song writer, painter, and trumpet player, Mr. Jones worked as a waiter. Her mother, Bettye, was raised in orphanages in Ohio with her three brothers until she was old enough to leave. Bettye and Richard met in a drug store coffee shop. Rickie Lee was born the third child of four, in Chicago, 1954.

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Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman (February 20, 1925 – November 20, 2006) was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.
His films MASH (1970), McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), and Nashville (1975) have been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
Altman was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of Helen (née Matthews), a Mayflower descendant from Nebraska, and Bernard Clement Altman, a wealthy insurance salesman and amateur gambler, who came from an upper-class family. Altman's ancestry was German, English and Irish; his paternal grandfather, Frank Altman, Sr., anglicized the spelling of the family name from "Altmann" to "Altman". Altman had a Catholic upbringing, but he did not continue to practice as a Catholic as an adult, although he has been referred to as "a sort of Catholic" and a Catholic director. He was educated at Jesuit schools, including Rockhurst High School, in Kansas City. He graduated from Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri in 1943.

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Robert Frank
Robert Frank (born November 9, 1924, Zürich), is an important figure in American photography and film. His most notable work, the 1958 photobook titled The Americans, was influential, and earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his fresh and skeptical outsider's view of American society. Frank later expanded into film and video and experimented with manipulating photographs and photomontage.
Frank was born to a wealthy Jewish family in Switzerland. His mother, Rosa, was Swiss, but his father, Hermann, had become stateless after World War I and had to apply for the Swiss citizenship of Frank and his older brother, Manfred. Though Frank and his family remained safe in Switzerland during World War II, the threat of Nazism nonetheless affected his understanding of oppression. He turned to photography, in part as a means to escape the confines of his business-oriented family and home, and trained under a few photographers and graphic designers before he created his first hand-made book of photographs, 40 Fotos, in 1946. Frank emigrated to the United States in 1947, and secured a job in New York City as a fashion photographer for Harper's Bazaar. He soon left to travel in South America and Europe. He created another hand-made book of photographs that he shot in Peru, and returned to the U.S. in 1950. That year was momentous for Frank, who, after meeting Edward Steichen, participated in the group show 51 American Photographers at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA); he also married fellow artist Mary Frank née Mary Lockspeiser, with whom he had two children, Andrea and Pablo.

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Robert Plant
Robert Anthony Plant, CBE (born 20 August 1948) is an English singer and songwriter best known as the vocalist and lyricist of the iconic rock band Led Zeppelin. He has also had a successful solo career. In 2007, Plant released Raising Sand, an album produced by T-Bone Burnett with American bluegrass soprano Alison Krauss, which won the 2009 Grammy Award for Album of the Year at the 51st Grammy Awards.
With a career spanning more than 40 years, Plant is regarded as one of the most significant singers in the history of rock music, and has influenced contemporaries and later singers such as Freddie Mercury and Axl Rose. In 2006, heavy metal magazine Hit Parader named Plant the "Greatest Metal Vocalist of All-Time". In 2009, Plant was voted "the greatest voice in rock" in a poll conducted by Planet Rock. In 2011, a Rolling Stone readers' pick placed Plant in first place of the magazine's "Best Lead Singers of All Time".
Plant was born in the Black Country town of West Bromwich (then in Staffordshire now in West Midlands) to parents Robert C. who worked as a civil engineer and Annie C. (Cain) Plant, but grew up in Kidderminster, in Worcestershire. Plant gained an interest in singing and rock and roll music at an early age.

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Robert Quine
Robert Wolfe Quine (December 30, 1942 – May 31, 2004) was an American guitarist, known for his innovative guitar solos.
A native of Akron, Ohio, Quine worked with a wide range of musicians, though he himself remained relatively unknown in comparison. Critic Mark Demming writes "Quine's eclectic style embraced influences from jazz, rock, and blues players of all stripes, and his thoughtful technique and uncompromising approach led to rewarding collaborations with a number of visionary musicians."
His collaborators included Richard Hell & the Voidoids, Lou Reed (notably on The Blue Mask), Brian Eno (on Nerve Net), John Zorn, Ikue Mori, Marc Ribot, Marianne Faithfull (Strange Weather), Lloyd Cole, Tom Waits (Rain Dogs), Matthew Sweet, Odds, Jody Harris (Escape), and many more, including a rare 7" by Lester Bangs.
Rock critic and friend Lester Bangs once said of him:
Someday Quine will be recognized for the pivotal figure that he is on his instrument — he is the first guitarist to take the breakthroughs of early Lou Reed and James Williamson and work through them to a new, individual vocabulary, driven into odd places by obsessive attention to On the Corner-era Miles Davis.

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Roberto Benigni
Roberto Remigio Benigni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (Italian pronunciation: [roˈbɛrto beˈniɲi]; born 27 October 1952) is an Academy Award winning Italian actor, comedian, screenwriter and director of film, theatre and television.
Benigni was born in Manciano La Misericordia (a frazione of Castiglion Fiorentino), Italy, the son of Isolina Papini, a fabric inspector, and Remigio Benigni, a bricklayer, carpenter, and farmer. He was raised Catholic and served as an altar boy. His first experiences as a theatre actor took place in 1971, in Prato. During that autumn he moved to Rome where he took part in some experimental theatre shows, some of which he also directed. In 1975, Benigni had his first theatrical success with Cioni Mario di Gaspare fu Giulia, written by Giuseppe Bertolucci.
Benigni became famous in Italy in the 1970s for a shocking TV series called Onda Libera, on RAI2, by Renzo Arbore, in which he interpreted the satirical piece "anthem of the nimble body" (L'inno del corpo sciolto, a hymn to defecation).^{[citation needed]} A great scandal for the time, the series was suspended due to censorship. His first film was 1977's Berlinguer ti voglio bene, also by Bertolucci.

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Rod Stewart
Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE (born 10 January 1945) is a British singer-songwriter, born and raised in North London, England, and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry.
With his distinctive raspy singing voice, Stewart came to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s with The Jeff Beck Group and then Faces. He launched his solo career in 1969 with his debut album An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down (US: The Rod Stewart Album). His work with The Jeff Beck Group and Faces influenced heavy metal genres.
With his career in its fifth decade, Stewart has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best selling artists of all time. In the UK, he has had six consecutive number one albums, and his tally of 62 hit singles include 31 that reached the top 10, six of which gained the number one position. He has had 16 top ten singles in the U.S, with four of these reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked him the 17th most successful artist on the "The Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists". He was voted at #33 in Q Magazine's list of the top 100 Greatest Singers of all time, and #59 on Rolling Stone 100 Greatest Singers of all time. As a solo artist, Stewart was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, and was inducted a second time, as a member of Faces, in April 2012.

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Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson (born November 22, 1984) is an American actress, model and singer.
Johansson made her film debut in North (1994) and was later nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead for her performance in Manny & Lo (1996). She rose to further prominence with her roles in The Horse Whisperer (1998) and Ghost World (2001). She shifted to adult roles with her performances in Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) and Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation (2003), for which she won a BAFTA award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Both films earned her Golden Globe Award nominations.
A role in A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004) earned Johansson a third Golden Globe for Best Actress nomination. Johansson garnered another Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress with her role in Woody Allen's Match Point (2005). She went on to star in two further Allen movies: Scoop (2006) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). Johansson has appeared in other successful films, such as Christopher Nolan's The Prestige (2006). Johansson played popular Marvel comic book character Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff in the films Iron Man 2 (2010) and The Avengers (2012).

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Shelly Manne
Shelly Manne (June 11, 1920 – September 26, 1984), born Sheldon Manne in New York City, was an American jazz drummer. Most frequently associated with West Coast jazz, he was known for his versatility and also played in a number of other styles, including Dixieland, swing, bebop, avant-garde jazz and fusion, as well as contributing to the musical background of hundreds of Hollywood films and television programs.
Manne's father and uncles were drummers. In his youth he admired many of the leading swing drummers of the day, especially Jo Jones and Dave Tough.Billy Gladstone, a colleague of Manne's father and the most admired percussionist on the New York theatrical scene, offered the teenage Shelly tips and encouragement. From that time, Manne rapidly developed his style in the clubs of 52nd Street in New York in the late 1930s and 1940s. His first professional job with a known big band was with the Bobby Byrne Orchestra in 1940. In those years, as he became known, he recorded with jazz stars like Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Shavers, and Don Byas. He also worked with a number of musicians mainly associated with Duke Ellington, like Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney, Lawrence Brown, and Rex Stewart.

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Skip Spence
Alexander Lee "Skip" Spence (April 18, 1946 – April 16, 1999) was a Canadian-born American musician and singer-songwriter. He was co-founder of Moby Grape, and played guitar with them until 1969. He released one solo album, 1969's Oar, and then largely withdrew from the music industry. He had started his career as a guitarist in an early line-up of Quicksilver Messenger Service, and was the drummer on Jefferson Airplane's debut album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. He has been described on the Allmusic website as "one of psychedelic rock's brightest lights"; however, his career was plagued by drug addictions coupled with mental health problems, and he has been described by a biographer as a man who "neither died young nor had a chance to find his way out."
Alexander "Skip" Spence was born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada in 1946. His father was a machinist. The family relocated to San Jose, California in the late 1950s, based on his father finding work in the aircraft industry. At the age of ten, Spence was given his first guitar by his parents.

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Solomon Burke
Solomon Burke (March 21, 1940 – October 10, 2010) was an American singer-songwriter, entrepreneur, mortician, and an archbishop of the United House of Prayer For All People. Burke was known as "King Solomon," the "King of Rock 'n' Soul," and as the "Bishop of Soul," and described as "the Muhammad Ali of soul," and as "the most unfairly overlooked singer of soul's golden age." Burke was "the founding father of what was defined as soul music in America in the 1960s," and "a major architect of 1960s soul, infusing post-World War II R&B with [his] gospel roots." and "a key transitional figure bridging R&B and soul," Burke's "sound was a bold merger of orchestrated sophistication and countryish, down-home grit, and his best singles built a Gothic sense of drama and heartbreak. These tracks bridged the gap between the more mannered mainstream rhythm and blues of the Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller songwriting team of the 1950s, as exemplified by the Coasters and Drifters, and the gruffer Southern styles of the later '60s, as heard on the Stax Records sides of Otis Redding and Sam & Dave. At one time considered by Jerry Wexler to be "the greatest male soul singer of all time," Burke was "a singer whose smooth, powerful articulation and mingling of sacred and profane themes helped define soul music in the early 1960s." Burke drew from his roots: gospel, soul, and blues, as well as developing his own style at a time when R&B, and rock were both still in their infancy. Artistically, Burke was influenced by the music of the church, as well as by Little Richard. Described as both "Rabelaisian" and also as a "spiritual enigma," "Perhaps more than any other artist, the ample figure of Solomon Burke symbolized the ways that spirituality and commerce, ecstasy and entertainment, sex and salvation, individualism and brotherhood, could blend in the world of 1960s soul music."

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Stephen Foster
Stephen Collins Foster (July 4, 1826 – January 13, 1864), known as the "father of American music", was the pre-eminent songwriter in the United States of the 19th century. His songs — such as "Oh! Susanna", "Camptown Races", "Old Folks at Home" ("Swanee River"), "Hard Times Come Again No More", "My Old Kentucky Home", "Old Black Joe", "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair", and "Beautiful Dreamer" — remain popular over 150 years after their composition.
Foster attended private academies in Allegheny, Athens, and Towanda, Pennsylvania. He received an education in English grammar, diction, the classics, penmanship, Latin and Greek, and mathematics. In 1839, his elder brother William was serving his apprenticeship as an engineer at nearby Towanda and thought Stephen would benefit from being under his supervision. The site of the Camptown Races is 30 miles from Athens, and 15 miles from Towanda. Stephen attended Athens Academy from 1839 to 1841. He wrote his first composition, Tioga Waltz, while attending Athens Academy, and performed it during the 1839 commencement exercises; he was 14. It was not published during the composer's lifetime, but it is included in the collection of published works by Morrison Foster. In 1842, Athens Academy was destroyed in a fire.

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Steve Earle
For the drummer Steve Earle, see Afghan Whigs
Stephen Fain "Steve" Earle ( /ˈɜrl/; born January 17, 1955) is an American singer-songwriter known for his rock, folk and Texas Country as well as his political views. He is also a producer, author, a political activist, and an actor, and has written and directed a play.
Earle was born on January 17, 1955, at Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia. He is the eldest son of Jack Earle, an air traffic controller, and Barbara Earle. Although he was born in Virginia where his father was stationed in the military, the family returned to Texas before Earle's second birthday. His ancestry is Irish Catholic on his mother's side and Scots-Irish on his father's side. They moved often during his childhood, primarily within Texas, but spent several of his formative years in and around San Antonio, Texas including East Terrell Hills, Converse, and Schertz. He dropped out of school in the 9th grade to move to Houston and learn more about the music business. Earle released his first album, Guitar Town, in 1986. His sister, Stacey Earle, is also a musician, having toured with her brother in the 1990s and sung on the song "When I Fall" on Earle's 2000 album, Transcendental Blues.

wn.com/Steve_Earle
Steve Rash
Steve Rash is an American film director and producer best known for directing such films as The Buddy Holly Story, Can't Buy Me Love, and Queens Logic.

wn.com/Steve_Rash
Sylvia Plachy
Sylvia Plachy (born 1943) is a Hungarian/American photographer.
Plachy was born in Budapest, Hungary. Her Hungarian Jewish mother was in hiding in fear of Nazi persecution during World War II. Her father was a Hungarian Roman Catholic of aristocratic descent and she was raised in his faith.
Plachy's family moved to New York City due to the Hungarian Revolution. There she met the photographer Andre Kertesz. Plachy's photo essays and portraits have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Village Voice, The New Yorker, Granta, Artforum, Fortune, and other publications. They have been exhibited in galleries and museums in Berlin, Budapest, Chicago, Minneapolis, New York, Paris and Tokyo, and they are in collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Sylvia Plachy's book, Self Portrait with Cows Going Home (2005), is a personal history of Central Europe with photographs and text, received a Golden Light Award for best book in 2004. Her first book, Sylvia Plachy's Unguided Tour, won the Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography for best publication in 1991.

