It was just a matter of time before the iconic and eccentric singer-songwriter Tom Waits paid tribute to his friend Hal Willner, who died on April 7with symptoms consistent with coronavirus.Willner was renowned as a multi-talented producer of albums by Lou Reed, Marianne Faithfull, Lucinda Williams as well as elaborate multi-artist tribute compilations (featuring Waits) to Charles Mingus, Kurt Weil and others, not to mention the producer of nearly 40 years of music for Saturday Night Live sketches.

Waits did not disappoint. His moving tribute written, like many of his songs, in collaboration with his wife, Kathleen Brennan appears in full below

Hal. Dear Hal. Brother. Uncle. Father. Son. Husband. Godfather. Friend. Wise and reckless. Lamb and black sheep. Lover of the afflicted and the blessed. More than kin and more than kind, more than friend and more than fiendish in his daunting and devoted pursuit of the lost and the buried, long may his coattails run and long may we now ride, and those that follow us continue to ride upon them.

Hal was the wry and soulful and mysterious historical rememberer. He specialized in staging strange musical bedfellows like Betty Carter and the Replacements or The Residents backing up Conway Twitty. Oh, the wild seeds of Impresario Hal. He was drawn equally to the danger of a fiasco and the magical power of illumination that his legendary productions held. Many years ago he bought Jimmy Durantes piano along with Bela Lugosis wristwatch and a headscarf worn by Karen Carpenter. Some say he also owned Sarah Bernhardts wooden leg. He had a variety of hand and string puppets, dummies, busts of Laurel and Hardy, duck whistles and scary Jerry Mahoney dolls and a free ranging collection of vinyl and rare books. These were his talismans and his vestments because his heart was a reliquary. Hal spoke regularly in asides and mumbling footnotes no doubt to dense tomes no one had heard about or read. Every story he told was followed by several inaudible and impossible to decipher remarks, (as if he was heckling himself), that were only intended for him. He frequently kvetched. He could conjure up the past like a crystal ball or Ouija board. He reminded us of a bumblebee crawling out of a calla lily He was a furtive and clandestine and crafty treasure seeker and archeologist of forgotten islands in popular culture.

His laugh. Well, it was an inside pocket and an impish rumpelstiltskin delight dance of laughter that offered refuge to those suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or the slights of a critics pen. He encouraged mayhem and folly and celebrated all things genuinely weird and spooky from Soupy Sales to Ella Fitzgerald singing Sunshine of your Love.

I (Tom) met him after one of my shows in 1974. He was 18 and I was 24 and he looked like he was already retired. He wanted to show me around the town and get me into some of the clubs. Hal applauded riptides and deviants of musical, literary and human behavior. And, of course, he loved the exceptions to every rule. He loved to pull back the curtain of artifice and sayta-dahlook at this pageant of crumbling beauty and human disasterthis is the heart that is truly beating. To Hal, Vaudeville was Valhallaand his bottomless knowledge was a great spreading tree.

How did Hal get poets, actors, musicians, performers, directors, magicians, puppeteers, madmen, politicians, pundits, tv, radio and film studios from every era and pocket of the world to accompany him? We cant tell you.

Hal wasnt what you would call a smooth talker or a hustler, but one night we followed him to a street corner in Chinatown at 3 am where together we witnessed a homeless man singing a passionate one-word aria to Bacteria. BAC-Ter-I-A ..Bac Ter- I A with a heartbreaking tenor voice that equaled anyone we had heard at the Met, it was unforgettable.

If you took a cross section of Hals heart you would see the rings of a wise old tree. Above all, lets remember that Hal loved music and from all appearances it seems very much to have loved him right back big time. We share our love and sympathy, as do our children, with his wife Sheila and his son Arlo and Hals extended family and all the many friends and colluders who loved him.

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Tom Waits Writes Moving Tribute to Hal Willner, Lamb and Black Sheep, Lover of the Afflicted and the Blessed - Variety