Tom Waits (born December 7, 1949, Pomona, California, U.S.) is an American singer-songwriter and actor whose gritty, sometimes romantic depictions of the lives of the urban underclass won him a loyal if limited following and the admiration of critics and prominent musicians who performed and recorded his songs.

During the summers, he visited maternal relatives in Gridley and Marysville. He later recalled that it was an uncle's raspy, gravelly timbre that inspired his own singing voice. In 1959, his parents separated and his father moved away from the family home, a traumatic experience for the 10-year-old Waits.

Though currently not touring, Waits occasionally performs one-off concerts that are stripped down, intimate and interactive, with the singer-songwriter telling stories and speaking conversationally with the ticket holders.

Mastering a surprisingly broad collection of pre-rock music styles such as jazz, blues, vaudeville and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music, Tom Waits has been described as capturing the history of American song in one voice.