Tom Waits (Kill Your Idols) [Paperback]

Cath Carroll (Author)

Book Description

Series: Kill Your Idols | Publication Date: January 8, 2001

While his gravel-voiced, bohemian cataloging of America's underbelly has won him a dedicated following, Tom Waits's restless, idiosyncratic experimentation has led to comparisons with Ledbelly and Kurt Weill. Terry Staunton offers an authoritative overview of Waits's influence on his contemporaries, detailed biographical information, and an extensive discography.

Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (January 8, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560252642
• ISBN-13: 978-1560252641
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,028,027 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars nothing i couldn't get from his discography, June 6, 2001

By 

Jules "popmonkey" (California, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tom Waits (Kill Your Idols) (Paperback)

this book was a major disappointment. i picked it up hoping to learn a little about tom waits motivations and approach to music making. instead i got a very dry and shallow biography seemingly written based almost singularly on tom waits' discography. there's nothing revealing in this book, just an album by album recollection. it's a decent reference if you want to know about all of waits' works, but then again you can find a lot more of this sort of information on the web. the padding in this biography is snippets gleemed from interviews.

very uninteresting read.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars More a Pamplet than a Book, October 31, 2002

By 

David J Rudrud (Minneapolis, Minnesota USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tom Waits (Kill Your Idols) (Paperback)

Don't but this little book! It has less information than most of the magizine articles that are the basis of the author's knowledge base. It is unclear if the author has ever meet,interviewed or seen Mr. Waits preform. Huge omissions and years of information are not present. Some facts like the fact Tom had a relationship with Ricky Lee Jones or the first 3 albums for Island are a "Trilogy" are mentioned numerous times in a attempt to pad this books 150 double spaced pages. It looks and reads like a bad high school term paper.

3.0 out of 5 stars Kill Your Idols?, June 13, 2011

By 

lmwilliamsjr "lmwilliamsjr" (New Orleans, LA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Tom Waits (Kill Your Idols) (Paperback)

I recently completed reading the Tom Waits biography by Cath Carroll and rather enjoyed it. It is a small volume and quite slim at 136 pages including both a few black & white photographs and the index. It is divided into three parts. Part one: The Story, Part Two: The Music, and Part Three: The Legacy. I believe that one reviewer stated that he could get this information from liner notes. While this is only partially true I do agree that much of the information is readily available elsewhere. There is however some writer insight. Ironically, under part Two, one thing lacking was the personnel on each album.