Over the course of the past 30 years, singer/songwriter Tom Waits has established himself as an original talent in the music world.
Beginning with his debut album “Closing Time,” Waits created a series of albums devoted to film noir imagery. In the mid-1980s he changed styles dramatically, working with stream of consciousness lyrics and experimental arrangements on such albums as “Rain Dogs” and “Frank’s Wild Years.” He also expanded his career, doing film and theater work (both as a musician and an actor). He was nominated for an Oscar and won two Grammy awards.
Now Waits is receiving a new kind of tribute in the form of the Sixth Annual Tom Waits Tribute Night at Sam Bond’s Garage. Organized by Foolscap Books, the event features locals performing Waits’ songs. But the event isn’t just a collection of performers doing covers, according to Foolscap owner Marietta Bonaventure.
“In the past, we’ve had DJs recreating his songs on stage,” Bonaventure said. “This year we’ll have a dance troupe performing as well as a puppet show.”
This year is the first year the tributes have been held outside of Foolscap Books. The bookstore, which closed its Blair Boulevard location last May, is now operated entirely on the Internet. During the interim between the bookstore’s closing and opening a new performance arts venue, Bonaventure has held events at different locations around town.
“The guys at Sam Bond’s said they would let me do any Foolscap events I wanted to at their venue,” Bonaventure said.
The change of location apparently hasn’t curbed enthusiasm for the event. Many past performers have already signed up for this year’s tribute, according to Bonaventure. One of these is the Ordinary Flies, a local group consisting of stringed instruments and a harmonica.
“We love Marietta and will be part of anything she puts on,” Flies guitarist Patrick Williams said. “The last tribute night was actually one of our first concerts.”
The Ordinary Flies also includes Adam Goldthwaite on banjo, Brenden Smith on mandolin and Andrew Gudger on harmonica. While the group plans to include five songs from three of Waits’ albums, Bonaventure said that overlapping is not much of a problem.
“We had a pretty big show last year but nobody repeated a single song,” Bonaventure said.
While most of the performances are of a strictly musical nature, there are also some performance pieces to add variation. Local artist Jarrett Arnold and his wife Jaylene will be putting on a marionette puppet show, with the puppets performing the songs.
“Jarrett started making puppets about a year ago,” Jaylene said. “He did a few performances for local kids and performed at the DIVA during the Eugene Celebration. For this performance, we’re going to have the puppets performing songs from ‘Black Rider’ while I accompany them on accordion.”
Bonaventure has a reason for why such a diverse crowd of performers would be interested in performing Waits’ music.
“The range of music he performs is really incredible,” Bonaventure said. “What he can do stylistically, it’s really pretty amazing.”
Sam Bond’s Garage is located at 407 Blair Blvd. Tickets for the Sixth Annual Tom Waits Tribute Night are on a $3 to $5 sliding scale. Performers who sign up in advance are admitted for free. The show begins at 9:30 p.m.

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