Lowside of the Road: a Life of Tom Waits Free

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T om Waits is an intriguing subject for a biography. Also a reluctant one, as Barney Hoskyns discovered to his cost when writing this book. Never mind getting an interview with Waits himself. Even the author's requests to speak to friends and colleagues of Waits were blanked by almost everyone who still had any contact with this remarkable but shadowy performer. The stonewalling, which was clearly orchestrated by Waits and his wife Kathleen Brennan, reached such a pitch that Hoskyns eventually found himself questioning his own right to proceed with this book about the singer, songwriter and part-time actor whom he believes to be "as important an American artist as anyone the twentieth century had produced". Hoskyns is not one of those writers who goes looking for a fight. Quite the reverse. He is a diligent, Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits weaver of historical narrative and a confirmed footnote addict. The very first sentence in the book ends with one of those pesky asterisks directing you to the bottom of the page, and there are long stretches where the flow of the narrative is subject to interruption by a steady stream of Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits, interjections and afterthoughts. But above all Hoskyns is a music fan, Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits like so many other professional taste-makers has found himself beguiled for many years by the Waits voodoo. As he points out, with the slightly peeved air of one of those who was a supporter from the beginning, Waits has now become "as much of a sacred cow on the world stage as Bob Dylan" - so much so that "you could count the negative reviews of [his] recent albums on two hands". That still doesn't stop Waits from walking through the pages of the book like an unexploded bomb. Journalists and photographers may love his music and rough-hewn, beat-poet style, but they have also learned to beware his short temper and sudden mood changes. When he lived for a while in New York one of the few features of the city that appealed to him was the social acceptability of public expressions of rage or, as he put it, "being able to confront people without feeling conspicuous". After Ralph Carney, who played saxophone in his band for 15 years, had the temerity to complain about being dropped from the line-up, he was telephoned by Waits who explained his decision in such forthright terms that Carney remembers only that "It was such a heavy call that I kind of blocked it out". It is hardly surprising that Waits guards his privacy. But is he guarding something Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits His former manager, Herb Cohen, always urged his acts to lie about their private lives. The son of two teachers, Waits spent an unremarkable childhood in the humdrum Los Angeles suburb of Whittier. His parents' divorce when he was 10 and his father Frank's developing alcoholism doubtless provided grist for the creative mill, but it was not an obvious preparation for a life on Skid Row, or some showbiz approximation thereof. Even so, if the boozed-up, bohemian barfly role that Waits invented for himself as a performer was an elaborate act, it was one which he maintained and immersed himself in long after he had left the stage. When Waits went on the road with Ry Cooder around this time, Cooder was astonished to note that, while the rest of the band stayed in decent hotels, Waits insisted on staying only in "flophouse hotels". By the time he reached 30, the method approach had taken its toll and Waits was on the way to being an alcoholic himself. As well as becoming his wife and the mother of his three children, she took control of his business affairs, became his co-songwriter and co- producer and persuaded him to stop drinking. It is the absence of her voice from the narrative that is the greatest shortcoming of this book, although Hoskyns does his best to compensate with some inspired speculation. Music, she said, should reflect the fact that life can be strange and grotesque. With contributions from the main players thin on the ground, Hoskyns focuses considerable attention on the actual music, and some of the best passages in the book are his descriptions of the songs and, particularly, some of the ever-more outlandish sounds on the various albums. On the song "Shore Leave" the arrangement comprises "multiple Feldman marimbas; Franny Thumm's metal aunglongs; Aldcroft's trombone sounding like a rubbed balloon; Tackett's no-wave guitar played with a car key and a banjo that sounded like busted bedsprings; plus the chair being dragged - in tune - along the studio floor What we heard was not music as such, but what the character himself heard in this nightmare version of Hong Kong. And of course the quotes from Waits himself, many of them from interviews with the author from years ago, are always well turned. As it turns out, he has become and remains a worldwide success very much on his own terms. The story ends with Hoskyns standing forlornly in the rain outside the stage door of the Edinburgh Playhouse hoping to catch a glimpse of Waits after one of his shows there last year. But Waits, it transpires, has already left the Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits. Topics Biography books. Pop and rock reviews. Reuse this Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits. Most popular. Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits | Faber & Faber

