Engineers include: Richie Moore, Bones Howe, Geoff Howe.

Includes liner notes by Charles Schwab, Hal Wilner, Jon Landau.

Digitally remastered by Dan Hersch, Bill Inglot (Digiprep).

Personnel: Tom Waits (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, piano); John Seiter (vocals, drums); Peter Klimes (guitar); Shine Robinson, Ray Crawford (electric guitar); Roland Bautista (12-string guitar); Nathan Kaproff, George Kast, Marvin Limonick, Murray Adler, Alfred Lustgarten, Israel Baker, Nathan Ross, Sheldon Sanov, Harry Bluestone (violin); David Schwartz, Allan Harshman, Samuel Boghossian (viola); Kathleen Lustgarter, Ray Kelley, Edgar Lustgarten, Jesse Ehrlich (cello); Plas Johnson (tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone); Herbert Hardesty, Frank Vicari, Lew Tabackin, Pete Christlieb (tenor saxophone); Jack Sheldon (trumpet); Harold Battiste (piano); Dawilli Gonga, Mike Melvoin (electric piano); Charles Kynard (organ); Victor Feldman (keyboards, glockenspiel, percussion); Chip White, Earl Palmer , John Evans Thomassie, Shelly Manne, Bill Goodwin (drums).

Arranger: Jerry Yester.

While Tom Waits would come to be best known for the innovative work that followed his stylistic reinvention/deconstruction in the 1980s, that material could not have existed without the groundwork he laid down throughout his Elektra tenure of the '70s. During this period, he mastered the songwriting craft while working a Hoagy Carmichael-meets-Jack Kerouac persona that made him one of the most memorable, idiosyncratic characters of the '70s singer/songwriter crop. While peers were plucking gentle acoustic guitars and singing sweetly of tender feelings, Waits was drunkenly pounding a barroom piano, howling in a Wolfman Jack-sings-the-blues voice about the seedy underbelly of the American Dream. His musical language was rooted solidly in jazz, blues, and the Great American Songbook, while his lyrical bent showed he'd spent as much time absorbing Charles Bukowski as he had internalizing Ira Gershwin. USED SONGS covers this vital period of Waits's career in a concise manner, from the down-and-out saloon songs to the dreamy, jazz-tinged reveries and bluesy stompers.