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Teddy Edwards
Theodore Marcus "Teddy" Edwards (April 26, 1924 – April 20, 2003) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist based on the West Coast of the US. Some consider him to be one of the most influential jazz saxophonists.
Edwards was born in Jackson, Mississippi. He learned to play at a very early age, first on alto saxophone and then clarinet. Edwards' first professional job was with The Royal Mississippians with Doc Parmley.
His uncle sent for him to come to Detroit to live because he felt opportunities were better. Due to illness in the family, he went back to Jackson and ventured to Alexandria, Louisiana. He was persuaded by Ernie Fields to join his band after going to Tampa, Florida. Teddy had planned to go to New York, but Ernie Fields convinced him he could get there by way of Washington, DC if he worked with his band. Teddy ended up at the Club Alabam on Central Ave. in Los Angeles, which later became his city of residence.
Teddy Edwards played with many jazz notables, including his personal friend Charlie Parker, Roy Milton, Wynonie Harris, Vince Guaraldi, Joe Castro and Ernie Andrews. A classic 1947 recording with Dexter Gordon, The Duel, helped set him up as a legend, a status he liked to maintain by challenging other worthy sax players to similar duels whenever possible, including a recording with Houston Person. One such memorable duel took place in the 80s at London's 100 Club with British tenor Dick Morrissey.

wn.com/Teddy_Edwards
Terry Gilliam
Terrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam ( /ˈɡɪliəm/; born 22 November 1940) is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films, including Brazil (1985), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), The Fisher King (1991), 12 Monkeys (1995), and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998). The only "Python" not born in Britain, he took British citizenship in 1968.
Gilliam was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Beatrice (née Vance) and James Hall Gilliam, who was a traveling salesman for Folgers before becoming a carpenter. Soon after, they moved to the nearby Medicine Lake.
The family moved to Panorama City, California, in 1952. Gilliam attended Birmingham High School where he was class president and senior prom King, was voted "Most Likely to Succeed", and achieved straight A's. During high school, he began to avidly read Mad magazine, which was then edited by Harvey Kurtzman; this later influenced his work.

wn.com/Terry_Gilliam
The Book of Eli
The Book of Eli is a 2010 American post-apocalyptic action film directed by the Hughes brothers, written by Gary Whitta, and starring Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis, Ray Stevenson and Jennifer Beals.
The story revolves around Eli, a nomad in a post-apocalyptic world, who is told by a voice to deliver his copy of a mysterious book to a safe location on the West Coast of the United States. The history of the post-war world is explained along the way as is the importance of Eli's task. Filming began in February 2009 and took place in New Mexico.
The film was released for theaters in January 2010. Alcon Entertainment financed and co-produced the film with Silver Pictures, while it was distributed by Warner Bros. in the US, and international sales handled by Summit Entertainment.
Thirty years after a nuclear apocalypse, Eli (Denzel Washington) travels on foot toward the west coast of the United States. Along the way, he demonstrates uncanny survival and fighting skills, hunting wildlife and swiftly defeating a group of highway bandits who try to ambush him. Searching for a source of water, he arrives in a ramshackle town built and overseen by Carnegie (Gary Oldman). Carnegie dreams of building more towns and controlling the people by using the power of a certain book. His henchmen scour the desolate landscape daily in search of it, but to no avail.

wn.com/The_Book_of_Eli
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer considered one of the giants of American music. Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser" and "Well, You Needn't". Monk is the second most recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington, which is particularly remarkable as Ellington composed over 1,000 songs while Monk wrote about 70.
His compositions and improvisations are full of dissonant harmonies and angular melodic twists, and are consistent with Monk's unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations. This was not a style universally appreciated; poet and jazz critic Philip Larkin dismissed Monk as 'the elephant on the keyboard'.
Monk's manner was idiosyncratic. Visually, he was renowned for his distinctive style in suits, hats and sunglasses. He was also noted for the fact that at times, while the other musicians in the band continued playing, he would stop, stand up from the keyboard and dance for a few moments before returning to the piano.

wn.com/Thelonious_Monk
Thelonious Monster
Thelonious Monster is a post-punk rock band from Los Angeles, led by singer-songwriter Bob Forrest. Active from 1983 to 1994, and again since 2004, the band has released five original studio albums. Despite never achieving mainstream success, a number of largely popular acts cite them as influential.^{[citation needed]}
Members included Forrest on vocals; bass player Jon Huck, guitarists Chris Handsome, Dix Denney and Mike Martt, and drummer Pete Weiss. They were a popular live attraction in the underground rock clubs of Hollywood in the 1980s and put out a series of critically acclaimed albums, but never achieved major commercial success. Their name is a pun on jazz musician Thelonious Monk.
In 1988, guitarist John Frusciante auditioned for Thelonious Monster, he was in the band for only three hours, then was asked to join the Red Hot Chili Peppers because they were so impressed by Frusciante's musical ability.
After several years of sporadic activity and side projects by Forrest, Thelonious Monster reunited in 2004 at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California and at the Sunset Junction Street Fair in Los Angeles, and released their first new album in 12 years. California Clam Chowder would feature guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, who was also a member of Forrest's short-lived band, The Bicycle Thief. Klinghoffer would eventually go on to replace John Frusciante in the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

wn.com/Thelonious_Monster
Thomas Babe
Thomas Babe (born March 13, 1941 in Buffalo, New York) was an American playwright, writing mainly during the mid 70s and 80s. He was the son of Thomas James and Ruth Ina (née Lossie) Babe. He died of lung cancer on December 6, 2000, in a hospice in Stamford, Connecticut. He was 59.
Babe's work brought together many elements of American history and cultural mythology. He was fascinated by the concept of the traditional hero figure - and the reality behind it. Strained family relationships often featured - specifically focusing on fathers and daughters, love and individual rights. These themes come together in Babe's 1977 play A Prayer for My Daughter.
Babe was one of a group of 70s US playwrights who laid the ground for the likes of Quentin Tarantino and Aaron Sorkin. Like David Mamet and Sam Shepard, his plays contain half-crazed but intelligent, articulate characters. Darker passions of the human soul feature strongly.^{[citation needed]}

wn.com/Thomas_Babe
Tim Buckley
Timothy Charles Buckley III (February 14, 1947 – June 29, 1975) was an American vocalist, and musician. His music and style changed considerably through the years; his first album (1966) was mostly folk oriented, but over time his music incorporated jazz, psychedelia, funk, soul, avant-garde and an evolving "voice as instrument," sound. He died aged 28, leaving his son Jeff Buckley from his marriage to Mary Guibert.
Tim Buckley was born in Washington DC on St. Valentine's Day, to Elaine Buckley (née Scalia), an Italian American, and Tim Charles Buckley Jr, who was the son of Irish immigrants from Cork. He spent his early childhood in Amsterdam, New York, an industrial city approximately 40 miles northwest of Albany; here at five years old he made his first acquaintance with music, his mother's progressive jazz recordings (she was a fan of Miles Davis).
Tim's musical life began in earnest after his family moved to Bell Gardens in southern California in 1956. His grandmother had introduced him to Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday, his mother to Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis and Judy Garland and his father to the country music of Hank Williams and Johnny Cash. When he attended Bell Gardens' public schools he was ready to catch the folk bug going around. At the age of 13 he taught himself the banjo, and with his new friend, Dan Gordon, and several others formed a folk group inspired by the Kingston Trio that played local high school events.

wn.com/Tim_Buckley
Tom Berenger
Tom Berenger (born May 31, 1949) is an American actor known mainly for his roles in action films.
Berenger's father was a printer for the Chicago Sun-Times. Berenger has a sister, Susan. He picked "Berenger" as his professional name, after a school friend, because there was already a "Tom Moore" in the Actors' Equity Association. He graduated from Rich East High School in Park Forest, Illinois, in 1967. Berenger studied journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, but decided to seek an acting career following his graduation. The Tom Berenger Acting Scholarship Fund was established in 1988 by Tom Berenger to award Theatre students for excellence in performance. He worked first in regional theatre and moved to New York City in the 1970s.Is of Irish heritage.
Berenger worked in soap operas and had a starring role on One Life to Live. His feature film debut was the lead in Rush It (1976), an independent film now mostly forgotten except for those of its cast members who went on to greater renown. In 1977, Berenger had a small but noticeable role as a murderer in Looking for Mr. Goodbar. In 1978, he had a starring role in In Praise of Older Women for Avco-Embassy Pictures. In 1979, he played Butch Cassidy in Butch and Sundance: The Early Days, a role he got in part because of his resemblance to Paul Newman, who played the character in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). These early roles highlighted Berenger's ability to play both villains and heroes.

wn.com/Tom_Berenger
Tom Waits
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 has acted in supporting roles in films including Paradise Alley and Bram Stoker's Dracula; he also starred in the 1986 film Down by Law. 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 through cover versions by more commercial artists: "Jersey Girl", performed by Bruce Springsteen, "Ol' '55", performed by the Eagles, 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 2011, Waits was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

wn.com/Tom_Waits
Tony Scott
Anthony D. L. "Tony" Scott (born 21 June 1944) is an English film director. His films include Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop II, The Last Boy Scout, True Romance, Crimson Tide, Enemy of the State, Spy Game, Man on Fire, Déjà Vu, The Taking of Pelham 123 and Unstoppable. He is the younger brother of fellow film director Ridley Scott.
Scott was born in North Shields, the son of Elizabeth and Colonel Francis Percy Scott. His first foray into filmmaking was not from behind the camera, but in front of it. At the age of 16, Tony appeared in Boy and Bicycle, a short film marking the directorial debut of his then 23 year-old brother Ridley. He followed in his elder brother's footsteps, studying at Grangefield School, West Hartlepool College of Art and Sunderland Art School, the last for a fine arts degree. He subsequently graduated from the Royal College of Art, fully intending to become a painter. It was only the success of his elder brother's fledging television commercial production outfit, Ridley Scott Associates (RSA), that turned his attentions towards film.

wn.com/Tony_Scott
Tori Amos
Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American pianist, singer-songwriter and composer. Amos originally served as the lead singer of 1980s synthpop group Y Kant Tori Read, and as a solo artist was at the forefront of a number of female singer-songwriters in the early 1990s. She was also noteworthy early in her solo career as one of the few alternative rock performers to use a piano as her primary instrument. Some of her charting singles include "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", "God", "Cornflake Girl", "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Professional Widow", "Spark", "1000 Oceans", and "A Sorta Fairytale", her most commercially successful single in the U.S. to date.
As of 2005, Amos had sold 12 million albums worldwide. She has been nominated for 8 Grammy Awards. Amos was also named one of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in 1996.
Amos was born in Newton, North Carolina. When she was two, her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where she began to play the piano. By age five, she had begun composing instrumental pieces on piano and, while living in Rockville, Maryland, she won a full scholarship to the Preparatory Division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. Her scholarship was discontinued at age 11 and she was asked to leave. Amos has asserted that she lost the scholarship because of her interest in rock and popular music, coupled with her dislike for reading from sheet music. In 1972, The Amos family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, where her father, Reverend Edison Amos, became pastor of the Good Shepherd United Methodist church. At the age of 13 she began playing at gay bars and piano bars, chaperoned by her father.

wn.com/Tori_Amos
Wikipedia Persondata
wn.com/Wikipedia_Persondata

Tom Waits - Chocolate Jesus

Tom Waits on Letterman Hey everyone thanks for making this the number 1 viewed Tom Waits v...

published: 13 May 2006

author: dwizle

Tom Waits Waltzing Matilda live 1977

simply amazing!...

published: 19 Apr 2007

author: theBPlog

Tom Waits "Hold On"

Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and ...

published: 27 Sep 2007

author: BVMTValternative

Tom Waits - "Hell Broke Luce"

Directed By Matt Mahurin "Hell Broke Luce" from the album Bad As Me, Anti Records 2011 www...

published: 06 Aug 2012

author: antirecords

Tom Waits - Heart Attack and Vine

:o)...

published: 15 Apr 2007

author: ZTemporarily

Tom Waits - The Piano Has Been Drinking - 1977

Performing The Piano Has Been Drinking on Fernwood Tonight...

published: 31 Oct 2006

author: AquaticBigfoot

Tom Waits - Rain Dogs

oh how we danced...

published: 17 Feb 2007

author: connected365

Tom Waits interview

www.videobash.com A Tom Waits (Heath Ledger's inspiration for his portrayal of the Joker) ...

published: 28 Apr 2012

author: Xjomi081

Tom Waits - "God's Away On Business"

"God's Away On Business" video Anti Records Official Website: www.anti.com Anti Records On...

published: 13 May 2008

author: antirecords

Tom Waits - Little Drop Of Poison

Tom Waits - Little Drop Of Poison...

published: 10 Jul 2008

author: lundgreen

Tom Waits - Chicago - David Letterman 7-9-12

Tom Waits - Chicago - David Letterman 7-9-12...As Seen On ©CBS Weeknights 11:35/10:35pm c,...

published: 10 Jul 2012

author: IdolXfactor2

Tom Waits - Closing Time (1973) Debut Album Full

www.facebook.com Tom Waits - Closing Time (1973) Re Uploading September 17, 2012 Track Lis...

published: 17 Sep 2012

author: kritikospa10

Tom Waits - Innocent when you dream

Tom Waits - Innocent when you dream extracted from Big Time Tom Waits on iTunes - tinyurl....

published: 13 Aug 2006

author: Pagantongue

Tom Waits - Martha (album version)

Tom Waits' beautiful song, 'Martha', from his 1973 debut album Closing Time. There are doz...

published: 02 Dec 2009

author: Shumway31

"Spacious Thoughts" NASA feat. Kool Keith & Tom Waits

Junkyard playground for the split personality inclined. From the phenomenal album Spirit o...

published: 19 Nov 2009

author: Fluorescent Hill

Isenseven - "Don't Panic!" TEASER

Don't Panic! Yes, you should not panic. Why panic? Things are good, aren't they? Speaking ...

published: 03 Jun 2010

author: Vincent Urban

OFFF Paris 2010 Titles

After a long long wait, here you have finally the amazing Titles for OFFF Paris 2010 by Th...

published: 27 Jun 2010

author: OFFF, let's feed the future

Peter Gabriel » Tom Waits "In The Neighborhood"

www.voiceproject.org...

published: 21 Jun 2010

author: The Voice Project

Tom Waits Waltzing Matilda live 1977

simply amazing!...

published: 19 Apr 2007

author: theBPlog

Tom Waits - Burma Shave (Full video)

Extraordinary singer Tom Waits has become an American musical institution over the last fe...

published: 21 Mar 2012

author: autostopowicz70

Tom Waits - Live On The Tube 16.10.1985

Tom Waits - Live On The Tube 16.10.85 1. 16 SHELLS FROM A THIRTY-OUGHT-SIX 2. CEMETARY POL...

published: 13 Nov 2009

author: symbolkid

Tom Waits - Raised Right Men Live.

