Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor.
Waits has a distinctive voice, described by one critic 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 styles such as blues, jazz, and Vaudeville, and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music,[2] Waits has built up a distinctive musical persona.