AP Photo/Chicago Review Press

Book Review Tom Waits on Tom Waits

In this book cover image released by Chicago Review Press, “Tom
Waits on Tom Waits: Interviews and Encounters,” edited by Paul
Maher Jr., is shown.

Posted: Monday, August 8, 2011 12:45 am
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Updated: 11:09 pm, Sun Aug 7, 2011.

‘Tom Waits on Tom Waits’ overshadowed by format

Associated Press |

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“Tom Waits on Tom Waits: Interviews and Encounters”
(Chicago Review Press), edited by Paul Maher Jr.: Editor
and biographer Paul Maher Jr. has commendably followed the impulse
to reveal a person in his own words as he culled this collection of
profiles, reviews and other tidbits on singer-songwriter Tom
Waits.

When that person is as successful at guarding his privacy and
his image — however countercultural, or at least counterintuitive —
as Waits, it is all a fan wants. And when that person is as
renowned and quirky a performer as Waits, there may be no better
option in writing a short piece or even a magazine feature than to
convey as many of his pearls as possible, with minimal editing.

Fans of folk and jazz as well as experimental and
industrial-style music revere Waits for his lyrics and
compositions, for the beauty he wrings from his gravelly voice, and
for his tendency to draw in nearly every song from a unique
compendium of genres. Before going sober in the 1980s after he
married, he wrote and spoke often about drinking and the seediest
of streets where he got his start. He’s a person that talk-show
host Mike Douglas apparently mistook for a homeless person as he
sat in the waiting room before appearing on Douglas’ show.

At the same time, Waits’ songs have been covered by the Eagles
and Bruce Springsteen and Scarlett Johansson, he’s fathered three
children and lives on a farm in Northern California. And his major
influences run an endearing gamut from musicians Howlin’ Wolf and
Louis Armstrong to writer Charles Bukowski and his father, an
itinerant Spanish teacher. Besides more than a dozen albums and
some top-selling singles, Waits’ credits include roles in “Mystery
Men,” ”Down by Law” and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” among many other
movies.

Much of that comes through, eventually, along with wisps of
insight in “Tom Waits on Tom Waits.” But this is a volume of almost
500 pages, and almost every chapter picks up Waits’ story from the
beginning. Many of the interviews were conducted by journalists in
small and alternative newspapers and most were based on, at most, a
few hours of research. Writing in the moment or in the era, these
journalists didn’t have the perspective that Maher enjoyed and that
other Waits biographers have employed. So their aggregate product,
through no fault of theirs, ends up sounding like a meeting of
Amnesiacs Anonymous.

Maher notes that he winnowed the 50 selections from 10 times
more that were available. And, certainly, Waits is often as
brilliant a conversationalist as he is a lyricist and poet, so even
his random and deliberately absurd comments are usually worth
hearing. But readers deserve far more guidance in assembling a
narrative about Waits and his work than Maher seems interested in
providing. Maher’s rambling introduction suggests that we “read
this tome like a “Farmer’s Almanac”; he likens the book to a file
cabinet.

It’s tempting to say “Tom Waits on Tom Waits” is worth picking
up just to read the final chapter, an “interview” Waits conducted
with himself and issued as an “anti-press release” in 2008; it’s
hilarious. In answering a request to compare guitarists Marc Ribot
and Smokey Hormel, both longtime collaborators with Waits, the
“interviewee” launches into an informative discourse on giant
squid, with no mention of guitars or their players.

But, alas, like much of the book, this chapter is easy to find
online. And it’s more interesting to read there, with links to a
blog and reader responses, more recent coverage and a wealth of
other material that goes much further in revealing and celebrating
this American treasure.

© 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Monday, August 8, 2011 12:45 am.

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