TOM WAITS: Satisfied (feat. Keith Richards)

RELATED: Arriving at the Astro, Waits pulls up in a 1985 Suburban, an unlikely ride for a man known for driving cars made before Kennedy was assassinated. “I refuse to call it a Suburban – I call it a Bourbon,” he says. He’s dressed head to toe in dark blue denim, a lived-in pair of boots and his trademark porkpie hat – a rabbit-fur Stetson he bought in Austin while in town for a rare live performance at the recent South By Southwest festival. We head over to the nearby Mission Cafe, an unassuming greasy spoon, for eggs and sausage. Still a bit morning groggy, his voice sounds an even rougher grit of sandpaper than on record. Laughing easily with a chesty wheeze, a pair of reading glasses perched low on the bridge of his nose, Waits looks almost fatherly as he dispenses bits of folk wisdom, oddball factoids and good old-fashioned horse sense from a beat-up notebook he brought with him. Though the camera tends to add a few miles to his face, catching the shadows in the lines, in person Waits looks younger than his 49 years. The advantage of being born an old soul is that you never really seem to age. You just become a classic. MORE