![]() ![]() And if you have never really listened to his music, here's a chance to do so. He then requested the table and chairs in front be cleared away and invited the rest of us up front to enjoy the show.Īnd that's what we did - 90 minutes swaying on the stage floor, 15 feet from Warren Zevon rocking the place. He stopped in mid song, called for management and asked for the people to be removed. Thirty minutes into the show, a party of eight or 10 showed up, were ushered to the section and proceeded to order drinks and talk among themselves while Zevon sang. There was a section cordoned off up front. I remember he played alone (it was during the Learning to Flinch acoustical tour). I saw Zevon in 1992 in a small, seedy Manchester venue called The Escape Club. Cuz that is the guy who wrote them excitable songs." ![]() But you gotta promise you'll tell 'em the whole truth, even the awful, ugly parts. It peels back a life's layers and looks at everything - the torment, the drinking, the OCD and, oh yes, the music.Īs Zevon told Crystal before he died, "You are my witness. But those unfamiliar with his life and music will also find it a worthwhile read. Zevon fans, of course, will love the book. They include Carl Hiaasen, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bob Thornton, Jackson Browne and Zevon's longtime musical collaborator, Jorge Calderon. There are excerpts from his journals, and frank interviews with friends, family, fellow musicians, and more. The book tells all, the good stuff and the bad stuff, just as Zevon wanted it. If you read the book, you will find that Zevon's life was like his music - anything but normal. For better and for worse, I followed Zevon's life, enjoying his music - a Zevon tape was always within arm's reach it seemed and still is - which can be described as anything but normal. I have enjoyed Zevon's music since "Excitable Boy" was released on vinyl nearly 30 years ago. "Stand in the Fire" (Live at the Roxy, 1981) and "The Envoy" (1982) are now on CD, with extra, previously unreleased tracks.Īlso, "Excitable Boy," the 1978 album that put Zevon on the map with the now classic music noir pieces "Werewolves of London," "Lawyers, Guns and Money," "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" and, of course, the darkly hysterical title track, has been re-released with bonus tracks.Īs if that weren't enough, Zevon's son, Jordan, went through his father's backlog of music, and put together "Preludes," a two-CD collection of previously unreleased music and musings. In addition, two of his albums previously unreleased on CD, have finally made their way into the 21st century. Written by Warren Zevon and T-Bone Burnett, from Zevon's 1980 album, "Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School."įans of the late Warren Zevon, the unheralded and quirky - but great - American songwriter, have hit the mother lode this year.įirst, Crystal Zevon, his ex-wife, wrote "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon" (Harper-Collins, $26.95), a graphic and moving oral history of the late musician's life. There are a few tunes that faintly anticipate the more interesting and intelligent work that was to come from Zevon, most notably the lovelorn "Tule's Blues," the Western tale "A Bullet for Ramona," and the bitter breakup number "She Quit Me," but for the most part Wanted Dead or Alive is a mildly embarrassing skeleton in Warren Zevon's closet, and only dedicated completists need concern themselves with it."I'm too old to die young, and too young to die now." Zevon has said that Fowley politely bowed out of the sessions for Wanted Dead or Alive when it became obvious he wasn't teen idol material, but while the music generally doesn't have the gimmicky Hollywood sound that usually brands Fowley's work, it doesn't really sound like Warren Zevon, either. Wanted Dead or Alive is an odd, poorly focused, and frankly meandering set of tunes that sounds like blues-tinged folk-rock without suggesting the fire or caustic wit that would be Zevon's hallmarks when he broke through in the '70s. While Zevon doubtless welcomed the opportunity (and the advance), that's not to say that Fowley was the right collaborator for him or that Zevon had an album's worth of good songs ready at the time. ![]() rock scene for several years as a songwriter and would-be pop star when Fowley (at that point best known as the man who wrote, sang, and produced "Alley Oop" by the Hollywood Argyles) offered him a record deal. ![]() In 1981, Warren Zevon told a reporter from Rolling Stone about the strange genesis of his first album: "In 1969, Kim Fowley called me up one day and asked very simply, 'Are you prepared to wear black leather and chains, f- a lot of teenage girls and get rich?' I said yes." Zevon had been bouncing around the margins of the L.A. ![]()
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