Small Change: A Life of Tom Waits

For more than twenty years, Tom Waits has been the rag and bone man of contemporary music, a singer with a heart of gold and a voice of gravel.

His ragged voice and haunting lyrics have enraptured fans worldwide, capturing the tattered hopes and boozy dreams of hard-luck cases everywhere. Small Change, the first biography of this unique performer, tracks Waits from his early days as a pizza chef and fireman right up to the masterful albums such as Rain Dogs and Frank’s Wild Years that brought Waits critical acclaim in the eighties.

Visions of Waits the actor (Down by Law, Ironweed), Waits the composer (One from the Heart), Waits on tour (“The new band is all midgets, they share a room”), and wonderful photos all add up to a welcome portrait of the music that has influenced U2, Elvis Costello, and The Pogues, and of the man whose ravaged voice and whiskey wisdom have shown us the high life, the low life, and all that lies between.