Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn photographs of Tom Waits have been collected in a new book. Here we take a look.
For over four decades, Dutch photographer and filmmaker Anton Corbijn has been photographing legendary musician Tom Waits. The images, now encapsulated in a book, capture Waits in both a personal and professional light, from rare shots of him brooding backstage in 1970s Hollywood, to shots of the singer leaping around the Californian hills in a mask and cape. It is a testament to two parallel careers, an amalgam of personality, skill and fame. Waits's own photography, scattered throughout the book, adds another layer of clarification, revealing the inner-workings of an extraordinary imagination. Images are illustrated with poetry and song lyrics, incorporating stains that look like monsters, novelty animal portraits and a collection of things the singer has found on the ground.
"He's just a very funny guy, with a funnier voice, who's written a whole lot of songs, many of them grim and most about strains of social marginalia"
The introductions by both film director Jim Jarmusch and Dean of American Rock Critics Robert Christgau tell personal tales of the Waits they know and love: for Jarmusch, "Waits's sensibility hasn't changed all that much, but it has evolved, and he's much more objective about it. He can no longer be mistaken for a beatnik, a drunk, a lost soul, or a misguided lounge singer with a giant frog in his throat. He's just a very funny guy, with a funnier voice, who's written a whole lot of songs, many of them grim and most of them about strains of social marginalia." Christgau describes him as being "like Neil Young for rockers and Johnny Cash for rootsers, he came to symbolise a won't-back-down ethos for indie avant-gardists-they-wish who dug the concreteness and vernacularity of his lyrics and envied the concreteness and weirdness of his music."
Waits/Corbijn ‘77-‘11 is available to buy here.
Text by Rhiannon Wastell
