Blakesberg, Jay

Jay Blakesberg (born December 01, 1961) is a San Francisco-based photographer and filmmaker. He has photographed a number of rock and roll performers over three decades, including Barenaked Ladies, Blues Traveler, Tracy Chapman, Counting Crows, Flaming Lips, Grateful Dead, B.B. King, Meat Puppets, Aaron Neville, Primus, Santana, and Taj Mahal. Blakesberg's photographs have been featured in BAM Magazine, Guitar Player, Rolling Stone, Time, and Vanity Fair. More recently, Blakesberg has produced and directed live concert video at numerous music festivals, including Rothbury, Lollapalooza, and Mountain Jam.

Tom Waits is a gruff-voiced, big-hearted singer/pianist who is to songwriting what Charles Bukowski is to poetry, Jack Kerouac is to prose, and Edward Hopper is to painting. A true original, Waits' specializes in story-songs about all kinds of beautiful losers: nighthawks, boozers, grifters, drifters, dreamers, con men, and other flotsam from the underbelly of American life. A canny street poet, he sings in a gravelly voice shaped early in his career by a predilection for unfiltered cigarettes and strong drinks. He's given up drinking but the growl remains--sturdy, impassioned, hard-bitten, and one-of-a-kind.