I do not own any rights to this video music or lyrics, all copyright owned by others. Supp...

published: 11 Jul 2012

author: tincture0

Tom Waits - The Piano Has Been Drinking - Live TV

This is clearly the greatest televison appearance of all time. Long Live the un-touchable ...

published: 29 Oct 2007

author: nathanidiothend

Tom Waits - Rain Dogs

oh how we danced...

published: 17 Feb 2007

author: connected365

Tom Waits - Chocolate Jesus (live David Letterman)

Tom Waits live on David Letterman performing Chocolate Jesus...

published: 14 Feb 2007

author: David Watts

Tom Waits / Paris 2008

On a sweltering night in the heart of Paris, a sense of nervous expectation surrounds Le G...

published: 06 Aug 2008

author: videodharma

Neil Young y Tom Waits live

Tom Waits fue incluido en el Rock and Roll Hall de la Fama en el Waldorf Astoria de Nueva ...

published: 10 Apr 2011

author: Elasesinatodedylan

Tom Waits Real Gone Interview Make It Rain Live 09.29.2004

Tom Waits Real Gone Interview Make It Rain Live 09.29.2004 Letterman...recorded live from ...

published: 02 Aug 2008

author: Cosmos3001

Tom Waits - Elephant Beer Blues 1976 - pt 2

From Danish TV. Part 2....

published: 25 Feb 2006

author: SarahV

Tom Waits Live Silent Night + Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis

tom waits live...

published: 24 Feb 2009

author: sergiomelon

Tom Waits Live - Tango

Nice piece i had lying around....

published: 13 Sep 2009

author: BennyBobzify

Tom Waits - Make It Rain - Live on Letterman Show

Tom Waits - Make It Rain live on David Letterman Show with Judah Bauer and Russel Simins...

published: 09 Apr 2007

author: explosion99

"Spacious Thoughts" NASA feat. Kool Keith & Tom Waits

Junkyard playground for the split personality inclined. From the phenomenal album Spirit o...

published: 19 Nov 2009

author: Fluorescent Hill

Isenseven - "Don't Panic!" TEASER

Don't Panic! Yes, you should not panic. Why panic? Things are good, aren't they? Speaking ...

published: 03 Jun 2010

author: Vincent Urban

OFFF Paris 2010 Titles

After a long long wait, here you have finally the amazing Titles for OFFF Paris 2010 by Th...

published: 27 Jun 2010

author: OFFF, let's feed the future

Peter Gabriel » Tom Waits "In The Neighborhood"

www.voiceproject.org...

published: 21 Jun 2010

author: The Voice Project

Tom Waits - Closing Time (1973) Debut Album Full

www.facebook.com Tom Waits - Closing Time (1973) Re Uploading September 17, 2012 Track Lis...

published: 17 Sep 2012

author: kritikospa10

Tom Waits - Burma Shave (Full video)

Extraordinary singer Tom Waits has become an American musical institution over the last fe...

published: 21 Mar 2012

author: autostopowicz70

The Heart Of Saturday Night(Full Album)-Tom Waits

1. New Coat of Paint 2. San Diego Serenade 3. Semi Suite 4. Shiver Me Timbers 5. Diamonds ...

published: 30 Oct 2012

author: Boaz Krauzer

Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones (1983) Full Album

www.facebook.com Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones (1983) Re Uploading November 25, 2012 Trac...

published: 25 Nov 2012

author: kritikospa12

Tom Waits - Big Time (1988 Full video)

Bringing his unique sense of humor to this bizarre and original piece of moviemaking, Tom ...

published: 20 Mar 2012

author: autostopowicz70

Tom Waits - On Broadway (Full Album)

0:00-7:35 - Tom Traubert's Blues 7:36-11:32 - Introducing The Band 11:33-21:37 - Small Cha...

published: 02 May 2012

author: elijahlupe

Tom Waits - Elephant Beer Blues 1976 - pt 2

From Danish TV. Part 2....

published: 25 Feb 2006

author: SarahV

Tom Waits - HDTV 2011-2012

Tom Waits - HDTV 2011-2012 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, March 14, 2011 [01...

published: 04 Sep 2012

author: PaulusNeu

TOM WAITS-5 SONGS-ALBUM VERSION

1-a sight for sore eyes*-2-jersey girl*-3-ol'55*-4-(looking for)the heart of saturday nigh...

published: 06 Mar 2012

author: maury6811

Tom Waits The Document Interview Part 1 of 11

Tom Waits gets close to the microphone with his thoughts on a hundred and one topics, thro...

published: 18 Dec 2012

author: Treble Clef

Tom Waits 1999 VH1 Storytellers 44 min 20 sec

zene...

published: 11 Nov 2012

author: Major Imre

Tom Waits - Big Time (1988)

Tom Waits - Big Time (1988) Tom Waits: organ, vocals Michael Blair: percussion, bongos, dr...

published: 19 May 2012

author: PaulusNeu

Tom Waits - Bridge School Benefit - 1999 Pt 1

From Oct 30, 1999 - the annual Bridge School benefit at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Moun...

published: 05 Mar 2006

author: SarahV

Tom Waits - Tenco Fest - San Remo 1986 - pt 1

Includes a great spoken-word version of "Walking Spanish," as well as some other Waits cla...

published: 30 Jan 2006

author: SarahV

"Spacious Thoughts" NASA feat. Kool Keith & Tom Waits

Junkyard playground for the split personality inclined. From the phenomenal album Spirit o...

published: 19 Nov 2009

author: Fluorescent Hill

Isenseven - "Don't Panic!" TEASER

Don't Panic! Yes, you should not panic. Why panic? Things are good, aren't they? Speaking ...

published: 03 Jun 2010

author: Vincent Urban

OFFF Paris 2010 Titles

After a long long wait, here you have finally the amazing Titles for OFFF Paris 2010 by Th...

published: 27 Jun 2010

author: OFFF, let's feed the future

Peter Gabriel » Tom Waits "In The Neighborhood"

www.voiceproject.org...

published: 21 Jun 2010

author: The Voice Project

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photo: AP / New York City Police Department

In this image provided by the New York City Police Department, a composite sketch showing the woman believed to have pushed a man to his death in front of a subway train on Thursday, Dec. 27, 2012 is shown.

US woman charged with hate crime in subway death

Taipei Times

30 Dec 2012

A woman who told police she shoved a man to his death off a subway platform because she has hated Muslims since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US and thought he was one was charged on Saturday with murder as a hate crime, prosecutors said ... Menendez, 31, was awaiting arraignment on the charge on Saturday evening, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said. She faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted ... On Dec ... ....(size: 3.0Kb)

photo: AP / Altaf Qadri

Indian anti-riot personnel stand guard at a check point after security was beefed up following the death of a young woman who was recently gang-raped in a moving bus in New Delhi, India, Saturday, Dec. 29, 2012.

India appeal for calm after Delhi gang-rape victim dies

BBC News

29 Dec 2012

Police in India have sealed off much of the capital, Delhi, and issued an appeal for calm after the death of a woman who was gang-raped in the city. The 23-year old woman, who has not been identified, died early on Saturday at a hospital in Singapore, where she had been taken for specialist treatment. Her body is to be flown back to India for burial ... Gatherings of more than five people have been banned in the city centre ... ....(size: 4.9Kb)

photo: AP / Shaam News Network

In this image taken from video obtained from the Shaam News Network, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, smoke rises from buildings from heavy shelling in Homs, Syria, on Thursday, Dec. 27, 2012.

Syria risks becoming ‘new Somalia’: UN envoy

Zeenews

30 Dec 2012

London. UN-Arab League envoy to Damascus, Lakhdar Brahimi, has said that a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Syria seemed far away, adding that the country risked being slithering into ‘hell’ ... (ANI). For Zee News’s Updates, follow us on Twitter , Facebook, Google+, Pinterest. First Published ... ....(size: 1.7Kb)

photo: WN / Bhaskar Mallick

India Bright Moon on the City Sky in Kolkata on Monday 03 July 2012 in Eastern India City

A science news preview of 2013

BBC News

30 Dec 2012

Comet Ison is likely to light up the skies in 2013. David Shukman, science editor, BBC News Continue reading the main story Related Stories. A science news preview of 2012 ... But battles over revisions - and over the conclusions - lie ahead ... There is a growing number of pests and pathogens that threaten the wellbeing of our woodlands, and there are many more yet to arrive on our shores waiting to exacerbate the problem ... ....(size: 9.2Kb)

photo: AP / John MacDougall

German Chancellor Angela Merkel gestures while posing for photographs after recording her annual New Year's speech at the chancellery in Berlin Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012.

Merkel warns Germans of tough economic times ahead

BBC News

31 Dec 2012

Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that the German economic climate in 2013 will be "even more difficult". In her new year message, she also cautioned that the eurozone debt crisis was far from over. However, she did say that reforms designed to address the roots of the problem were beginning to bear fruit ... In a taped interview to be broadcast later on Monday, Mrs Merkel urged Germans to be more patient ... Voters 'wary' ... ....(size: 2.3Kb)

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2012
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A highly subjective reflection on the best of Bay area theatre for 2012

The Examiner

01 Jan 2013

Like so many others, I have compiled a 10 Best List for my 2012 theatre going. It is something I feel I should do. It comes with the critical territory. But it is both a pleasure and a pain ... This represents only a tiny fraction of the theatre produced in the Bay area ... Mr ... "Woyzeck" by Georg Buchner, adapted by Ann-Christin Rommen & Wolfgang Wiens, music and lyrics by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, original concept by Robert Wilson ... ....(size: 5.0Kb)

Mariachi Gomez 'a hidden jewel' in S.A.

my SA

31 Dec 2012

Few musicians can get Augie Meyers out of "(Hey Baby) Que Paso" mode. Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and Dr. John come immediately to mind. Henry Gomez, not so much. But he is on that short list, too. Gomez is, admittedly, a most unlikely candidate. After all, he is a mariachi. A restaurant mariachi, at that ... But the 58-year-old mariachi by night is a brilliant musical arranger and orchestrator by day ... And the records Gomez is making are lush....(size: 4.8Kb)

Kanye West's Grammys Rant: Singer Cites Snubs And Vows Not To Attend (VIDEO)

Huffington Post

31 Dec 2012

I'm just not satisfied." ... But nonetheless, 18 ... Album of the Year - "Babel" Best Rock Performance - "I Will Wait" Best Rock Song - "I Will Wait" Best Americana Album - "Babel" Best Song Written For Visual Media - "Learn Me Right (From Brave)" Best Long Form Music Video - "Big Easy Express"Jack White ... Best Alternative Music Album - "Hurry Up, We're Dreaming."Tom Waits ... ....(size: 11.3Kb)

2012 In Review: The Year In Comebacks

Stereogum

31 Dec 2012

Tom Waits is a circus sideshow Cookie Monster clone whose enduring popularity is almost certainly a hoax, and I can’t bring myself to pretend raspy-croak-era Bob Dylan is anything but an endurance test ... When you’re waiting for Godspeed, your patience is duly rewarded....(size: 19.9Kb)

Your Sunday Long Reads: Conan O'Brien's Dystopian Vision, Quentin Tarantino on Django and Race, and Tom Waits Sings About L.A.

IMDb

30 Dec 2012

Below, some of our recommendations. "The United States of Comedy ... "Tarantino 'Unchained,' Part 1 ... Tom Waits" by Alexander Harvey (La Review of Books). What Tom Waits talks about when he sings about La ... ....(size: 1.1Kb)

The best music of 2012: Global pop

The Independent

30 Dec 2012

... go with their instincts regardless of whether there's an audience waiting for them on the other side ... Vinicio Capossela has been described as Italy's Tom Waits, but his concept album Marinai, Profeti e Balene signposted the fact that he is very much his own man....(size: 1.3Kb)

Catchy, clever, honest debut album augurs well

Otago Daily Times

30 Dec 2012

Shane Gilchrist rummages through his album collection and ponders the bright spots of 2012. Today he journeys through some folky yet widely varied terrain. The Lumineers. Self-titled ... Just when you think you have him pinned down as dust-bowl blues shaman (Take Me Away), the chameleon-like Beal paints himself as a black Nick Drake (Sambo Jo From The Rainbow) or evokes Tom Waits' comments on (un)neighbourly paranoia (Ghost Robot) ... ....(size: 3.6Kb)

The 31 Days of Music – Best of 2012 – Number 3 (Photos)

The Examiner

30 Dec 2012

Walking Papers – Walking Papers. When I first learned this record was in the works it quickly moved to the top of my list of anticipated albums of 2012 ... The 31 Days of Music - Best of 2012 - Number 3 - Walking Papers. The 31 Days of Music - Best of 2012 - Number 3 - Walking Papers. Photo credit.  ... Standing out is the tune “A Place Like This”, the ‘Tom Waits’ sounding track utilizes every instrument in their musical arsenal ... Flicker ... ....(size: 4.6Kb)

Highs, lows of Bay Area theater in 2012

San Francisco Chronicle

30 Dec 2012

High. Annie Baker's "Vermont Plays ." ... Baker's acute ear makes you listen with a new attentiveness. Low. Theaters close. The news isn't all bad ... Most improved ... MVP ... Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan's sensuous melodies and sardonic lyrics envelop the fractured shards of Georg Büchner's seminal tragedy to create riveting, comic and touching drama in Mark Jackson's excellent Shotgun Players staging of Robert Wilson's adaptation (through Jan. 27)....(size: 6.3Kb)

Guestlisted with Jed Gottlieb

Boston Herald

29 Dec 2012

For a little analysis check out my Boston Herald write up. Album of the Year. » The Black Keys - El Camino. » Fun. - Some Nights. » Mumford & Sons - Babel. » Frank Ocean - Channel Orange. » Jack White - Blunderbuss. Record of the Year. » The Black Keys - "Lonely Boy". » Kelly Clarkson - "Stronger". » Fun. feat. Janelle Monae - "We Are Young". » Gotye feat ... » Mumford & Sons - "I Will Wait" ... » Mumford & Sons - "I Will Wait" ... » Tom Waits, Bad As Me ... » R....(size: 6.3Kb)

Rilo Kiley Album: Band Says It May Return With Nearly Finished 'Record'

Huffington Post

28 Dec 2012

"Going to need your help! More to come." ... Album of the Year - "Babel" Best Rock Performance - "I Will Wait" Best Rock Song - "I Will Wait" Best Americana Album - "Babel" Best Song Written For Visual Media - "Learn Me Right (From Brave)" Best Long Form Music Video - "Big Easy Express"Jack White ... Best Alternative Music Album - "Hurry Up, We're Dreaming."Tom Waits ... Like....(size: 10.5Kb)

Satchmo: "Mack the Knife"

Axis of Logic

27 Dec 2012

Print This Make a Donation!. If you appreciated this article, please consider making a donation to Axis of Logic. We do not use commercial advertising or corporate funding. We depend solely upon you, the reader, to continue providing quality news and opinion on world affairs.Donate here. ---. Satchmo ... Jimmy Cliff ... Tom Waits - Heart of Saturday Night and more ... ....(size: 2.7Kb)

L.A's Milk Carton Kids have entered the 'Promised Land'

The Los Angeles Times

27 Dec 2012

Despite possessing a rather unassuming sound -- one built on gentle acoustic strumming and comforting harmonies -- local act the Milk Carton Kids have had a rather booming year and a half ... In late 2012 it was revealed that the Milk Carton Kids had signed to local indie Anti-, the Silver Lake-based label home to the likes of Tom Waits, Neko Case and more ... "To be honest, it's a little awkward to be congratulated for signing a deal ... ALSO.....(size: 33.5Kb)

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Tom Waits
Waits during an interview in Buenos Aires, Argentina, April 2007
Background information
Birth name	Thomas Alan Waits
Born	(1949-12-07) December 7, 1949 (age 62) Pomona, California, United States
Genres	Rock, experimental
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician, actor, composer
Instruments	Vocals, piano, guitar
Years active	1972–present
Labels	Asylum Records, Island Records, ANTI-
Website	Official website

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."^[1] With this trademark growl, his incorporation of pre-rock music styles such as blues, jazz, and vaudeville, and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music,^[2] Waits has built up a distinctive musical persona. He has worked as a composer for movies and musical plays and has acted in supporting roles in films including Paradise Alley and Bram Stoker's Dracula; he also starred in the 1986 film Down by Law. 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 through cover versions by more commercial artists: "Jersey Girl", performed by Bruce Springsteen, "Ol' '55", performed by the Eagles, 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 2011, Waits was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.^[3]^[4]

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

1 Origins and musical beginnings
2 1970s
3 1980s
4 1990s
5 2000s
6 2010s
7 Lawsuits
8 Discography and filmography
9 Tours
10 Further reading
11 References
12 External links

Origins and musical beginnings [link]

Waits was born at Park Avenue Hospital in Pomona, California to Jesse Frank Waits and Alma Johnson McMurray, both schoolteachers.^[5]^[6] His father was of Scots-Irish descent and his mother was a Norwegian American. After Waits' parents divorced in 1960, he lived with his mother in Whittier, and then moved to National City, in San Diego County, near the Mexico–United States border.^[6] 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."^[7]

By 1965, while attending Hilltop High School within the Sweetwater Union High School District, Chula Vista,^[6] Waits was playing in an R&B/soul band called The Systems and had begun his first job at Napoleone Pizza House in National City (about which he would later sing on "I Can't Wait to Get Off Work (And See My Baby on Montgomery Avenue)" from Small Change and "The Ghosts of Saturday Night (After Hours at Napoleone's Pizza House)" on The Heart of Saturday Night).^[5] He later admitted that he was not a fan of the 1960s music scene, stating, "I wasn't thrilled by Blue Cheer, so I found an alternative, even if it was Bing Crosby."^[8] Five years later, he was working as a doorman at the Heritage nightclub in San Diego—where artists of every genre performed—when he did his first paid gig for $6.^[5] A fan of Bob Dylan, Lord Buckley, Jack Kerouac, Louis Armstrong, Howlin' Wolf, and Charles Bukowski, Waits began developing his own idiosyncratic musical style.

