Warren Zevon

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Zevon on the cover of his 1978 album, Excitable Boy.
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Zevon on the cover of his 1978 album, Excitable Boy.

Warren William Zevon (January 24, 1947 – September 7, 2003), born in Chicago, Illinois, was a rock and roll musician and songwriter. He was noted for his offbeat, sardonic view of life which was reflected in his dark, sometimes humorous songs, which often incorporated political or historical themes.

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[edit] Early life and music

Warren Zevon was born to a Russian Jewish father and a Mormon mother and soon moved to California. By the age of 13, Warren Zevon was a regular visitor to the home of Igor Stravinsky where he, along with Robert Craft, would study music.

Zevon turned to a musical career early, including a stretch as part of a Sonny and Cher-type male/female duo called lyme and cybelle (a band whose correct spelling is all lower case), and he spent time as a session musician (notably as piano player and band leader for the Everly Brothers) and jingle composer. He wrote several songs for his White Whale label-mates the Turtles, though his participation in their recording is unknown. Another early composition ("She Quit Me") was included in the soundtrack for the film Midnight Cowboy (1969). Zevon's first attempt at a solo album, Wanted Dead or Alive (1969), was produced by 1960s cult figure Kim Fowley but did not fare well in the marketplace. Flashes of Zevon's later writing preoccupations of romantic loss and noir-ish violence are present in songs like "Tule's Blues" and "A Bullet for Ramona". Zevon's second effort, Leaf in the Wind, was scrapped (though a belated release was contemplated just prior to his death). In the early '70s, Zevon toured regularly with the Everly Brothers as keyboard player and band leader/musical coordinator. His dissatisfaction with his career led him to move to Spain briefly, where he played in a small bar owned by David Lindell, a former mercenary. Together they penned Zevon's classic "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner."

[edit] Return to L.A. and major-label debut

In the mid-1970s, Zevon returned to Los Angeles, and became associated with the then-burgeoning West coast music scene, resulting in collaborations with Jackson Browne, who would produce and promote Zevon's self-titled major-label debut; the Eagles, who appeared on Zevon's second album; and Linda Ronstadt, who both appeared on Zevon's albums and recorded her own versions of several early Zevon songs, including "Carmelita," "Mohammed's Radio" and a hit cover of "Poor Poor Pitiful Me." Zevon's first tour in 1977 included guest appearances in the middle of Jackson Browne concerts, one of which is documented on a widely circulated bootleg recording of a Dutch radio program under the title The Offender meets the Pretender.

Though a much darker and more ironic songwriter than Browne and other leading figures of the era's L.A.-based singer-songwriter movement, Zevon shared with his '70s L.A. peers a grounding in earlier folk and country influences and a commitment to a writerly style of songcraft with roots in the work of artists like Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. Though only a modest commercial success, the Browne-produced Warren Zevon (1976) would later be labelled a masterpiece in the first edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide and is cited in the book's most recently revised (November, 2004) edition as Zevon's most realized work. Representative tracks include the junkie's lament "Carmelita;" the Copland-esque outlaw ballad "Frank and Jesse James;" "The French Inhaler," a wistful insider's chronicle of life and lust on the L.A. music scene; and "Desperadoes Under the Eaves", a chronicle of Zevon's growing alcoholism. It was during this period that Zevon's excessive vodka intake earned him the nickname "F. Scott Fitzevon," a reference to the great but doomed American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose early, alcohol-fueled death Zevon seemed headed toward repeating.

[edit] Success

In 1978, Zevon released his breakthrough album, Excitable Boy, to critical acclaim and popular success. The title tune (about a high school psychopath's murderous prom night) name-checked "Little Susie", the heroine of former employers the Everly Brothers' signature tune "Wake Up Little Susie", while songs such as "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" and "Lawyers, Guns and Money" used deadpan humor to wed geopolitical subtexts to hard-boiled narratives. Tracks from this album received heavy FM airplay and the single release "Werewolves of London", which featured a relatively lighthearted version of Zevon's signature macabre outlook, was a top-thirty hit. Rolling Stone called the album one of the most significant releases of the 1970s and placed Zevon alongside Neil Young, Jackson Browne, and Bruce Springsteen as one of the four most important new artists to emerge in the decade. Later, Bob Dylan would use one of Zevon's lyrics from "Accidentally Like a Martyr" as the title of his late-'90s comeback album, Time Out of Mind.

