Chuck E. Weiss

The Profile

American singer, songwriter, and raconteur linked to the L.A. club scene, closely associated with Tom Waits and referenced by Rickie Lee Jones in “Chuck E.’s in Love.” His records blend blues, jazz, rock, and cabaret flair.

Played with blues greats including Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon; long-running presence at The Central in West Hollywood (later The Viper Room); subject of Rickie Lee Jones’s hit “Chuck E.’s in Love” (1979); albums include Extremely Cool (1999), Old Souls & Wolf Tickets (2001), 23rd & Stout (2006), Red Beans and Weiss (2014), and The Other Side Of Town (1981).

Two DeBaser reviews paint Chuck E. Weiss as a gleeful outsider steeped in blues, jazz, and cabaret. Ties to Tom Waits and Rickie Lee Jones loom large. The writeups salute his club-rat charisma, gravelly storytelling, and late-career albums like 23rd and Stout and Old Souls & Wolf Tickets.