With his trademark growl, carnival-madman persona, haunting music, and
unforgettable lyrics, Tom Waits is one of the most revered and
critically acclaimed singer-songwriters alive today. After beginning his
career on the margins of the 1970s Los Angeles rock scene, Waits has
spent the last thirty years carving out a place for himself among such
greats as Bob Dylan and Neil Young. Like them, he is a chameleonic
survivor who has achieved long-term success while retaining cult
credibility and outsider mystique. But although his songs can seem
deeply personal and somewhat autobiographical, fans still know very
little about the man himself. Notoriously private, Waits has
consistently and deliberately blurred the line between fact and fiction,
public and private personas, until it has become impossible to delineate
between truth and self-fabricated legend.
Lowside of the Road is the first serious biography to cut through the
myths and make sense of the life and career of this beloved icon. Barney
Hoskyns has gained unprecedented access to Waits's inner circle and also
draws on interviews he has done with Waits over the years. Spanning his
extraordinary forty-year career from Closing Time to Orphans, from
his perilous "jazzbo" years in 1970s LA to such shape-shifting albums as
Swordfishtrombones and Rain Dogs to the Grammy Award winners of
recent years, this definitive biography charts Waits's life and art step
by step, album by album.
Barney Hoskyns has written a rock biography--much like the subject
himself--unlike any other. It is a unique take on one of rock's great
enigmas.