After serving with the United States Coast Guard,^[9] 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 released twenty years later on The Early Years, Volume One and Volume Two.

1970s [link]

Waits signed to Asylum Records in 1972,^[10] 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.^[11] This cover later appeared in the 1995 compilation Step Right Up: The Songs of Tom Waits. The album's opening track, "Ol' '55", was recorded by the Eagles in 1974 for their On the Border album.^[11]

He began touring and opening for such artists as Charlie Rich, Martha and the Vandellas, and Frank Zappa. Waits received increasing critical acclaim and gathered a loyal cult following with his subsequent albums. The Heart of Saturday Night (1974), featuring the song "(Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night", revealed Waits's roots as a nightclub performer, with half-spoken and half-crooned ballads often accompanied by a jazz backup band.^[12] 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.^[13]

In 1975, Waits moved to the Tropicana Motel on Santa Monica Boulevard^[14] 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 "Your 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.^[15]

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."^[16] 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).^[17] 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,^[17] including a performance of "The Piano Has Been Drinking" on cult BBC2 television music show the Old Grey Whistle Test in May 1976.^[18]

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 hardly any 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 relationship with Rickie Lee Jones^{[citation needed]} (who appears on the sleeve art of the Blue Valentine album). 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.^[19]

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 [link]

In August 1980, Waits married Kathleen Brennan, a screenwriter, whom 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."^[20] 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. Waits also contributed two songs to the documentary Streetwise (1984), "Rat's Theme" and "Take Care of All My Children".

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."^[21] 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 LaMotta. 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,^[22] 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.^[23]

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."^[24] 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."^[25] 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^[26] and contributing vocals to The Replacements song "Date to Church", which appeared as a B-side to their single "I'll Be You".

1990s [link]

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.^[27] 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.^[28] 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 [sic] 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.^[29]

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."^[30] 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.^[31] 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 Coffee and Cigarettes: Somewhere in California, 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.

Another Waits cover was released in 1996, as Meat Loaf covered Martha for his concept album Welcome to the Neighborhood.

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."^[32] 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."^[32]

Waits's first album on his new label, Mule Variations, was issued in 1999. Billboard described the album as musically melding "backwoods blues, skewed gospel, and unruly art stomp into a sublime piece of junkyard sound sculpture."^[33] 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 More Oar: A Tribute to the Skip Spence Album, a collection of covers of the singer's songs on Birdman Records.^[26] The same year, Waits appeared in the comedy Mystery Men.

2000s [link]

John Hammond's Wicked Grin, a collection of Waits cover songs, was released in 2001. Waits appears on most songs, playing guitar, piano, and/or offering backing vocals. The album also includes the traditional hymn "I Know I've Been Changed", performed as a duet by Hammond and Waits.

Tori Amos included a cover of the song "Time", from Rain Dogs on her 2001 album Strange Little Girls.

Tom Waits in Prague in 2008

In 2002, Waits simultaneously released two albums, Alice and Blood Money. Both collections had been written almost 10 years previously and were based on theatrical collaborations with Robert Wilson; the former a musical play about Lewis Carroll, and the latter an interpretation of Georg Büchner's play fragment Woyzeck. Both albums revisit the tango, Tin Pan Alley, and spoken-word influences of Swordfishtrombones, while the lyrics are both profoundly cynical and melancholic, exemplified by "Misery is the River of the World" and "Everything Goes to Hell." "Diamond in Your Mind", which Waits wrote for Wilson's Woyzeck, did not appear on Blood Money; however, it did emerge on Solomon Burke's album Don't Give Up on Me of the same year. While Waits has played the song live a number of times,^[34]^[35] an official version would not be released until 2007. The same year, Waits contributed a version of "The Return of Jackie and Judy"^[26] by The Ramones to the compilation album We're a Happy Family: A Tribute to Ramones, which was released in 2003 on Columbia Records. That same year, Waits was also a judge for the 2nd annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers.^[36] Waits was also a judge for the 10th annual Independent Music Awards.^[36]

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. 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"^[26] to the tribute album The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered, released on Gammon Records.

At this time, Waits made a return to acting after a five-year break, marked at first by the re-release of his 1993 Jim Jarmusch-directed short Coffee and Cigarettes: Somewhere in California, costarring Iggy Pop, compiled in Coffee and Cigarettes. In 2005, Waits appeared in the Tony Scott film Domino as a soothsayer. In the same year, Waits appeared as himself in Roberto Benigni's romantic comedy La Tigre e la Neve, set in occupied Baghdad during the Iraq War. In the movie, Waits appears in a dream scene as himself, singing the ballad "You Can Never Hold Back Spring"^[26] and accompanying himself at the piano.

A 54-song three-disc box set of rarities, unreleased tracks, and brand-new compositions called Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards was released in November 2006. The three discs are subdivided relating to their content: "Brawlers" features Waits's more upbeat rock and blues songs; "Bawlers", his ballads and love songs; and "Bastards", songs that fit in neither category, including a number of spoken-word tracks. A video for the song "Lie to Me" was produced as a promotion for the collection. Orphans also continues Waits's newfound interest in politics with "Road to Peace", a song about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The album is also notable for containing a number of covers of songs by other artists, including The Ramones ("The Return of Jackie and Judy" and "Danny Says"), Daniel Johnston ("King Kong"), Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht ("What Keeps Mankind Alive"), and Leadbelly ("Ain't Goin' Down to the Well" and "Goodnight Irene"), as well as renditions of works by poets and authors admired by Waits, such as Charles Bukowski and Jack Kerouac and a previously released duet with Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse entitled "Dog Door". Waits' albums Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards and Alice are both included in metacritic.com's list of the "Top 200: Best-Reviewed Albums"^[37] 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 Frank's 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.

Waits made a number of high-profile television and concert appearances between 2006 and 2010. 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.^[38]

He played the role of Kneller in the film Wristcutters: A Love Story, 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.^[39]

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.^[40] Waits was awarded the key to the city of El Paso, Texas during a concert on June 20, 2008.^[41] In his generally positive review of the opening show of the tour, The Wall Street Journal critic Jim Fusilli described Waits' music thus:

The 58-year-old Mr. Waits ... has composed a body of work that's at least comparable to any songwriter's in pop today. A keen, sensitive and sympathetic chronicler of the adrift and downtrodden, Mr. Waits creates three-dimensional characters who, even in their confusion and despair, are capable of insight and startling points of view. Their stories are accompanied by music that's unlike any other in pop history.^[42]

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 the late 1920's and early 1930's, the Depression gripped the Nation. It was a time when songs were tools for living. A whole community would turn out to mourn the loss of a member and to sow their songs like seeds. This collection is a wild garden grown from those seeds.

In late 2009, Terry Gilliam's film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was released, with Waits in the role of Mr. Nick.^[43]^[44] Production began in December 2007 in London.^[45] 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.^[46]

2010s [link]

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

He is working on a new stage musical with director and long-time collaborator Robert Wilson and playwright Martin McDonagh.^[47]

In early 2011, Tom Waits completed a set of 23 poems entitled Seeds on Hard Ground, which were inspired by Michael O'Brien's portraits of the homeless in his upcoming book, Hard Ground, which will include the poems alongside the portraits. In anticipation of the book release, Waits and Anti- printed limited edition chapbooks of the poems to raise money for Redwood Empire Food Bank, a homeless referral and family support service in Sonoma County, California. As of January 26, 2011, four editions, each limited to a thousand copies costing $24.99US each, sold out, raising $90,000 for the food bank.^[48]

It was announced on February 9, 2011, that Waits was to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Neil Young. The ceremony was held at the Waldorf-Astoria on Monday, March 14, 2011, at 8:30pm EST.^[49] Waits accepted the award with his customary humor, stating, "They say I have no hits and that I'm difficult to work with... like it's a bad thing."^[50]

On February 24, 2011, it was announced via Waits' official website that he has begun work on his next studio album.^[51]

Waits said through his website that on August 23 he would "set the record straight" in regards to rumors of a new release.^[52] On August 23, the title of the new album was revealed to be Bad as Me,^[53] and a new single, also titled "Bad as Me," started being offered via Amazon.com and other sites.^[54] The album was released on October 24.

Waits appears on the songs "Fadin' Moon" and "Ghost to a Ghost" on Hank Williams III's 2011 album Ghost to a Ghost/Gutter Town.

Lawsuits [link]

Waits has steadfastly refused to allow the use of his songs in commercials and has joked about other artists who do (commenting "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)).^[55] 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.^[56] 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".^[57]

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.^[58]

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.^[59]

Discography and filmography [link]

Main article: Tom Waits discography

References [link]

