One night, legendary doorman Dave Knoll was sitting on the back steps of the OG basement complaining about all the musical tribute shows in Nashville. You know, the ones where multiple musicians play the music of one artist. Dave’s buddy asked him, “What tribute show you would actually pay to see?” Knoll said, “Tom Waits.”

Tom Waits isn’t for everyone. One critic described Waits’s voice as “soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car.

And yet.

Get Behind the Mule: A Tom Wait’s Tribute has been a hit. It is about to hit its 20th year. Even though the tribute event hasn’t happened — it’s tomorrow — the event has already raised over $20,000. All that money will go to Second Harvest Food Bank.

Allison Gower, di

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