“I said, ‘What about Keith Richards?’ I was just joking... He came with about 600 guitars in a semi-truck. And a butler”: How Tom Waits began a decades-long creative partnership with the Rolling Stones legend

Tom Waits (left) and Keith Richards perform onstage.

On its surface, a Tom Waits/Keith Richards collaboration – let alone multiple, stretching across decades – seems a bit improbable.

Though beloved by critics and his ever-loyal cult following, Waits' ramshackle, straight-from-the-underbelly poetry has found its largest audiences through the voices of others.