Tom Waits

Description by OLDIES.com:

In the first detailed biography of Tom Waits, author Jay S. Jacobs follows the fate of one of America's pre-eminent artists, a very private man whose career embodies a quirky array of fulfillment and loss, beauty and strangeness. In his pursuit of love, sobriety, and personal happiness, Waits has created a unique body of music that is increasingly strange, risky, and emotionally compelling. He's the chronicler of our common loneliness. He's the poet laureate of anyone who's down on his luck. He's a spinner of tall tales and false histories, an unremitting joker, a natural-born entertainer, a respected film actor, a man making music in a barn.

This is the story of Tom Waits's transformation from skid-row night-lifer to eccentric gentleman farmer, husband, and father. It's the tale of how a self-taught drunken hipster in roach-killers and a dirty beret finally became the man who would influence a generation of cutting-edge musicians with his sound, his warmth, his willingness to take chances.

This revised and updated edition includes a new chapter, with insight on Waits's career in the 21st century thus far (Real Gone, Blood Money, Alice), as well as the most complete discography available in print. Wild Years - a poignant, revealing celebration of the man and all his myths.