Zevon followed Excitable Boy with 1980's Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School, dedicated to detective novelist Ross Macdonald, a literary hero of Zevon's who met the singer for the first time while participating in an intervention that helped Zevon temporarily kick his substance addictions. Featuring a modest novelty hit with the single "A Certain Girl" (Zevon's cover of an old Yardbirds tune, which scraped its way to #45 on the Billboard Singles Chart), the album sold briskly but was uneven, and signalled a decline rather than a step toward commercial and critical consistency. It contained a collaboration with Bruce Springsteen called "Jeannie Needs a Shooter", and the ballad "Empty-Handed Heart" dealing with Zevon's painful divorce from second wife Crystal and featuring a descant sung by Linda Ronstadt. In 1981 came the live album Stand in the Fire (dedicated to Martin Scorsese), recorded over five nights at the Roxy in Los Angeles.

[edit] Personal crisis and first comeback

Zevon's 1982 release The Envoy is perhaps the least known of his major-label studio albums, an erratic but characteristic set that included such compositions as "Charlie's Medicine" (yet another treatise on addiction) and "Jesus Mentioned," Zevon's reaction to the squalid death of Elvis Presley. After The Envoy failed to find an audience, Zevon was dropped by his label Asylum Records, a fact Zevon discovered only when he read about it in the Random Notes gossip column of Rolling Stone Magazine. The trauma caused him to relapse into serious alcohol abuse, and he voluntarily checked himself into an unnamed rehab clinic somewhere in the state of Minnesota. Zevon retreated from the music business for several years, during which he finally overcame severe alcohol and drug addictions.

In this intermittent period, Zevon collaborated with R.E.M., minus Michael Stipe, on an eponymous album as the Hindu Love Gods. Allegedly comprised of outtakes from a drunken all night jam session, the album included a cover of Prince's "Raspberry Beret" and was eventually released in 1990 over the objections of both Zevon and R.E.M.

Following his five-year hiatus, Zevon returned in 1987 with Sentimental Hygiene. The release, hailed as his best since Excitable Boy, featured a thicker rock sound and taut, often humorous songs like "Detox Mansion," "Bad Karma," and "Reconsider Me." Included were collaborations with Neil Young, Bob Dylan, George Clinton, and members of R.E.M.. Also on hand were long-time collaborators Jorge Calderón and Waddy Wachtel.

The follow-up to Sentimental Hygiene, 1989's Transverse City, was a futuristic concept album inspired by Zevon's interest in the work of cyberpunk science fiction author William Gibson. It featured guests including Jerry Garcia, Little Feat drummer Richie Hayward, Jefferson Airplane bassist Jack Casady, and soloists David Gilmour, Chick Corea, and Neil Young. Key tracks include the title song, "Run Straight Down" (which had a video for it with Zevon singing in a factory and David Gilmour playing his guitar solos) and "They Moved the Moon," the latter among Zevon's eerier ballads.

[edit] Later years

In 1991, Zevon released Mr. Bad Example, which featured the modest pop hit "Searching for a Heart" and the rocker "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead," later appropriated- without permission and in violation of copyright laws- for the title of a neo-noir cult movie by director Gary Fleder.

Zevon toured the United States on occasion during this period. Owing to Zevon's reduced circumstances, his performances were often true solo efforts (with minimal accompaniment); 1993's live Learning to Flinch documents such a tour. Zevon often played in Colorado to allow for an opportunity to visit with his long-time friend Hunter S. Thompson. A lifelong fan of "hard-boiled" fiction, Zevon was close to several prominent writers who also collaborated on his songwriting during this period, including Thompson, Carl Hiassen and Mitch Albom. Zevon also served as musical coordinator for an ad-hoc rock group called the Rock Bottom Remainders, a collection of writers performing rock and roll standards at book fairs and other events. This group included Stephen King, Dave Barry, and Amy Tan, among other popular writers.

Occasionally, Zevon filled in for Paul Shaffer as bandleader on Late Show with David Letterman.

In 1995, Zevon released the self-produced Mutineer. The title track was frequently covered by Bob Dylan live on tour in the 2000s, and Zevon's cover of cult artist Judee Sill's "Jesus Was a Crossmaker" predated the wider rediscovery of her work a decade later. The album, however, suffered the worst sales of Zevon's career, in part because his label, superagent Irving Azoff's short-lived Giant Records, was in the process of going out of business. Zevon released a best-of compilation that same year, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (An Anthology).

After another five-year layoff, Zevon again rebounded with the mortality-themed 2000 release Life'll Kill Ya, containing the hymn-like "Don't Let Us Get Sick" and an austere version of Steve Winwood's '80s hit "Back in the High Life Again". With record sales reasonably brisk and adulatory music critics giving Zevon his best notices since Excitable Boy, Life'll Kill Ya is seen as his second comeback. He followed with 2002's My Ride's Here (with morbid prescience of things to come, Zevon is shown seated in a hearse on the cover), which included "Hit Somebody! (The Hockey Song)" (with a spoken guest vocal from TV host David Letterman) and the ballad "Genius," later taken as the title for a 2002 Zevon anthology, and a song whose string section illustrates the lasting influence of Stravinsky on Zevon's work.