^ Graff, Gary; Durchholz, Daniel. Musichound Rock: The Essential Album Guide. Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-8256-7256-2.
^ Petridis, Alexis. "Tom Waits live at the Hammersmith Apollo, London review". The Guardian newspaper. http://arts.guardian.co.uk/reviews/story/0,11712,1358433,00.html. Retrieved 2001-11-23.
^ Lyons, Margaret (2010-12-15) "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2011 inductees include Neil Diamond, Alice Cooper: who else made the cut?", Entertainment Weekly.com. Retrieved 2010-12-15.
^ McCall, Tris (2010-12-15) "Full list of 2011 inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced", The Star-Ledger. Retrieved 2010-12-15.
^ ^a ^b ^c Montadon, Mac, "Timeline and Discography" in Innocent When You Dream, p.385
^ ^a ^b ^c "Tom Waits Timeline: 1949–1975". Tom Waits Library. http://www.tomwaitslibrary.com/timeline1949-1975.html. Retrieved 2007-01-09.
^ Wilonsky, Robert, "The Variations of Tom Waits", in Montandon, Innocent When You dream, p.213
^ "Tom Waits Quotes: Influences and favourites". Tom Waits Library. http://www.tomwaitslibrary.com/quotes-influences.html. Retrieved 2001-11-23.
^ "Coast Guard History: Frequently Asked Questions: What celebrities or other famous persons once served in or were associated with the Coast Guard?". Uscg.mil. 2009-10-28. http://www.uscg.mil/history/faqs/celeb.asp. Retrieved 2010-01-27.
^ McGee, David, Smellin' Like a Brewery, Lookin' Like a Tramp, in Montandon, Innocent When you Dream, p.27
^ ^a ^b "Tom Waits Discography: Covers & Tributes: 1949–1975". Tom Waits Library. http://www.tomwaitslibrary.com/discography-covers.html. Retrieved 2010-09-29.
^ In his press release for the album (Montandon, p. 4), Waits outlined the album's musical influences as being Mose Allison, Thelonious Monk, Randy Newman, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Ray Charles, Stephen Foster, and Frank Sinatra.
^ Waits, Tom The Heart of Saturday Night Press release in Montandon, Mac Innocent When You Dream, p. 4
^ Montandon, Mav, Timeline and Discography in Innocent When You Dream, p.386
^ McGee, David (1977), Smellin' Like a Brewery, Lookin' Like a Tramp, in Montandon, p.29
^ McGee, David (1977), Smellin' Like a Brewery, Lookin' Like a Tramp, in Montandon, p. 30
^ ^a ^b "Tom Waits Time line: 1976–1980". http://www.tomwaitslibrary.com/timeline1976-1980.html. Retrieved 2007-01-18.
^ Waits would return to the show in 1977 ("Small Change" and "Tom Traubert's Blues"), '79 ("Burma Shave"), and '85 ("16 Shells from a 30.06" and "Cemetery Polka") "Tom Waits Filmography as Performer". Tom Waits Library. http://www.tomwaitslibrary.com/filmography-performer.html.
^ "Paradise Alley Original Soundtrack". Soundtrack Collector. http://www.soundtrackcollector.com/catalog/soundtrackdetail.php?movieid=7627. Retrieved 2007-11-25.
^ "Tom Waits interviews". Tom Waits Library. http://www.tomwaitslibrary.com/interviews.html. Retrieved 2007-11-23.
^ "Tom Waits's instruments". Tom Waits Library. http://www.tomwaitslibrary.com/instruments-main.html. Retrieved 2007-11-23.
^ "Frank's Wild Years credits". Tom Waits Library. http://www.tomwaitslibrary.com/frankswildyears-credits.html. Retrieved 2007-01-07.
^ McPherson, Ian. "Harlem Shuffle". http://www.timeisonourside.com/SOHarlem.html. Retrieved 2009-12-17.
^ "Franks Wild Years review". Rolling Stone Magazine. http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/tomwaits/albums/album/165414/review/5944333/franks_wild_years.
^ "Demon Wine: Introduction". Tom Waits Library. http://www.tomwaitslibrary.com/demonwine-introduction.html. Retrieved 2007-01-07.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e This song would later be collected on 2006's Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards.
^ "Wills, D. 'Modern Beats: Tom Waits', in Wills, D. (ed.) Beatdom Vol. 3 (Mauling Press: Dundee, 2007) p. ????". Beatdom.com. http://www.beatdom.com/?p=620. Retrieved 2010-01-27.
^ "Tom Waits – "It's Alright With Me" promotional video". YouTube. http://youtube.com/watch?v=iwyHFyKQ8XE.
^ "Tom Waits Timeline 1991–1995". Tom Waits Library. http://www.tomwaitslibrary.com/timeline1991-1995.html.
^ Huey, Steve. "Bone Machine review". allmusic.com. http://www.allmusic.com/album/r58488. Retrieved 2007-11-24.
^ "Alice in Wonderland: The Robert Wilson and Tom Waits Adaptation". Alice in Wonderland. http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/tauspace/theatre_wilson.htm. Retrieved 2007-11-25.
^ ^a ^b Bambarger, Bradley, "Tom Waits Joins Indie Epitaph for Mule Set", in Monanton, Innocent When You Dream, p.209
^ Bambarger, Bradley, Tom Waits Joins Indie Epitaph for Mule Set, in Monanton, Innocent When You Dream, p.207
^ "Second Bridge School Benefit show setlist, October 28, 2007". The Eyeball Kid. http://eyeballkid.blogspot.com/. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
^ "Preaching to the Bridge School Choir". Press Democrat. http://beck.blogs.pressdemocrat.com/10239/preaching-to-the-bridge-school-choir/?pa=all&tc=pgall. Retrieved 2007-11-25.
^ ^a ^b "Independent Music Awards – Past Judges". Independentmusicawards.com. http://www.independentmusicawards.com/ima_new/pastjudges.asp. Retrieved 2010-01-27.
^ "Top 200: Best-Reviewed Albums on Metacritic". metacritic.com. http://www.metacritic.com/music/bests/. Retrieved 2007-11-24.
^ "The Book Of Knots Traineater". ANTI-. 2007-03-20. http://www.anti.com/catalog/view/73/Traineater. Retrieved 2008-05-22.
^ "Tom Waits to perform 3 songs at benefit for Bet Tzedek Legal Services-The House Or Justice". Anti.com. http://www.anti.com/news/index/419/TOM_WAITS_TO_PERFORM_3_SONGS_AT_BENEFIT_FOR_BET_TZEDEK_LEGAL_SERVICESTHE_HOUSE_OF_JUSTICE. Retrieved 2010-01-27.
^ "Tom Waits On-Sale Information – WITH EUROPEAN DATES". Antilabelblog.com. 2008-05-07. http://www.antilabelblog.com/?p=246. Retrieved 2010-01-27.
^ Doug Pullen (2008-06-21). "Tom Waits bears soul, receives key to the city". El Paso Times. http://www.elpasotimes.com/entertainment/ci_9658466. Retrieved 2008-06-21.
^ Jim Fusili (2008-07-03). "Tom Waits in Concert: Gruff Yet Tender". The Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121503939521824567.html?mod=2_1168_1. Retrieved 2008-07-04.
^ Stubbs, Phill. "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus". Dreams. http://www.smart.co.uk/dreams/parnprev.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-10.
^ Shawn Adler (2007-11-15). "Ledger A Big Joker When It Comes To New Gilliam Film". MTV. http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2007/11/15/ledger-a-big-joker-when-it-comes-to-new-gilliam-film/. Retrieved 2007-12-30.
^ "Gilliam, Ledger reteam for film". Variety. 2007-10-31. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117975156.html?categoryid=1236&cs=1. Retrieved 2007-12-30.
^ "Moriarty" (2008-02-15). "AICN EXCLUSIVE! We Know Who's Paying Tribute To Heath Ledger In DR. PARNASSUS Now!". Ain't It Cool News. http://www.aintitcool.com/node/35623. Retrieved 2008-02-17.
^ "New Musical From Tom Waits On The Horizon". Anti Records. 2010-02-02. http://www.antilabelblog.com/?p=2257. Retrieved 2010-02-03.
^ "UPDATED Tom Waits Seeds On Hard Ground Chap Book For Charity". tomwaits.com. http://www.tomwaits.com/news/archive/201101/. Retrieved 2011-02-09.
^ "Tom Waits To Be Inducted Into Hall Of Fame By Neil Young". tomwaits.com. http://www.tomwaits.com/news/article/129/Tom_Waits_To_Be_Inducted_Into_Hall_Of_Fame_By_Neil_Young/. Retrieved 2011-02-09.
^ "Neil Diamond joins Rock and Roll Hall of Fame". BBC News. 2011-03-15. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12744306.
^ "Tom Waits working on new studio album". tomwaits.com. http://www.tomwaits.com/news/article/130/Tom_Waits/. Retrieved 2011-02-24.
^ "Tom Waits Sets the Rumors Straight". 2011-08-16. http://www.tomwaits.com/news/article/150/Tom_Waits_Sets_the_Rumors_Straight/. Retrieved 2011-08-29.
^ "Tom Waits Private Listening Party!". 2011-08-23. http://www.tomwaits.com/news/article/153/Tom_Waits_Private_Listening_Party/. Retrieved 2011-08-29.
^ "New Tom Waits single: Bad as Me". 2011-08-15. http://eyeballkid.blogspot.com/2011/08/new-tom-waits-single-bad-as-me.html. Retrieved 2011-08-29.
^ "Microsoft Word - Waits v. Frito-Lay Inc. _1992_.doc" (PDF). http://markroesler.com/pdf/caselaw/Waits%20v.%20Frito-Lay%20Inc.%20_1992_.pdf. Retrieved 2010-01-27.
^ "Tom Waits's Levis Copyright case". Tom Waits Library. http://www.tomwaitslibrary.com/copyright-levis.html. Retrieved 2007-11-23.
^ "Tom Waits wins advert mimic case". BBC News. 2006-01-19. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4629274.stm. Retrieved 2011-06-06.
^ "Waits settles in 'imitation' case". London: BBC News. 2007-01-27. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6305403.stm. Retrieved 2007-11-24.
^ "Waits and the cops". Tom Waits Library. http://www.tomwaitslibrary.com/thecops.html. Retrieved 2007-11-24.
^ "Tom Waits Press Conference announcement". ANTI.com. 2008-05-02. http://www.anti.com/news/index/489/Tom_Waits_Press_Conference_announcement. Retrieved 2008-05-05.

External links [link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tom Waits

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Tom Waits

Official website
Tom Waits at the Internet Movie Database
Works by or about Tom Waits in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
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
Tom Waits on Twitter
Interview with Tim Adams, The Guardian, October 23, 2011

v t e Tom Waits

Studio albums	Closing Time The Heart of Saturday Night Nighthawks at the Diner Small Change Foreign Affairs Blue Valentine Heartattack and Vine Swordfishtrombones Rain Dogs Franks Wild Years Bone Machine The Black Rider Mule Variations Blood Money Alice Real Gone Bad as Me

Live albums	Big Time Romeo Bleeding: Live From Austin Glitter and Doom Live

Soundtrack albums	One from the Heart Night on Earth

Compilation albums	Bounced Checks Anthology of Tom Waits Asylum Years The Early Years, Volume One The Early Years, Volume Two Beautiful Maladies Used Songs 1973–1980 Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards

Notable songs	"Ol' '55" "I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love with You" "The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me) (An Evening with Pete King)" "Somewhere" "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis" "Romeo Is Bleeding" "Kentucky Avenue" "Heartattack and Vine" "Jersey Girl" "Downtown Train" "Way Down in the Hole" "Young at Heart" "Bad as Me"

Tours	Real Gone Tour The Orphans Tour Glitter and Doom Tour

Related articles	Discography Kathleen Brennan Greg Cohen Bones Howe Rickie Lee Jones Marc Ribot Larry Taylor Chuck E. Weiss

Portal:Music Commons:Tom Waits

Persondata
Name	Waits, Tom
Alternative names
Short description	American musician
Date of birth	December 7, 1949
Place of birth	Pomona, California
Date of death
Place of death

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David Letterman
Letterman performing on his show in June 2011.
Pseudonym	Earl Hofert
Born	(1947-04-12) April 12, 1947 (age 65) Indianapolis, Indiana, United States^[1]
Medium	Stand-up, talk show
Nationality	American
Years active	1974–present
Genres	Observational comedy, surreal humor, deadpan
Subject(s)	Self-deprecation, everyday life
Influences	Steve Allen,^{[citation needed]} Johnny Carson,^[2] Jack Paar,^{[citation needed]} Paul Dixon^[3]
Influenced	Jimmy Kimmel, Jim Gaffigan, Jon Stewart, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Fallon
Spouse	Michelle Cook (1969–1977) Regina Lasko (2009–present)
Domestic partner(s)	Regina Lasko (1986–2009)
Notable works and roles	Host of The David Letterman Show (NBC) Host of Late Night with David Letterman (NBC) Host of Late Show with David Letterman (CBS)
Signature
Website	CBS.com/latenight/lateshow

Emmy Awards
Outstanding Host or Hostess in a Variety Series 1981 The David Letterman Show Outstanding Individual Achievement — Writers 1981 The David Letterman Show Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program 1984 Late Night with David Letterman 1985 Late Night with David Letterman 1986 Late Night with David Letterman 1987 Late Night with David Letterman Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series 1994 Late Show with David Letterman
American Comedy Awards
Funniest Male Performer in a TV Special (Leading or Supporting) Network, Cable or Syndication 1989 Late Night with David Letterman 1995 Late Show with David Letterman: Video Special Funniest Male Performer in a TV Series (Leading Role) Network, Cable or Syndication 1994 Late Show with David Letterman 2001 Late Show with David Letterman

David Michael Letterman (born April 12, 1947) is an American television host and comedian.^[1] He hosts the late night television talk show, Late Show with David Letterman, broadcast on CBS. Letterman has been a fixture on late night television since the 1982 debut of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC. Letterman recently surpassed friend and mentor Johnny Carson for having the longest late-night hosting career in the United States of America.^[4]

Letterman is also a television and film producer. His company Worldwide Pants produces his show as well as its network follow-up The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Worldwide Pants has also produced several prime-time comedies, the most successful of which was Everybody Loves Raymond, currently in syndication.

In 1996, David Letterman was ranked #45 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.^[5]

1 Early life and career
- 1.1 Weatherman
- 1.2 Move to Los Angeles
2 NBC
- 2.1 Morning show
- 2.2 Late Night with David Letterman
3 Late Show with David Letterman
4 Appearances in other media
5 Other projects
6 Personal life
7 Awards and honors
- 7.1 Awards
- 7.2 David Letterman Communication and Media Building
8 References
9 External links

Early life and career [link]

Letterman was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. His father, Harry Joseph Letterman (April 1915 – February 1973),^[6] was a florist of British descent; his mother Dorothy Letterman (née Hofert, now Dorothy Mengering), a Presbyterian church secretary of German descent, is an occasional figure on the show, usually at holidays and birthdays.

Letterman lived on the north side of Indianapolis (Broad Ripple area), not far from Speedway, IN, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and he enjoyed collecting model cars, including racers.^[7] In 2000, he told an interviewer for Esquire that, while growing up, he admired his father's ability to tell jokes and be the life of the party. Harry Joseph Letterman survived a heart attack at age 36, when David was a young boy. The fear of losing his father was constantly with Letterman as he grew up.^[8] The elder Letterman died of a second heart attack^[9] at age 57.

Letterman attended his hometown's Broad Ripple High School at the same time as Marilyn Tucker (future wife of Dan Quayle) and worked as a stock boy at the local Atlas supermarket.^[10] According to the Ball State Daily News, he originally had wanted to attend Indiana University, but his grades weren't good enough, so he decided to attend Ball State University, in Muncie, Indiana.^[11] He is a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity, and he graduated from what was then the Department of Radio and Television, in 1969. A self-described average student, Letterman endowed a scholarship for what he called "C students" at Ball State.^[12]

Though he registered for the draft and passed his physical after graduating from college, he was not drafted for service in Vietnam due to receiving a draft lottery number of 352 (out of 365).^[13]

Letterman began his broadcasting career as an announcer and newscaster at the college's student-run radio station—WBST—a 10-watt campus station which now is part of Indiana Public Radio.^[14] He was fired for treating classical music with irreverence.^[14]

Letterman then became involved with the founding of another campus station—WAGO-AM 570 (now WWHI, 91.3).^[15]

Letterman credits Paul Dixon—host of the Paul Dixon Show, a Cincinnati-based talk show also shown in Indianapolis while Letterman was growing up—for inspiring his choice of career:^[3]

"I was just out of college [in 1969], and I really didn't know what I wanted to do. And then all of a sudden I saw him doing it [on TV]. And I thought: That's really what I want to do!"

Weatherman [link]

Letterman began his career as a radio talk show host on WNTS (AM), and on Indianapolis television station WLWI (now called WTHR) as an anchor, and weatherman. He received some attention for his unpredictable on-air behavior, which included congratulating a tropical storm for being upgraded to a hurricane and predicting hail stones "the size of canned hams."^[16] He would also occasionally report the weather and the day's very high and low temps for fictitious cities ("Eight inches of snow in Bingree and surrounding areas.") while on another occasion saying that a state border had been erased.^[17] ("From space you can see the border between Indiana and Ohio has been erased. I'm not in favor of this.") He also starred in a local kiddie show, made wisecracks as host of a late night TV show called "Freeze-Dried Movies" (he once acted out a scene from "Godzilla" using plastic dinosaurs),^[18] and hosted a talk show that aired early on Saturday mornings called "Clover Power,"^[19] in which he interviewed 4-H members about their projects.^[20]

In 1971, Letterman appeared as a pit road reporter for ABC Sports' tape-delayed coverage of the Indianapolis 500.^[21] David initially is introduced as Chris Economaki in his job as a corner reporter. Letterman interviews Mario Andretti who has just crashed out of the race and asks him a question about traffic on the course.

Move to Los Angeles [link]

In 1975, encouraged by his then-wife Michelle and several of his Sigma Chi fraternity brothers, Letterman moved to Los Angeles, California, with hope of becoming a comedy writer.^[22] He started off by writing material for comedian Jimmie Walker.^[23] He also began performing stand-up comedy at The Comedy Store, a proving ground for unknown comics.

In the summer of 1977, Letterman was a writer and regular on the six-week summer series The Starland Vocal Band Show, broadcast on CBS.^[24] He hosted a 1977 pilot for a game show entitled The Riddlers^[25]^[26] that was never picked up and co-starred in the Barry Levinson-produced comedy special Peeping Times that aired in January 1978. Later that year, Letterman was a cast member on Mary Tyler Moore's variety show, Mary.^[27] Letterman made a guest appearance on Mork & Mindy (as a parody of EST leader Werner Erhard^[28]) and appearances on game shows such as The $20,000 Pyramid,^[29] The Gong Show, Password Plus^[30] and Liar's Club, as well as talk shows such as The Mike Douglas Show.^[31] He was also screen tested for the lead role in the 1980 film Airplane!, a role that eventually went to Robert Hays.^[32]

His dry, sarcastic humor caught the attention of scouts for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and Letterman was soon a regular guest on the show. Letterman became a favorite of Carson's and was a regular guest host for the show beginning in 1978. Letterman credits Carson as the person who influenced his career the most.^[2]

NBC [link]

Letterman at the 38th Primetime Emmy Awards in 1986

Morning show [link]

Main article: The David Letterman Show

On June 23, 1980, Letterman was given his own morning comedy show on NBC, The David Letterman Show. It was originally 90 minutes long, but was shortened to 60 minutes in August 1980.^[33] The show was a critical success, winning two Emmy Awards, but was a ratings disappointment and was canceled in October 1980.