Self-revelation has never come easily to the Los Angeleno songwriter, musician and occasional actor Tom Waits, which is presumably why he writes the kinds of songs he writes, and talks the kind of talk he talks. A Waits outburst is usually worth hearing, whether it comes in song form or in the form of the florid jive he shoots at those members of the press he is prepared to outburst to, but what it reveals of Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits private life is invariably either negligible or misdirecting and can usually be inscribed, fully punctuated, on the flap of a pack of Lucky Strikes. So poor old Barney Hoskyns, that most reliable of rock'n'roll narrators, is on a hiding to nothing here. How do you write a sophisticated, penetrating biography of such a studiedly impenetrable figure when his ferociously tamped-down public image amounts to an enigma wrapped in a torn scarf within an old tarpaulin guyed into place with a total media lockdown? How do you begin to loosen the ropes when a small army of Waits's friends and associates are unwilling even to say nice things about him? Not even Keith Richards. Hoskyns worries about the question no end. In fact he devotes his prologue to agonising about the problem and then, in the appendix, prints Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits amiable thanks-but-no-thankses of those Waits mates he approached for a quiet word. It's a big book which has clearly required of its writer a substantial emotional outlay — there is no question that the author knows and cares about his subject. Yet, in terms of personal revelation and disclosure, small change rains. Nevertheless, Lowside of the Road is highly enjoyable for those readers who bring to it a ready-made interest in the Waits oeuvre and its bric-a-brac of "broken things". You want Freudian interpretation? Then look elsewhere — but take Lowside along as a handbook and source of symbolic material. It's a career biography of the highest class, full of considered judgment, wise contextualisation and detailed Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits read it and you will have nothing less than a firm grasp of what "Tom Waits" means. Also, Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits have a much clearer understanding than before of the impact that Waits's marriage in had, if not on his selfhood then certainly on the arc of his creative dive. Kathleen Brennan is clearly a remarkable woman, artistic as well as protective. It's her ghostly passage through the fringes of the story that makes for the most compelling and frustrating aspect of the narrative. To mangle another Waits-ism: what's she doing in there? Looking after the interests of her marriage seems to be the answer. And that includes ensuring that everyone else keeps their noses out. So Hoskyns is left with the songs, the performances, the mediated image, his own travels, his interviews and the good offices of the few Waits sidemen from the past who will talk. It's a measure of how good he is at reading ashes that the book is such a good read itself. Click here to purchase this book. You can find our Community Guidelines in full here. Want to discuss real-world problems, be involved in the most engaging discussions and hear from the journalists? Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits your Independent Premium subscription today. Independent Premium Comments can be posted by members of our membership scheme, Independent Premium. It allows our most engaged readers to debate the big issues, share their own experiences, discuss real-world solutions, and more. Our journalists will try to respond by joining the threads when they can to create a true meeting of independent Premium. 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Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Lowside of the Road by Barney Hoskyns. 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 s 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 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 s 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 Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits the life and career of this beloved icon. Barney Hoskyns has written a rock biography—much like the subject himself—unlike any other. Get A Copy. Hardcoverpages. Published May 19th by Crown Archetype first published More Details Original Title. Other Editions Friend Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Lowside of the Roadplease sign up. Lists with This Book. This Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits is not yet featured on Listopia. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Jan 30, Anna rated it did not like it. This is just plodding. The fabulist Waits could have a great shaggy tale spun about him, a visioning of him from the outside, populated with his own vivid characters. He is a music journalist. Ideal for this cardboard. Cod psychology about the influence of his parents and alcoholism. According to Hoskyns, you like the Bukowski Waits, the crooner and faux-lowlife of the Asylum years, OR the screaming, metal-clanging carney-barker of recent times. Not both. Or neither, wholesale. I used to have a partner who was a mild Dylan obsessive. Waits attracts the slavish love of dullards, like poor Bob. His experimental music can be as expected and comforting as a Beatles wig-out, but you feel like an acolyte. I mean, no one actually wants to listen to Beefheart, dude. But his music is far from it — embodying the profound truths to be found in fiction. But the first album I bought, having heard Step Right Up jive out of my radio circawas Swordfishtrombones. By the same guy? Talking drums, sweet melodies, attic-junk language. The hook went in pretty deep. And whomever edited this book at Faber and Faber should be bitch-slapped. The footnotes are so self-congratulatory they read like the amateur memoir of a minor diplomat. Sep 05, Amanda rated it really liked it. An extremely unauthorized bio of Tom Waits, this book leads us from Waits' beginnings at the Troubador up until the Glitter and Doom tour this past year. Honestly, I mostly never really want to know the person behind my favorite music and Waits has become one of my top favorites. I don't know, I guess I always figure that I'll be really disappointed if the person turns out to be a jackass and kicks puppies or something. I'm still a huge fan of Waits, probably even more so now. This took forever to An extremely unauthorized bio of Tom Waits, this book leads us from Waits' beginnings at the Troubador up until the Glitter and Doom tour this past year. This took forever to read because I didn't realize or pay attention to the fact that I missed almost everything in Waits' early career. I pretty much was introduced around Swordfishtrombone and went from there. The Waits I always liked was the gruff, hoarse, eccentric who pounded on chest of drawers to get percussion Mule Variations being one of my absolute favorites. Who knew? I ended up downloading virtually everything in the Waits discography and listening to it as I read the book, which accounts for why it took so damn long to finish. Closing Time is a Waits I never knew existed and one that I really like, although it doesn't eclipse the post-swordfish era. Although I disagreed with the author I still think this had a lot of great insight into the making of everything in the Waits vault and is fairly well rounded. Clearly there are issues with Brennan being a songwriting partner that I don't have, but to each their own Feb 25, J. I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon and criticize this book because it's "unauthorized. I've read and enjoyed biographies of George Washington and Michel de Montaigne, I remember, and the authors labored without the benefits of cooperation from the dead subjects. The job of a biographer is to document and illuminate the subject's life, and this can be done -- is routinely done -- without the assistance of the subject. Hoskyns says -- and demo I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon and criticize this book because it's "unauthorized. Hoskyns says -- and demonstrates, through copies of email messages -- that some members of Waits's inner circle declined to provide interviews or other information that would have made writing the book easier. The book might have contained more anecdotes if they had aided Hoskyns, and might even have been more insightful, but their refusal to help is not a serious obstacle to a professional biographer, which Hoskyns is. Suppose Waits and his closest cronies decided to cooperate fully. That might have transformed Hoskyns's book from a critical, objective view of a complex artist into an "authorized biography. I've read a few authorized biographies and as a whole, they suck. Precisely because this reticence, in the biographer's view, Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits a key element of Waits's character. Hoskyns does a fine job of documenting the way Waits has hidden from the press and his own audience over the years, in Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits to biographers. A biography that failed to note Waits's feints and masks would be incomplete and incorrect. This biography is extensively documented, which I found refreshing and impressive. The thorough analyses of individual songs surprised me, but I found they added to my understanding of Waits and they helped me get more out of the songs the Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits time I heard them. I didn't give Hoskyns five stars because ultimately I would have liked to read a page that characterized Waits's art as a consistent search or effort or arc. Yes, his songs can famously be divided into periods. But they are all unified, too, by a vision. Emotional truth and immediacy, fascination with marginal characters Hoskyns mentioned all of this, but a grand summation would not have been unwelcome. For those who would have preferred an authorized biography -- well, I think you're missing the mark. Oct 28, Eugene rated it it was ok. I'm going to come clean and say upfront that I haven't read many biographies I really loved and I don't read that many biographies period. Tuffy P read this one and while she Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits recommend it without reservation, she said it was well worth reading. We both have been listening to Tom Waits' music for many years and the draw here for us was to simply learn a little about the man behind the music. Part of the problem Hoskyns had in attempting an unauthorized biography of Waits is simply that Waits has made an effort to lead a private live, in particular over the past three decades. Work life and family life are separate, although Waits' wife Kathleen Brennon is certainly a partner in their music-making and their son Casey is also a musician.