Artists like Tom Waits

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are an Australian rock band formed in Melbourne in 1983 by lead vocalist Nick Cave, multi-instrumentalist Mick Harvey and German guitarist-vocalist Blixa Bargeld. The band has featured international personnel throughout its career and presently consists of Cave, violinist and multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis, bassist Martyn P. Casey, guitarist George Vjestica, touring keyboardist/percussionist Larry Mullins, also known as Toby Dammit, and drummers Thomas Wydler (Switzerland) and Jim Sclavunos. Described as "one of the most original and celebrated bands of the post-punk and alternative rock eras in the '80s and onward", they have released eighteen studio albums and completed numerous international tours.

Don Van Vliet, known by his stage name Captain Beefheart, was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist. Conducting a rotating ensemble known as the Magic Band, he recorded 13 studio albums between 1967 and 1982. His music blended elements of blues, free jazz, rock, and avant-garde composition with idiosyncratic rhythms, absurdist wordplay, and Vliet's gravelly singing voice with a wide vocal range.

Timothy Charles Buckley III was an American musician. He began his career based in folk rock, but subsequently experimented with genres such as psychedelia, jazz, the avant-garde, and funk.

Neil Percival Young is a Canadian and American singer-songwriter. Son of journalist and author Scott Young, Young embarked on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s. He then moved to Los Angeles, forming the folk rock group Buffalo Springfield. His solo career, often backed by the band Crazy Horse, includes critically acclaimed albums such as Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (1969), After the Gold Rush (1970), Harvest (1972), On the Beach (1974), and Rust Never Sleeps (1979). Young was also a part-time member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, with whom he recorded the chart-topping 1970 album Déjà Vu.

Morphine was an American rock band formed by Mark Sandman, Dana Colley, and Jerome Deupree in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1989. Drummer Billy Conway replaced Deupree as the band's live drummer in 1991. Deupree recorded the album Cure For Pain, with the exception of the title track which was recorded by Conway, before being permanently replaced by Conway in 1993. Both drummers appeared together during a 15 date US tour in March 1999. After five successful albums and extensive touring, they disbanded after lead vocalist Sandman died of a heart attack onstage in Palestrina, Italy, on July 3, 1999 at the Nel Nome Del Rock Festival. Founding members have reformed into the band Vapors of Morphine, maintaining much of the original style and sound.

William Rahr Callahan is an American singer-songwriter, who has also recorded and performed under the band name Smog. Callahan began working in the lo-fi genre, with home-made tape-albums recorded on four-track tape recorders. Later he began releasing albums with the label Drag City, to which he remains signed today.

Jackson Carey Frank was an American folk musician. He released his first and only album in 1965, produced by Paul Simon. After the release of the record, Frank was plagued by a series of personal issues, and was diagnosed with schizophrenia and protracted depression that prevented him from maintaining his career.

Jason Andrew Molina was an American musician, singer and songwriter. Raised in northern Ohio, he came to prominence performing and recording as Songs: Ohia, both in solo projects and with a rotating cast of musicians in the late 1990s. Beginning in 2003, he garnered a further indie following for his releases with the band Magnolia Electric Co.

Karen J. Dalton was an American country blues singer, guitarist, and banjo player. She was associated with the early 1960s Greenwich Village folk music scene, particularly with Fred Neil, the Holy Modal Rounders, and Bob Dylan. Although she did not enjoy much commercial success during her lifetime, her music has gained significant recognition since her death. Artists like Nick Cave, Devendra Banhart, and Joanna Newsom have noted her as an influence.

Nicholas Rodney Drake was an English musician. An accomplished acoustic guitarist, Drake signed to Island Records at the age of twenty while still a student at the University of Cambridge. His debut album, Five Leaves Left, was released in 1969, and was followed by two more albums, Bryter Layter (1971) and Pink Moon (1972). He did not reach a wide audience during his lifetime, but found acclaim and wider recognition following his death.

Angels of Light was an American neofolk band that was formed circa 1998 by singer-songwriter and musician Michael Gira after he disbanded Swans, the group he had founded in 1982. The band has marked a distinctly different style for Gira since he left Swans, most noticeably being musically more melodic and less brutal than his previous efforts and with emphasis on acoustic instruments and folk and country influences.

Declan Patrick MacManus, known professionally as Elvis Costello, is an English singer, songwriter, record producer, author, and television host. According to Rolling Stone, Costello "reinvigorated the literate, lyrical traditions of Bob Dylan and Van Morrison with the raw energy and sass that were principal ethics of punk", noting the "construction of his songs, which set densely layered wordplay in an ever-expanding repertoire of styles". He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Grammy Awards and two Ivor Novello Awards, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003 and into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2016.

Huddie William Ledbetter, better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the folk standards he introduced, including his renditions of "In the Pines", "Pick a Bale of Cotton", "Goodnight, Irene", "Black Betty", "Midnight Special", "Cotton Fields", and "Boll Weevil".

Fred Neil was an American folk singer-songwriter active in the 1960s and early 1970s. He is mainly known through other people's recordings of his material, particularly "Everybody's Talkin'", which became a hit for Harry Nilsson after it was used in the film Midnight Cowboy in 1969. Though highly regarded by contemporary folk singers, he was reluctant to tour and spent much of the last 30 years of his life assisting with the preservation of dolphins.