[edit] Late Night with David Letterman

Main article: Late Night with David Letterman

NBC kept Letterman under contract to try him in a different time slot. Late Night with David Letterman debuted February 1, 1982; the first guest on the first show was Bill Murray.^[34] Murray also guested on January 31, 2012 – 30 years later. The show ran Monday through Thursday at 12:30 a.m. Eastern Time, immediately following The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (a Friday night broadcast was added in June 1987). It was seen as being edgy and unpredictable, and soon developed a cult following (particularly among college students). Letterman's reputation as an acerbic interviewer was borne out in verbal sparring matches with Cher^[35] (who even called him an asshole on the show), Shirley MacLaine,^[36] Charles Grodin, and Madonna. The show also featured comedy segments and running characters, in a style heavily influenced by the 1950s and 1960s programs of Steve Allen.^[37] Although Ernie Kovacs is often cited as an influence on the show,^[38] Letterman has denied this.^[2]

The show often featured quirky, genre-mocking regular features, including "Stupid Pet Tricks^[39] ", dropping various objects off the roof of a five-story building,^[40] demonstrations of unorthodox clothing (such as suits made of Alka-Seltzer,^[41] Velcro^[42] and suet), a recurring Top 10 list, the Monkey-Cam^[43] (and the Audience Cam), and a facetious letter-answering segment.^[44] The Top 10 list, several "Film[s] by My Dog Bob" in which a camera was mounted on Letterman's own dog^[45] (often with comic results), Stupid Human Tricks,^[46] Small Town News,^[47] and Stupid Pet Tricks^[48] (which had its origins on Letterman's morning show) all eventually moved with Letterman to CBS.

Other memorable moments included Letterman using a bullhorn to interrupt a live interview on The Today Show, announcing that he was the NBC president while not wearing any pants; interrupting Al Roker on WNBC-TV's broadcast of Live at Five by walking into their studio (which occupied the same floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza as Letterman's studio); and staging "elevator races", complete with commentary by NBC Sports' Bob Costas. In one infamous appearance, in 1982, Andy Kaufman (who was already wearing a neck brace) appeared to be slapped and knocked to the ground by professional wrestler Jerry Lawler (though Lawler and Kaufman's friend Bob Zmuda later revealed that the event was staged.)^[49] In another memorable exchange, sex expert Dr. Ruth Westheimer included cucumbers in a list of handy sex objects that women could find at home. The following night, guest Ted Koppel asked Letterman "May I insert something here?" and Dave responded "OK, as long as it's not a cucumber."^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Late Show with David Letterman

The Ed Sullivan Theater, where Late Show with David Letterman is recorded

Main article: Late Show with David Letterman

In 1992, Johnny Carson retired, and many fans believed that Letterman would become host of The Tonight Show. When NBC instead gave the job to Jay Leno, Letterman departed NBC to host his own late-night show on CBS, opposite The Tonight Show at 11:30 p.m., called the Late Show with David Letterman. The new show debuted on August 30, 1993 and was taped at the historic Ed Sullivan Theater, where Ed Sullivan taped his eponymous variety series from 1948 to 1971. For Letterman's arrival, CBS spent $8 million in renovations.^[50] In addition to that cost, CBS also signed Letterman to a lucrative three-year, $14 million/year contract,^[51] doubling his Late Night salary. The total cost for everything (renovations, negotiation right paid to NBC, signing Letterman, announcer Bill Wendell, Shaffer, the writers and the band) was over $140 million.

But while the expectation was that Letterman would retain his unique style and sense of humor with the move, Late Show was not an exact replica of his old NBC program. Recognizing the more formal mood (and wider audience) of his new time slot and studio, Letterman eschewed his trademark blazer with khaki pants and white sneakers wardrobe combination in favor of expensive shoes, tailored suits and light-colored socks. The monologue was lengthened and Paul Shaffer and the "World's Most Dangerous Band" followed Letterman to CBS, but they added a brass section and were rebranded the "CBS Orchestra" as a short monologue and a small band were mandated by Carson while Letterman occupied the 12:30 slot. Additionally, because of intellectual property disagreements, Letterman was unable to import many of his Late Night segments verbatim,^[52] but he sidestepped this problem by simply renaming them (the "Top Ten List" became the "Late Show Top Ten", "Viewer Mail" became the "CBS Mailbag", etc.)

Popularity [link]

The main competitor of The Late Show is NBC's The Tonight Show, which was hosted by Jay Leno for nearly 16 years, but from June 1, 2009, to January 22, 2010, was hosted by Conan O'Brien. In 1993 and 1994, The Late Show consistently gained higher ratings than The Tonight Show. But in 1995, ratings dipped and Leno's show consistently beat Letterman's in the ratings from the time that Hugh Grant came on Leno's show after Grant's arrest for soliciting a prostitute.;^[53] Leno typically attracted about 5 million nightly viewers between 1999 and 2009. The Late Show lost nearly half its audience during its competition with Leno, attracting 7.1 million viewers nightly in its 1993–94 season and about 3.8 million per night as of Leno's departure in 2009.^[54] In the final months of his first stint as host of The Tonight Show, Leno beat Letterman in the ratings by a 1.3 million viewer margin (5.2 million to 3.9 million), and Nightline and The Late Show were virtually tied.^[55] Once O'Brien took over Tonight, however, Letterman closed the gap in the ratings.^[56]^[57]^[58] O'Brien initially drove the median age of Tonight Show viewers from 55 to 45, with most older viewers opting to watch The Late Show instead.^[59]

Following Leno's return to The Tonight Show, however, Leno has regained his lead.^[60]

Letterman's shows have garnered both critical and industry praise, receiving 67 Emmy Award nominations, winning 12 times in his first 20 years in late night television. From 1993–2009, Letterman ranked higher than Leno in the annual Harris Poll of Nation's Favorite TV Personality 12 times.^[61] For example, in 2003 and 2004 Letterman ranked second in that poll, behind only Oprah Winfrey, a year that Leno was ranked fifth.^[62] Leno was higher than Letterman on that poll three times during the same period, in 1998, 2007, and 2008.^[61]

Hosting the Academy Awards [link]

On March 27, 1995, Letterman acted as the host for the 67th Academy Awards ceremony. Critics blasted^[63] Letterman for what they deemed a poor hosting of the Oscars, noting that his irreverent style undermined the traditional importance and glamor of the event.^{[citation needed]} In a joke about their unusual names (inspired by a similar joke by Woody Allen), he started off by introducing Uma Thurman to Oprah Winfrey, and then both of them to Keanu Reeves: "Oprah...Uma. Uma...Oprah," "Have you kids met Keanu?"^[64] This and many of his other jokes fell flat.^{[citation needed]} Although Letterman attracted the highest ratings to the annual telecast since 1983, many felt that the bad publicity garnered by Letterman's hosting caused a decline in the Late Show's ratings.^[65]

Letterman recycled the apparent debacle into a long-running gag. On his first show after the Oscars, he joked, "Looking back, I had no idea that thing was being televised." He lampooned his stint two years later, during Billy Crystal's opening Oscar skit, which also parodied the plane-crashing scenes from that year's chief nominated film, The English Patient.

For years afterward, Letterman recounted his hosting the Oscars, although the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences continued to hold Letterman in high regard and they had invited him to host the Oscars again.^[66]^[67] On September 7, 2010, he made an appearance on the premiere of the 14th season of The View, and confirmed that he had been considered for hosting again.

Heart surgery hiatus [link]

On January 14, 2000, a routine check-up revealed that an artery in Letterman's heart was severely obstructed. He was rushed to emergency surgery for a quintuple bypass.^[68]

During the initial weeks of his recovery, reruns of the Late Show were shown and introduced by friends of Letterman including Drew Barrymore,^[58] Ray Romano, Robin Williams, Bonnie Hunt, Megan Mullally, Bill Murray, Regis Philbin, Charles Grodin, Nathan Lane, Julia Roberts,^[58] Bruce Willis, Jerry Seinfeld, Martin Short, Steven Seagal, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Danny DeVito, Steve Martin, and Sarah Jessica Parker.

Subsequently, while still recovering from surgery, Letterman revived the late night tradition that had virtually disappeared on network television during the 1990s of 'guest hosts' by allowing Bill Cosby, Kathie Lee Gifford (recommended by Regis Philbin, who was asked first but had no time in his schedule), Dana Carvey, Janeane Garofalo, and others to host new episodes of The Late Show. Cosby—the show's first guest host—refused to sit at Letterman's desk out of respect, using the couch instead; Garofalo followed suit, utilizing a set of grade-school desks instead.

Upon his return to the show on February 21, 2000, Letterman brought all of the doctors and nurses on stage who had participated in his surgery and recovery (with extra teasing of a nurse who had given him bed baths—"This woman has seen me naked!"),^[69] including Dr. O. Wayne Isom and physician Louis Aronne, who frequently appears on the show. In a show of emotion, Letterman was nearly in tears as he thanked the health care team with the words "These are the people who saved my life!" The episode earned an Emmy nomination. For a number of episodes, Letterman continued to crack jokes about his bypass, including saying, "Bypass surgery: it's when doctors surgically create new blood flow to your heart. A bypass is what happened to me when I didn't get The Tonight Show! It's a whole different thing." In a later running gag he lobbied his home state of Indiana to rename the freeway circling Indianapolis (I-465) "The David Letterman Bypass." He also featured a montage of faux news coverage of his bypass surgery, which included a clip of Dave's heart for sale on the Home Shopping Network. Letterman became friends with his doctors and nurses. In 2008, a Rolling Stone interview stated "he hosted a doctor and nurse who'd helped perform the emergency quintuple-bypass heart surgery that saved his life in 2000. 'These are people who were complete strangers when they opened my chest,' he says. 'And now, eight years later, they're among my best friends.' "^[4]

Additionally, Letterman invited the band Foo Fighters to play "Everlong",^[70] introducing them as "my favorite band, playing my favorite song."^[71] During a later Foo Fighters appearance, Letterman said that Foo Fighters had been in the middle of a South American tour which they canceled to come play on his comeback episode.

Letterman again handed over the reins of the show to several guest hosts (including Bill Cosby, Brad Garrett, Elvis Costello, John McEnroe, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, Bonnie Hunt, Luke Wilson and bandleader Paul Shaffer) in February 2003, when he was diagnosed with a severe case of shingles. Later that year, Letterman made regular use of guest hosts—including Tom Arnold and Kelsey Grammer—for new shows broadcast on Fridays. In March 2007, Adam Sandler—who had been scheduled to be the lead guest—served as a guest host while Letterman was ill with a stomach virus.^[72]

Re-signing with CBS [link]

Letterman hosting President Barack Obama at Late Show with David Letterman, September 2009

In March 2002, as Letterman's contract with CBS neared expiration, ABC offered him the time slot for long-running news program Nightline with Ted Koppel. Letterman was interested as he believed he could never match Leno's ratings at CBS due to Letterman's complaint of weaker lead-ins from the network's late local news programs, but was reluctant to replace Koppel.^[73] Letterman addressed his decision to re-sign on the air, stating that he was content at CBS and that he had great respect for Koppel.

On December 4, 2006, CBS revealed that Letterman signed a new contract to host The Late Show with David Letterman through the fall of 2010. "I'm thrilled to be continuing on at CBS," said Letterman. "At my age you really don't want to have to learn a new commute."^[74] Letterman further joked about the subject by pulling up his right pants leg, revealing a tattoo, presumably temporary, of the ABC logo.

"Thirteen years ago, David Letterman put CBS late night on the map and in the process became one of the defining icons of our network," said Leslie Moonves, president and CEO of CBS Corporation. "His presence on our air is an ongoing source of pride, and the creativity and imagination that the Late Show puts forth every night is an ongoing display of the highest quality entertainment. We are truly honored that one of the most revered and talented entertainers of our time will continue to call CBS 'home.'"^[75]

According to a 2007 article in Forbes magazine, Letterman earned $40 million a year.^[76] A 2009 article in The New York Times, however, said his salary was estimated at $32 million per year.^[77] In June 2009, Letterman's Worldwide Pants and CBS reached agreement to continue the Late Show until at least August 2012. The previous contract had been set to expire in 2010, and the two-year extension is shorter than the typical three-year contract period negotiated in the past.^[77] Worldwide Pants agreed to lower its fee for the show, though it had remained a "solid moneymaker for CBS" under the previous contract.^[77]

On the February 3, 2011, edition of the Late Show, during an interview with Howard Stern, Letterman said he would continue to do his talk show for "maybe two years, I think."^[78]

2007–2008 writers' strike [link]

The Late Show went off air for eight weeks during the months of November and December because of the Writers Guild of America strike. Letterman's production company—Worldwide Pants—was the first company to make an individual agreement with the WGA,^[79] thus allowing his show to come back on air on January 2, 2008. On his first episode since being off air, he surprised the viewing audience with his newly grown beard, which signified solidarity with the strike.^[80] His beard was shaved off during the show on January 7, 2008.

Controversy over jokes about daughter of Sarah Palin [link]

On June 8 and June 9, 2009, Letterman told a sexually-themed joke on his show each night about a daughter of Sarah Palin.^[81] Palin was in New York City at the time with her fourteen year-old daughter, Willow, and the jokes were said to be aimed at the daughter, never named, who was visiting New York City with her mother.^[81] Palin criticized the jokes, saying in a statement posted on the internet that "I doubt he'd ever dare make such comments about anyone else's daughter," and "laughter incited by sexually-perverted comments made by a 62-year-old male celebrity aimed at a 14-year-old girl" is "disgusting."^[82] On June 10, Letterman responded to the controversy on his show by stating that the jokes were meant to be about Palin's eighteen year-old daughter, Bristol, whose pregnancy as an unmarried teenager had caused controversy during the 2008 Presidential election, and that "(t)hese are not jokes made about (Palin's) 14-year-old daughter. I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl."^[82] His remarks didn't put an end to the public criticism, however, with the National Organization for Women, who supported Palin in a statement, noting he had given only "something of an apology."^[81] With the controversy not subsiding, Letterman addressed the issue again on his June 15 show, faulting himself for the error and apologizing "especially to the two daughters involved, Bristol and Willow, and also to the governor and her family and everybody else who was outraged by the joke."^[83]

Letterman and Carson [link]

In spite of Johnny Carson's clear intention to pass his title to Letterman, NBC selected Jay Leno to host The Tonight Show after Carson's departure.^[84] Letterman maintained a close relationship with Carson through his break with NBC. Three years after he left for CBS, HBO produced a made-for-television movie called The Late Shift, based on a book by New York Times reporter Bill Carter, chronicling the battle between Letterman and Leno for the coveted Tonight Show hosting spot. Letterman would mock the film for months afterward, specifically on how the actor playing him, John Michael Higgins, did not resemble him in the least.^{[citation needed]}

Carson later made a few cameo appearances as a guest on Letterman's show. Carson's final television appearance came May 13, 1994, on a Late Show episode taped in Los Angeles, when he made a surprise appearance during a 'Top 10 list' segment. The audience went wild as Letterman stood up and proudly invited Carson to sit at his desk. The applause was so protracted that Carson was unable to say anything, and he finally returned backstage as the applause continued (it was later explained that Carson had laryngitis, though Carson can be heard talking to Letterman during his appearance).