[edit] Cancer, death and The Wind

The cover of Zevon's final album, The Wind.
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The cover of Zevon's final album, The Wind.

In interviews, Zevon described a lifelong phobia of doctors and said he seldom received medical assessment. In 2002, after a long period of untreated illness and pain, Zevon was encouraged by his dentist to see a doctor; when he did so he was diagnosed with inoperable mesothelioma (a form of lung cancer associated with exposure to asbestos rather than smoking, and also the same cancer that killed Steve McQueen). Refusing treatments he believed might incapacitate him while, at best, prolonging the inevitable, Zevon instead began recording his final album. The album, The Wind, has guest appearances from close friends including Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley, Jackson Browne, Timothy B. Schmit, Joe Walsh, David Lindley, Billy Bob Thornton, Emmylou Harris, Tom Petty and others. At the request of the music television channel VH1, documentarian Nick Read was given access to the sessions; his cameras documented a man who retained his mordant sense of humor, even as his health clearly deteriorated over time.

On October 30, 2002, Zevon was featured on the Late Show with David Letterman as the only guest for the entire hour. Zevon performed several songs and spoke at length about his illness. Zevon was a frequent guest and occasional substitute bandleader on Letterman's television shows since Late Night first aired in 1982. He noted, "I may have made a tactical error in not going to the doctor for 20 years." It was during this broadcast that Zevon first offered his oft-quoted insight on facing death: "Enjoy every sandwich."

Zevon previously stated that his illness was expected to be terminal within months after the diagnosis in the fall of 2002; however, he lived to see the birth of twin grandsons in June of 2003 and the release of The Wind on August 28, 2003. Owing in part to the first VH1 broadcasts of Nick Read's documentary Warren Zevon: Keep Me In Your Heart (which brought fresh attention to Zevon's illness), the album entered the national record charts at number 16, Zevon's highest placement since Excitable Boy. When his diagnosis became public, Zevon told the media that he just hoped to live long enough to see the next James Bond movie, a goal he also accomplished. Appropriately, the film was called Die Another Day.

Warren Zevon died at his home in Los Angeles, California, on September 7, 2003. The Wind was certified gold by the RIAA in December of 2003 and Zevon received five posthumous Grammy nominations, including Song Of The Year for the ballad "Keep Me In Your Heart". The Wind won two Grammys, with the album itself receiving the award for Best Contemporary Folk Album, while "Disorder in the House," Zevon's duet with Bruce Springsteen, was awarded Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocal. These posthumous awards were the first Grammys of Zevon's more than 30-year career.

[edit] Posthumous releases and biographical works

A tribute album titled Enjoy Every Sandwich: Songs of Warren Zevon was released October 19, 2004. Zevon's son, Jordan Zevon, did a large part of the work on the album and performed "Studebaker," a previously unreleased Warren Zevon composition. A second tribute album, titled Hurry Home Early: the Songs of Warren Zevon (the line "hurry home early" is from the song "Boom Boom Mancini," on Sentimental Hygiene) was released by Wampus Multimedia on July 8, 2005.

On February 14, 2006, VH1 Classic premiered a video from a new compilation, Reconsider Me: The Love Songs of Warren Zevon. The video, titled "She's Too Good For Me," aired every hour on the hour throughout the day.

On June 20, 2006, Jordan Zevon posted a message on the official Warren Zevon site saying that the box set of rarities, outtakes and live performances that had been three years in production had been put on hiatus indefinitely. A CD re-release of Mr. Bad Example and first-ever CD issues of Stand in the Fire and The Envoy all remain in progress.

Memorial, Dixon, New Mexico
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Memorial, Dixon, New Mexico

At least two book projects concerning Zevon's life have also been announced. I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon is a biography by ex-wife Crystal Zevon slated for publication in May 2007 by Ecco Books. Also announced is the "tell-all" memoir Needles and Dust by Philadelphia radio personality and former Zevon fiancee Anita Gevinson.

In 2006, Zevon's song "Lawyers, Guns and Money" (Excitable Boy, 1978) was used as the theme song for producer Jerry Bruckheimer's short-lived TV series "Justice", a program centered on the fictional exploits of high-powered LA-based attorneys. Produced by Warner Brothers and broadcast on Fox, the series produced only 13 episodes. Coincidentally, 7 years earlier his song "Even A Dog Can Shake Hands" was used as the theme song for the show Action produced by Joel Silver which also ran for 13 episodes.

[edit] Discography

[edit] External links

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