Tom Waits – $25 million
Greatest Hits: Closing Time, Somewhere
California-born singer-songwriter and actor, Tom Waits. He’s known for his distinctive, gravely, rock lyrics. He concentrated in jazz in the 1970s, but also inspired blues and vaudeville. His inspirations include Beat and Bob Dylan. He started singing in San Diego, traveling to LA for an asylum contract. His first songs included Closing Time, Saturday Night’s Heart, and Slight Shift, which marked his first popular record. Waits wrote Francis Ford Coppola’s One Heart Score.
Tom Waits
Dan Penn – $1 million
Greatest Hits: Cry Like a Baby, The Dark End of the Street
Dan Penn is a songwriter who composed and released many songs in the 1960s, including The Dark End of the Path, “Cry Like a Boy” and Do Right Lady.” He associated with artists like The Box Tops, Chips Moman, Spooner Oldham, among others. He favored songwriting to showmanship, being camera-shy. His writing relationship was successful with Chips Moman for Press Publishing Business, but the pair had a fall-out that ended the partnership, which was characterized as “short-lived” but “intense.” His work with Aretha Franklin is one of his most successful to date.
Dan Penn