In early 2005, it was revealed that Carson still kept up with current events and late-night TV right up to his death that year, and that he occasionally sent jokes to Letterman, who used these jokes in his monologue; according to CBS senior vice president Peter Lassally (a onetime producer for both men), Carson got "a big kick out of it."^[85] Letterman would do a characteristic Johnny Carson golf swing after delivering one of Carson's jokes. In a tribute to Carson, all of the opening monologue jokes during the first show following Carson's death were written by Carson.

Lassally also claimed that Carson had always believed Letterman, not Leno, to be his "rightful successor."^[86] Letterman also frequently employs some of Carson's trademark bits on his show, including "Carnac the Magnificent" (with Paul Shaffer as Carnac), "Stump the Band" and the "Week in Review."

Letterman and Oprah Winfrey [link]

Letterman and Oprah had a 16 year feud which according to Letterman started when he and his girlfriend decided to skip out on a bill, tricking the waiter into thinking Oprah agreed to pay it.^[87]

On September 10, 2007, Letterman made his first appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show at Madison Square Garden in New York City. He shared pictures of his son and live-in girlfriend. The so-called feud between Letterman and Winfrey apparently ended in 2005 when Winfrey appeared on CBS's Late Show with David Letterman on December 2, in an event Letterman jokingly referred to as "the Super Bowl of Love".^[88] Winfrey had previously appeared on Letterman's show when he was hosting NBC's Late Night on May 2, 1989.

Winfrey and Letterman also appeared together in a Late Show promo that aired during CBS's coverage of Super Bowl XLI in February 2007, with the two sitting next to each other on the couch watching the game. Since the game was played between the Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears, the Indianapolis-born Letterman wears a Peyton Manning jersey, while Winfrey—who tapes her show in Chicago—is in a Brian Urlacher jersey.^[89] Three years later, during CBS's coverage of Super Bowl XLIV, the two appeared again, this time with Winfrey sitting on a couch between Letterman and Jay Leno. The appearance was Letterman's idea: Leno flew to New York City in an NBC corporate jet, sneaking into the Ed Sullivan Theater during the Late Show's February 4 taping wearing a disguise, meeting Winfrey and Letterman at a living room set created in the theater's balcony where they taped their promo.^[90]

Response to Internet death threat [link]

On August 17, 2011, it was reported that a Muslim militant had posted a death threat against Letterman on a website frequented by Al-Qaeda supporters, calling on American Muslims to kill Letterman for making a joke about the death of an Al-Qaeda leader killed in a drone strike in Pakistan in June 2011.^[91] In his show on August 22, Letterman joked about the threat, saying "State Department authorities are looking into this. They're not taking this lightly. They're looking into it. They're questioning, they're interrogating, there's an electronic trail—but everybody knows it's Leno."^[92]

Appearances in other media [link]

Letterman appeared in issue 239 of the Marvel comic book The Avengers, in which the title characters are guests on Late Night.^[93] A parody of Letterman, named "David Endochrine," is gassed to death along with his bandleader named "Paul" and their audience in Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns.^[94]

Letterman appeared in the pilot episode of the short-lived 1986 series "Coach Toast", and he appears with a bag over his head as a guest on Bonnie Hunt's ca. 1993 sitcom The Building. He also appears in The Simpsons, as himself in a couch gag when The Simpsons find themselves (and the couch) in "Late Night with David Letterman." He had a cameo in the feature film Cabin Boy, with Chris Elliott, who worked as a writer on Letterman's show. In this and other appearances, Letterman is listed in the credits as "Earl Hofert", the name of Letterman's maternal grandfather. He also appeared as himself in the Howard Stern biopic Private Parts as well as the 1999 Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon, in a few episodes of Garry Shandling's 1990s TV series The Larry Sanders Show and in "The Abstinence", a 1996 episode of the sitcom Seinfeld. Letterman also made an uncredited appearance in the first episode of the third season of the sitcom The Nanny.

Letterman provided vocals for the Warren Zevon song "Hit Somebody" from My Ride's Here,^[95] and provided the voice for Butt-head's father in the 1996 animated film Beavis and Butt-head Do America.

In 2010, a documentary Dying to Do Letterman was released directed by Joke Fincioen and Biagio Messina featuring Steve Mazan, a stand up comic, who has cancer and wants to appear on the Letterman Show. The film won Best Documentary and Jury Awards at the Cinequest Film Festival.^[96] Steve Mazan published a same-titled book (full title, Dying to Do Letterman: Turning Someday into Today) about his own saga.^[97]

Known for rarely giving television interviews, Letterman appeared as an exclusive guest on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight on May 29, 2012. He was interviewed for one full hour by a long-time friend and fellow television host Regis Philbin, who guest hosted the show during Piers Morgan's leave during that week.

Other projects [link]

Worldwide Pants [link]

Letterman started his own production company—Worldwide Pants Incorporated—which produced his show and several others, including Everybody Loves Raymond, The Late Late Show, and several critically acclaimed, but short-lived television series for Bonnie Hunt. Worldwide Pants also produced the dramedy program Ed, which aired on NBC from 2000–2004. It was Letterman's first association with NBC since he left the network in 1993. During Ed's run, the star, Tom Cavanagh, appeared as a guest on The Late Show several times.

In 2005, Worldwide Pants produced its first feature film, Strangers with Candy, which was a prequel to the Comedy Central TV series of the same title. In 2007, Worldwide Pants produced the ABC comedy series, Knights of Prosperity.

Worldwide Pants made significant news in December 2007 when it was announced that Letterman's company had independently negotiated its own contract with the Writers Guild of America, East, thus allowing Letterman, Craig Ferguson, and their writers to return to work, while the union continued its strike against production companies, networks and studios who had not reached an agreement.

Record company [link]

In late April 2010, several music industry websites reported that Letterman started a record label named Clear Entertainment/C.E. Music and signed his first artist, Runner Runner.^[98]^[99] Lucy Walsh announced on her MySpace page that she has been signed by Letterman and Clear Entertainment/C.E. Music and is working on her album.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing [link]

Main article: Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLLR) is an auto racing team that currently races in the American Le Mans Series, and part-time in the Indy Racing League. It is co-owned by 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Rahal, businessman Mike Lanigan, and Letterman himself, and is based in Hilliard, Ohio. The team won the 2004 Indianapolis 500 with driver Buddy Rice. Letterman was a pit reporter for ABC in the 1971 Indianapolis 500.^[21]

American Foundation for Courtesy and Grooming [link]

Main article: American Foundation for Courtesy and Grooming

American Foundation for Courtesy and Grooming is Letterman's private foundation. Through it, Letterman has donated millions of dollars to charities and other non-profits in Indiana and Montana, celebrity-affiliated organizations such as Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, universities such as Ball State, and other organizations such as the American Cancer Society, Salvation Army, and Doctors Without Borders.

Personal life [link]

Marriages and long-term relationships [link]

In 1969, Letterman married Michelle Cook; the marriage ended by divorce in 1977.^[100] He also had a long-term relationship with former head writer and producer on Late Night, Merrill Markoe. Markoe was the mind behind several Late Night staples, such as "Stupid Pet/Human Tricks".

Wikinews has related news: TV late night show host David Letterman marries girlfriend of 23 years

Letterman has a son, Harry Joseph Letterman (born on November 3, 2003), with Regina Lasko. Harry is named after Letterman's father.^[101] In 2005, police discovered a plot to kidnap Harry Letterman and ransom him for $5 million. Kelly Frank, a house painter who had worked for Letterman, was charged in the conspiracy.^[102]

Letterman and Lasko, who had been together since 1986, wed on March 19, 2009, during a quiet courthouse civil ceremony in Choteau, Montana, where he purchased a ranch in 1999.^[103]^[104]^[105] Letterman announced the marriage during the taping of his March 23 show, shortly after congratulating Bruce Willis for getting married the previous week. Letterman told the audience he nearly missed the ceremony because his truck became stuck in mud two miles from their house.^[106] The family resides in North Salem, New York, on a 108-acre (44 ha) estate.^[107]

Stalking incident [link]

Beginning in May 1988, Letterman was stalked by Margaret Mary Ray, a woman suffering from schizophrenia. She once stole his Porsche, repeatedly broke into his house, and camped out on his tennis court. Her exploits drew national attention, and Letterman occasionally joked about her behavior in his show, although never mentioning her name. After she committed suicide in 1998, Letterman told the New York Times that he had had great compassion for her,^[108] and publicly expressed sympathy.^[109]

[edit] Extortion attempt and revelation of affairs

On his October 1, 2009, show, Letterman announced that he had been the victim of an extortion attempt by someone threatening to reveal that he had had sex with several of his female employees, and at the same time, he confirmed that he had had such relationships.^[110] He stated that three weeks earlier (on September 9, 2009) someone had left a package in his car with material he said he would write into a screenplay and a book if Letterman did not pay him $2 million. Letterman said that he contacted the Manhattan District Attorney's office, ultimately cooperating with them to conduct a sting operation involving giving the man a phony check.^[111] Subsequently, Robert J. "Joe" Halderman, a producer of the CBS true crime journalism series 48 Hours, was arrested after trying to deposit the check. He was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury and pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempted grand larceny on October 2, 2009.^[112] Eventually, on March 9, 2010, he pleaded guilty to this same felony and served a 6-month jail sentence, followed by probation and community service.^[113]

A central figure in the case and one of the women Letterman had had a sexual relationship with was his longtime personal assistant Stephanie Birkitt, who often appeared with him on his show. She had also worked for 48 Hours.^[114] Until a month prior to the revelations, she had shared a residence with Halderman,^[115] who allegedly had copied her personal diary and used it, along with private emails, in the blackmail package.^[116]

On October 3, 2009, a former CBS employee, Holly Hester, announced that she and Letterman had engaged in a year-long "secret" affair in the early 1990s while she was his intern and a student at New York University.^[117]

In the days following the initial announcement of the affairs and the arrest, several prominent women, including Kathie Lee Gifford, co-host of NBC's Today Show, and NBC news anchor Ann Curry questioned whether Letterman's affairs with subordinates created an unfair working environment.^[118] A spokesman for Worldwide Pants said that the company's sexual harassment policy did not prohibit sexual relationships between managers and employees.^[119] According to business news reporter Eve Tahmincioglu, "CBS suppliers are supposed to follow the company's business conduct policies" and the CBS 2008 Business Conduct Statement states that "If a consenting romantic or sexual relationship between a supervisor and a direct or indirect subordinate should develop, CBS requires the supervisor to disclose this information to his or her Company's Human Resources Department..."^[120]

On October 5, 2009, Letterman devoted a segment of his show to a public apology to his wife and staff.^[121]^[122] Three days later, Worldwide Pants announced that Birkitt had been placed on a "paid leave of absence" from the Late Show.^[123] On October 15, CBS News announced that the company's Chief Investigative Correspondent, Armen Keteyian, had been assigned to conduct an "in-depth investigation" into Halderman's blackmail of Letterman.^[124]

Awards and honors [link]

Awards [link]

Main article: List of David Letterman awards

In his capacities as either a writer, producer, performer, or as part of a writing team, Letterman is among the most nominated people in Emmy Award history with 52 nominations, winning two Daytime Emmys and five Primetime Emmys since 1981. His nomination record is second only to producer Jac Venza, who holds the record for the most Emmy nominations for an individual (57). Letterman has been nominated every year since 1984, when he first appeared on late night television as the host of Late Night with David Letterman. Additionally, he has won four American Comedy Awards. Letterman was the first recipient of the Johnny Carson Award for Comedic Excellence at The Comedy Awards in 2011.

David Letterman Communication and Media Building.

David Letterman Communication and Media Building [link]

On September 7, 2007, Letterman visited his alma mater, Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, for the dedication of a communications facility named in his honor for his dedication to the university throughout his career as a comedian. The $21 million, 75,000-square-foot (7,000 m²) David Letterman Communication and Media Building opened for the 2007 fall semester. It features state-of-the-art recording equipment and facilities. Thousands of Ball State students, faculty, and local residents welcomed Letterman back to Indiana.^[125] Letterman's emotional speech touched on his struggles as a college student and his late father, and also included the "top ten good things about having your name on a building", finishing with, "if reasonable people can put my name on a $21 million building, anything is possible."^[126]

At the same time, Letterman also received a Sagamore of the Wabash award given by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, which recognizes distinguished service to the state of Indiana.^[125]

References [link]

