In honor of Tom’s recent 70th birthday, film journalist Leigh Singer created a video essay looking at Waits’ many movie roles and how his music, stories and personas connect with the offbeat character roles he has played on stage and in film. He picks his personal top five roles from the many Waits has taken on since first appearing with Sylvester Stallone in Paradise Alley in 1978. "Not every great artist is a great performer. But whether he’s playing, among many others, the pleading hooker sen

Tom Waits performs and reads poetry in "The Last Ride," an episode of the Italian documentary series 'Human Factor' which focuses on homelessness in the American South. The episode airs internationally tomorrow, February 26 online: https://www.raiplay.it/programmi/ilfattoreumano Learn more about the charities involved: @showerthepeoplenashville, The Beat (@darrinbradbury), Shepherds of the Gulf. Waits on his involvement with the production: “I am an individual who is deeply concerned with the in