Before Britney Spears was born, there was this really great singer-songwriter named Tom Waits. Known for his delivering his saloon songs in an easily identified gravelly voice, he would go on to be one of the most creative artists of our time. He’s also really funny, as numerous appearances on Letterman have shown.
Anyway, he’s suing General Motors over ads featuring a sound-alike that have appeared in Northern Europe. Read all about it in Harp magazine.
“Apparently,” Waits said, “the highest compliment our culture grants nowadays is to be in an ad–ideally naked and purring on the hood of a new car. I have adamantly and repeatedly refused this dubious honor. Currently accepting in my absence is my German doppelganger. While the court can’t make me active in radio, I’m asking it to make me radioactive to the advertisers.”It’s not the first time this has happened to Waits. In 1988 Frito-Lay similarly used a Waits impersonator to sell its SalsaRio Doritos corn chips to radio listeners. The advertisement used a jingle based on Waits’ own “Step Right Up” and employed a dead-on Waits impersonator named Stephen Carter. Waits successfully sued Frito Lay and its ad agency, Tracy-Locke, Inc. for $2.6 million. In 1999 Waits told Newsweek, “Two and a half million bucks. Spent it all on candy. My mom told me I was foolish. I’ve always been foolish when it comes to money.”
He’s kidding about the candy. See, I told you he was funny.
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Bam! comment 1!
…and with a bright flash and the lingering scent of sterno and chesterfields, waits returns to his underground lair, not to be heard from again until the winter solstice…
I still have his Letterman appearances on VHS in a box in the attic. Every time I go to clean out the attic, I wind up losing a couple of hours of my life to watch them again. Then, they go back in the box and back in the attic to one day be revisited and never thrown away. I think I’ve moved the box about 9 times since the mid-80s. When he tells the story of being born in a taxi in Valparaiso, Indiana, it just brings a tear to your eye…
Yay Tom Waits. Strange man, but gotta love him anyway.
sonicdeath,
i hope you caught his most recent Letterman visit. he belted out, “make it rain” with so much power it was incredible.
sucks he didnt really tour in the US off that record.
when was the last time he was on letterman? i think i missed it :/
ps: anyone listening to the architecture in helsinki record, “in case we die”? i know its been out a while, but im hoping that quite a few of you are fans of the record as well
where are they finding all these waits impersonators? i would imagine his is probably the most difficult to copy. sucks to be born a duplicate of someone who refuses to be impersonated, but kudos to tom for sticking to his guns. i wish more artists had that kind of integrety
I love how Waits takes his artistic license seriously. I also love how he maintains his status through the decades on sheer musicanship. I’m hardpressed to think of another that has done that. I’m glad he’s suing them. Using any likeness of Tom Waits in advertising is like some perverse, ironic joke.
it would be a fuck lot funnier if he wasn’t kidding about the candy.
you might be an indie-yuppie if you say Waits WAS a great singer-songwriter.
Waits has a distinctive voice in the canon of “shit indie kids listen to,” but it seems weird to say that if you have a gravelly voice you can’t sing in an ad, because Tom Waits will sue you. Clearly the deciding factor in the Frito-Lay case was the song’s similarity to “Step Right Up,” so he’ll probably have to prove a compositional similarity here, too. Honestly, though, I’m sort of uncomfortable with the whole thing, it seems a bit anal about intellectual property etc. etc. Having a gravelly voice and yelling over carny music is now an idea that’s out there in the world; live with it, Tom.
Eppy: I don’t think it’s just the voice, I think it’s that combined with the cadence and the content.
I could be wrong though.
I remember reading about the frito lay case back in law school. It was used to support Vanna White’s law suit (the defendent had used a Vanna White look-alike robot in their ads).
As I remember, it’s a totality of circumstances test. Basically, does the jury think that the advertiser is trying to fool the audience into thinking it’s the artist. How many artists can say that their voice is so distinct? Probably Sinatra and Elvis. Waits always seemed like a stretch to me. But the jury bought it. As a result of that case, you’re likely to hear tag lines at the end of ads saying “celebrity voices impersonated”
I remember an ad campaign a couple years ago where a claymation Frank Sinatra pitched Iced Tea. I can’t remember whether that was authorized or whether a disclaimer at the end was good enough. Clearly it was an impression.
opel tried to get tom for the advert and when he refused they went with a soundalike. opel should’ve learned from the frito lay case that waits doesn’t mess around.
Topher: I’m pretty sure Sinatra’s family authorized that because they liked Joe Piscopo’s [that's who voiced that commerical] respectful impression. Seriously.
I’d also add that since he was apparently approached about doing the ads but declined, GM’s use of a sound-alike was a blatant attempt to capitalize on his persona. It isn’t as general as laying a claim to any work that utilizes a gravelly-voiced singer.
Additionally, his voice is not really that difficult to ape. I remember a video of either Jon Brion or Brendan Benson (I think, though I may be wrong) doing a pretty good imitation during an in-store somewhere. There was also a mislabeled Christmas song years back credited to TW but actually from Porn Orchard.
This is also like when the producers of Ghostbusters approached Huey Lewis to do a song for the movie and he refused. They hired Ray Parker Jr. to record “Who Ya Gonna Call”, which was nearly identical to “I Want A New Drug”. Lewis sued and won. But that was for copyright infringement, not trademark.
Which leave me wondering why did Huey Lewis turn them down and then later do the Back To The Future soundtrack? Was it jealousy from The News?
Here’s the commerical.
http://ad-rag.com/120339.php
Ah, they’ve cleverly aping Waits’ fondness for ambient synth noises and filtered vocoder, I see.
Thanks for the link cat!
That is not as cut and dried as the frito ad was.
Here is a link to the frito ad:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~phnl/Sounds-xs4all/frito.ram
I believe that after the completion of this lawsuit, big commercial buisness won’t think to fuck with Tom and what he represents again. It’s unfortunate that such frivilous measures must be taken to protect ones integrity.