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^ IMDB, broadcast April 3, 1979.
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^ "A film by Bob the dog (from David Letterman)". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrIiLrNq0oI. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
^ "Stupid Human Trick on David Letterman 1-1987". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa4Vfn-pjHI. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
^ "Classic Dave = small town news, 1/12/88". YouTube. 1-12-88. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUs5hNVZuCs. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
^ "Late Night with David Letterman classic Stupid Pet Tricks, 1984". YouTube. 1984. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBvg0D_8IGQ. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
^ "Kaufman Fight Was a Fake". dailyhaggis.com. March 6, 2010. http://dailyhaggis.com/2002/12/27/kaufman-fight-was-a-fake/. Retrieved November 6, 2011.
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^ Breeanna Hare (October 7, 2009). "Viewers still in Letterman's corner". CNN. http://articles.cnn.com/2009-10-07/entertainment/letterman.show.ratings_1_local-people-meters-rating-points-viewers?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ. Retrieved February 5, 2012.
^ Joanna Weiss (May 31, 2009). "11:35pm — Conan O'Brien's time has come. Will the Leno faithful follow?". The Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2009/05/31/conan_obriens_time_has_come__will_the_leno_faithful_follow/. Retrieved 2009-06-01.
^ TV By The Numbers "Jay Leno And Jimmy Fallon Win the Late-Night Week of April 27 - May 1" May 7, 2009
^ "David Letterman: Julia Roberts helps him beat Conan O'Brien for first time; Denzel Washington, Jonas Brothers visit Thursday". Orlando Sentinel. 2009-06-10. http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2009/06/david-letterman-julia-roberts-helps-him-beat-conan-obrien-for-first-time-regis-philbin-to-give-top-t.html. Retrieved 2009-06-10.
^ Access Hollywood (2009-06-10). "Roberts sides with Letterman". MSNBC.com. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31210920/. Retrieved 2009-06-10.
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^ "For Third Year in a Row Oprah Retains Her Position as America's Favorite TV Personality". the Harris Poll. December 29, 2004. http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=530.
^ John O'Connor (March 29, 1995). "The Winner Isn't David Letterman". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/29/movies/critic-s-notebook-the-winner-isn-t-david-letterman.html. Retrieved December 8, 2011.
^ "David Letterman Hosts The Academy Awards". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS0-inBTfPc. Retrieved February 5, 2012.
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^ Finke, Nikki (February 25, 2008). "The 411 about David Letterman & Oscar". Deadline Hollywood Daily. http://www.deadline.com/2008/02/the-411-about-david-letterman-oscar/.
^ Keller, Joel (23 February 2011). "Interview: Bruce Vilanch". A.V. Club. http://www.avclub.com/articles/bruce-vilanch,52248/. Retrieved 19 December 2011.
^ Kelley, Tina (January 15, 2000). "Artery Blocked, Letterman Has Heart Bypass Surgery". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/15/nyregion/artery-blocked-letterman-has-heart-bypass-surgery.html?sec=health. Retrieved March 23, 2009.
^ "David Letterman biography". Popstarsplus.com. http://www.popstarsplus.com/celebrities_davidletterman.htm. Retrieved 2010-11-07.
^ Basham, David (2000-02-16). "Foo Fighters To Welcome Letterman Back To "Late Show"". MTV. http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1429027/20000216/foo_fighters.jhtml. Retrieved 2010-06-05.
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^ Carter, Bill (March 20, 2007). "Letterman is Ill, so Guest Takes Over Late Show". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/arts/television/20cnd-letterman.html?ex=1175313600&en=e887f76d9783d7e7&ei=5070. Retrieved March 29, 2007.
^ "The Battle for Late Night" A&E Network, 27 April 2010.
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^ ^a ^b ^c Carter, Bill (June 6, 2009). "Letterman Reaches a Deal With CBS to Extend ‘Late Show’". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/arts/television/10letterman.html. Retrieved 2011-05-15.
^ Seth Abramovitch (February 4, 2011). "Is David Letterman Ready to be Done with the Late Show?". TV.com. http://www.tv.com/is-david-letterman-ready-to-be-done-with-the-late-show/story/25084.html. Retrieved 2011-06-17. "Dave tried valiantly to change the subject to Stern’s new Sirius deal, rumored to be worth even more than the $500 million contract he signed with them in 2005. But once again, Stern (now 57) turned the tables on Dave (now 63), asking the host, “How much longer are you doing this?” To which Letterman replied: “Maybe two years, I think?”"
^ "e-mail 12-28-07". wga.org. http://www.wga.org/subpage_member.aspx?id=2692.
^ Gary Levin (January 3, 2008). "Late-night shows return fully bearded — with and without writers". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2008-01-02-late-night-strike_N.htm. Retrieved 2010-01-17.
^ ^a ^b ^c Lisa Bennett (June 11, 2009). "Letterman "Jokes" About Palin's Daughter". NOW. http://www.now.org/issues/media/hall-of-shame/index.php/television/letterman-palin-daughter. Retrieved 2012-04-27.
^ ^a ^b Caitlin Taylor (June 11, 2009). "Palin vs. Letterman". ABC News. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2009/06/palin-vs-letterman/. Retrieved 2012-04-27.
^ Paul Farhi (June 16, 2009). "One Pregnant-Teen Joke Too Many? Angry Palin Gets Letterman to Apologize". washingtonpost.com. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/15/AR2009061503131.html?hpid=topnews. Retrieved 2012-04-27.
^ "The Independent". Johnny Carson, king of late-night chat, dies at 79 (London). January 24, 2005. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/johnny-carson-king-of-latenight-chat-dies-at-79-488063.html. Retrieved July 6, 2009.
^ Pierce, Scott D. (January 24, 2005). "TV critics genuinely fond of Carson". Deseret News. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/600106891/TV-critics-genuinely-fond-of-Carson.html. Retrieved February 27, 2012.
^ "New York Post". Carson Feeds Letterman Lines. http://pqarchiver.nypost.com/nypost/access/781543221.html?dids=781543221:781543221&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Jan+20%2C+2005&author=Post+Wire+Services&pub=New+York+Post&edition=&startpage=102&desc=CARSON+FEEDS+LETTERMAN+LINES. Retrieved December 17, 2006.
^ Bauderap, David (2010-10-01). "Free lunch behind 16-year Letterman, Oprah feud". News.com.au. http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/television/free-lunch-behind-16-year-letterman-oprah-feud/story-e6frfmyi-1225932672545. Retrieved 2012-05-15.
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^ "Dave and Oprah's Super Bowl of Love". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_i5we6MB-w.
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^ Carter, Bill (August 22, 2011). "Letterman Responds to Death Threats in Monologue". The New York Times. http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/letterman-responds-to-death-threats-in-monologue/. Retrieved 2011-08-23.
^ The Avengers meet David Letterman reviewed at misterkitty.org
^ Review of The Dark Knight Returns at Batman-on-film.com
^ Warren Zevon : Hit Somebody (The Hockey Song) from Artistdirect
^ Dying to Do Letterman official website
^ The Book Tree: Book Review - Dying to Do Letterman
^ Runner Runner sign to EMI
^ Vozick, Simon (2010-04-28). "David Letterman starts record label, signs pop-punk band". Music-mix.ew.com. http://music-mix.ew.com/2010/04/28/david-letterman-runner-band/. Retrieved 2010-11-07.
^ Biography for David Letterman at the Internet Movie Database
^ "Letterman: It's A Boy!, 'Late Show' Host, Girlfriend Have 9 Pound, 11 Ounce Son". CBS News. November 4, 2003. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/04/entertainment/main581713.shtml.
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^ Rhein, Jamie (March 25, 2009). "Great American Road Trip: Choteau, Montana, Letterman's Hangout is a Gem of a Town". Gadling. AOL Travel. http://www.gadling.com/2009/03/25/choteau-montana-lettermans-hangout-is-a-gem-of-a-town/. Retrieved August 7, 2011.
^ "Heartfelt Thanks From Letterman". CBS News. February 11, 2009. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/22/entertainment/main682106.shtml. Retrieved September 3, 2011.
^ Snead, Elizabeth (2009-03-23). "David Letterman (finally) gets hitched to Regina Lasko". Los Angeles Times. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedishrag/2009/03/ok-theres-somet.html. Retrieved 2009-03-26.
^ Dave's domain from the March 22, 2007 "Gimme Shelter" column in the New York Post
^ Bruni, Frank (November 22, 1998). "For Letterman Stalker, Mental Illness Was Family Curse and Scarring Legacy". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9E0CE7DC1130F931A15752C1A96E958260. Retrieved May 1, 2010.
^ Foster, David; Levinson, Arlene (October 10, 1998). "Suicide on a railroad track ends a celebrity-stalker's inner agony". Associated Press, online Athens. http://www.onlineathens.com/1998/101198/1011.a3letterman.html.
^ Gold, Matea (October 2, 2009). "David Letterman on extortion attempt: 'I felt menaced by this'". Los Angeles Times. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2009/10/david-letterman-on-extortion-attempt-i-felt-menaced-by-this.html.
^ Martinez, Edecio (October 2, 2009). "Robert Joe Halderman, 48 Hours Producer, Named in David Letterman Sex Extortion Plot". CBSnews.com. http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/10/02/crimesider/entry5357903.shtml?tag=cbsnewsCrimesiderArea.0.
^ Honan, Edith (September 2, 2009). "Suspect in Letterman extortion pleads not guilty". Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE5910GR20091002. Retrieved 2009-10-02.
^ Grace, Melissa; Boyle, Christina; McShane, Larry (March 9, 2010). "Ex-CBS producer Robert Halderman pleads guilty to blackmailing David Letterman over intern affairs". NY Daily News (New York). http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/03/09/2010-03-09_david_letterman_blackmailer_robert_halderman_will_plead_guilty_take_sixmonth_jai.html. Retrieved 2010-03-10.
^ Shea, Danny (October 2, 2009). "Stephanie Birkitt". The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/02/stephanie-birkitt-letterm_n_307558.html. Retrieved 2009-10-02.
^ Carter, Bill; Stelter, Brian (October 2, 2009). "Letterman Extortion Raises Questions for CBS". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/03/business/media/03extort.html.
^ "Stephanie Birkitt Secret Diary at Center of Letterman Sex Extortion, Say Cops". CBS News/Associated press. October 5, 2009. http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/10/05/crimesider/entry5364879.shtml. Retrieved 2009-10-05.
^ Cahalan, Sussanah; Karni, Annie; Cohen, Stephanie (October 4, 2009). "'Late Show' staff gals got plenty of 'advances'". New York Post. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/late_show_staff_gals_got_plenty_QzBeMomGK52ixJtyl0Z8kI. Retrieved 2009-10-04.
^ "Will women viewers turn away from Letterman?". Associated Press. October 4, 2009. http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/33167148/ns/today-entertainment/t/will-women-viewers-turn-away-letterman/. Retrieved 2009-10-04.
^ Gold, Matea; Collins, Scott (October 3, 2009). "David Letterman affair is no joke". Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-letterman3-2009oct03,0,257832,full.story. Retrieved 2009-10-04. "'We have a written policy in our employee manual that covers harassment,' the spokesman said in a statement. 'It is circulated to every employee every year. Dave is not in violation of our policy and no one has ever raised a complaint against him.'"
^ Tahmincioglu, Eve (October 4, 2009). "Sleeping with the boss often leads to trouble: Policies on workplace romances aim to limit legal liabilities". MSNBC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33146450/ns/business-careers/. Retrieved 2009-10-04. "If a consenting romantic or sexual relationship between a supervisor and a direct or indirect subordinate should develop, CBS requires the supervisor to disclose this information to his or her Company's Human Resources Department to ensure that there are no issues of actual or apparent favoritism, conflict of interest, sexual harassment, or any other negative impact on others in the work environment."
^ "Letterman apologizes to wife on Monday's show: Late-night host says Regina Lasko has been 'horribly hurt' by his behavior". Associated Press. MSNBC. October 5, 2009-. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33184320/ns/entertainment-television/. Retrieved 2009-10-05.
^ Doug Ganley et al (October 5, 2009). "Letterman makes in-studio apology to wife, staffers". CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/TV/10/05/david.letterman.apology/. Retrieved 2009-10-05.
^ "David Letterman's former mistress Stephanie Birkitt banned from Late Show set". London Telegraph. October 8, 2009. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/6271085/David-Lettermans-former-mistress-Stephanie-Birkitt-banned-from-Late-Show-set.html. Retrieved 2009-10-12.
^ Mangan, Dan (October 15, 2009). "Network's correspondent probing Dave's extortion scandal". New York Post. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/item_d9zwWsNX2hw5DMFJsuh5LO. Retrieved 2009-10-15.
^ ^a ^b Lloyd, Christopher (September 8, 2007). "It's no joke: Ball State dedicates building in Letterman's honor". indystar.com. http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200781121039.
^ Ball State University (September 7, 2007). David Letterman Communication and Media Building (videos). http://www.bsu.edu/web/news/letterman/.

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David Letterman at the Open Directory Project
David Letterman at the Internet Movie Database
David Letterman's Feb. 24, 1978 appearance on 90 Minutes Live
Official Late Show biography
1999 article on Letterman from Salon.com
Tape of Letterman announcing affairs/extortion attempt on Late Show
Works by or about David Letterman in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

Media offices
First	Host of Late Night Feb. 1, 1982 – June 25, 1993	Succeeded by Conan O'Brien
First	Host of The Late Show Aug. 30, 1993 – present	Incumbent
Preceded by Whoopi Goldberg	Host of the Academy Awards 1995	Succeeded by Whoopi Goldberg

v t e David Letterman

Television shows	The David Letterman Show (1980) · Late Night with David Letterman (1982–1993) · Late Show with David Letterman (1993–present)

Companies	Worldwide Pants Incorporated · Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing · American Foundation for Courtesy and Grooming · Clear Entertainment/C.E. Music

Related topics	Top Ten List · Stupid Pet Tricks · List of David Letterman sketches · Madonna on Late Show with David Letterman · Ball State University · Late Show Fun Facts

v t e Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program (1980–1989)

1980 Buz Kohan 1981 Jerry Juhl Chris Langham David Odell 1982 Jeffrey Barron Dick Blasucci John Candy Chris Cluess Bob Dolman Joe Flaherty Paul Flaherty Stuart Kreisman Eugene Levy Andrea Martin John McAndrew Brian McConnachie Rick Moranis Catherine O'Hara Mert Rich Michael Short Doug Steckler Dave Thomas 1983 Dick Blasucci John Candy Bob Dolman Joe Flaherty Paul Flaherty Eugene Levy Andrea Martin John McAndrew Martin Short Michael Short Doug Steckler Mary Charlotte Wilcox 1984 Chris Elliott Sanford Frank Ted Greenberg David Letterman Merrill Markoe Jeff Martin Gerard Mulligan Steve O'Donnell Joseph E. Toplyn Matt Wickline David Yazbek 1985 Randy Cohen Kevin Curran Chris Elliott Sandy Frank Eddie Gorodetsky Fred Graver Larry Jacobson David Letterman Merrill Markoe Jeff Martin Gerard Mulligan Joe Toplyn Matt Wickline 1986 Randy Cohen Kevin Curran Chris Elliott Sandy Frank Fred Graver Larry Jacobson David Letterman Merrill Markoe Jeff Martin Gerard Mulligan Steve O'Donnell Joe Toplyn Matt Wickline 1987 Randy Cohen Kevin Curran Chris Elliott Sandy Frank Fred Graver Larry Jacobson David Letterman Jeff Martin Gerard Mulligan Steve O'Donnell Adam Resnick Joe Toplyn Matt Wickline 1988 Jackie Mason 1989 John Bowman A. Whitney Brown Gregory Daniels Tom Davis James Downey Al Franken Shannon Gaughan Jack Handey Phil Hartman George Meyer Lorne Michaels Mike Myers Conan O'Brien Bob Odenkirk Herb Sargent Tom Schiller Robert Smigel Bonnie Turner Terry Turner Christine Zander

Complete list (1957–1969) (1970–1979) (1980–1989) (1990–1999) (2000–2009) (2010–2019)

v t e Hosts of the Academy Awards ceremonies (1981–2000)

Johnny Carson (1981) Johnny Carson (1982) Liza Minnelli / Dudley Moore / Richard Pryor / Walter Matthau (1983) Johnny Carson (1984) Jack Lemmon (1985) Alan Alda / Jane Fonda / Robin Williams (1986) Chevy Chase / Goldie Hawn / Paul Hogan (1987) Chevy Chase (1988) None (1989) Billy Crystal (1990) Billy Crystal (1991) Billy Crystal (1992) Billy Crystal (1993) Whoopi Goldberg (1994) David Letterman (1995) Whoopi Goldberg (1996) Billy Crystal (1997) Billy Crystal (1998) Whoopi Goldberg (1999) Billy Crystal (2000)

Complete list (1927–1940) (1941–1960) (1961–1980) (1981–2000) (2001–2020)

v t e Late Night

Late Night with David Letterman Late Night with Conan O'Brien (episodes) Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (episodes)

Hosts	David Letterman (1982–1993) Conan O'Brien (1993–2009) Jimmy Fallon (2009–present)

Announcers/sidekicks	Bill Wendell Joel Godard Andy Richter Steve Higgins

Music	Paul Shaffer and The World's Most Dangerous Band The Max Weinberg 7 The Roots

Sketches	David Letterman's sketches Conan O'Brien's sketches Jimmy Fallon's sketches

See also	Top Ten List Stupid Pet Tricks Pale Force Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog Who Made Huckabee? The Tonight Show "Tracy Does Conan" 2010 Tonight Show host and timeslot conflict

Persondata
Name	Letterman, David
Alternative names	Letterman, Dave
Short description	American television personality
Date of birth	April 12, 1947
Place of birth	Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Date of death
Place of death

This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Letterman

This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.

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Make changes yourself !

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Contents

Related pages:

Contents

[edit] Late Night with David Letterman

[edit] Late Show with David Letterman

[edit] Extortion attempt and revelation of affairs

Related pages: