Warren Zevon facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Warren Zevon
Warren Zevon in 1978
Background information
Birth name	Warren William Zevon
Also known as	Sandy Zevon Stephen Lyme
Born	(1947-01-24)January 24, 1947 Chicago, Illinois, United States
Died	September 7, 2003(2003-09-07) (aged 56) Los Angeles, California, United States
Genres	Rock, folk, Americana
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter, musician
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, piano, harmonica
Years active	1965–2003
Labels	White Whale Records (1965–1967) Imperial Records (1969–1971) Asylum Records (1976–1982) Virgin Records (1987–1989) Giant Records/Reprise/Warner Bros. Records (1991–1995) Artemis Records/Koch Entertainment (2000–2003)
Associated acts	Billy Bob Thornton Jackson Browne David Lindley Waddy Wachtel Bruce Springsteen Dwight Yoakam Hindu Love Gods Linda Ronstadt The Everly Brothers Don Everly Phil Everly Richie Hayward Jack Casady Chick Corea Jerry Garcia David Gilmour Neil Young Don Henley Timothy B. Schmit Bob Dylan Joe Walsh Emmylou Harris Tom Petty The Eagles Manfred Mann The Turtles lyme and cybelle Rock Bottom Remainders

Warren William Zevon (January 24, 1947 – September 7, 2003) was an American rock singer-songwriter and musician known for including his strange and somewhat critical opinions of life in his lyrics. Zevon wrote many songs that were humorous and often political

Many famous musicians have said they liked Zevon's work, including Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young. His most famous songs include "Werewolves of London", "Lawyers, Guns and Money", "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" and "Johnny Strikes Up The Band." All of these are from his third and most famous album: Excitable Boy (1978). Zevon has written many songs that were recorded by other artists. These include "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" (a top 40 hit by Linda Ronstadt), "Accidentally Like a Martyr," "Mohammed's Radio," "Carmelita", and "Hasten Down the Wind".

Zevon sometimes recorded or sang cover songs. He liked to sing Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and Leonard Cohen's "First We Take Manhattan". He was often a guest on Late Night with David Letterman and the Late Show with David Letterman. Letterman later sang with Zevon on "Hit Somebody! (The Hockey Song)" with Paul Shaffer and members of the CBS Orchestra.

Early life

Zevon was born in Chicago, Illinois. His parents were to William Zevon, a Secular Jew and Beverly Cope Simmons, a Mormon from Salt Lake City, Utah. They soon moved to Fresno, California. By the age of 13, Zevon sometimes visited Igor Stravinsky where he studied modern classical music. Zevon's parents divorced when he was 16 years old. After the divorce, he dropped out of high school and moved from Los Angeles to New York to become a folk singer.

At one time he sang with high school friend Violet Santangelo as a musical duo called "lyme & cybelle". He used artistic license and refused to capitalize the band name). He spent time as a session musician and jingle writer. He wrote several songs for his White Whale label-mates the Turtles ("Like the Seasons" and "Outside Chance"), though his participation in their recording is unknown. Another early composition ("He 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 sell well. Flashes of Zevon's later writing preoccupations 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). During the early 1970s, Zevon toured regularly with the Everly Brothers as keyboard player and band leader/musical coordinator.

Later during the same decade he toured at different times Don Everly and Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers, as they tried to launch solo careers after their break-up. His dissatisfaction with his career (and a lack of funds) led him to move to Spain during the summer of 1975, where he lived and played in a small tavern in Sitges near Barcelona owned by David Lindell, a former mercenary. Together they composed Zevon's classic "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner".

Return to L.A. and major-label debut

By September 1975, Zevon had returned to Los Angeles, where he roomed with then-unknown Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. There, he collaborated with Jackson Browne, who during 1976 would produce and promote Zevon's self-titled major-company debut. Contributors to this album included Nicks, Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, members of the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, and Bonnie Raitt. Ronstadt elected to record many of his songs, including "Hasten Down the Wind," "Carmelita", "Poor Poor Pitiful Me", and "Mohammed's Radio." Zevon's first tour during 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 1970s 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 termed 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 scathing insider's look at life in the L.A. music business and "Desperados Under the Eaves".

Success

In 1978, Zevon released his most popular and critically acclaimed album Excitable Boy. Radio stations often played the songs off the album, especially "Werewolves of London." "Werewolves of London" and "Excitable Boy" were both examples of black humor (jokes about bad things). The album also had the songs "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" and "Lawyers, Guns and Money," which were both deadpan humor songs about geopolitics.

Rolling Stone named the album one of the most important albums in the 1970s. They said that he, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, and Bruce Springsteen were four of the best new artists to emerge in the 1970s.

After Excitable Boy Warren Zevon published Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School in 1980. This album had the only other song recorded by Zevon that reached the Billboard Top 100: "A Certain Girl." "A Certain Girl" is a rhythm and blues song written by Allen Toussaint.

This album was dedicated to Ken Millar, who calls himself "Ross Macdonald." Millar is a writer who writes mystery novels, and Zevon really liked Millar's stories. He met Millar in an intervention put together by the journalist Paul Nelson.

Cancer, death and The Wind

Warren Zevon did not like to go to the doctor, and never went to one when he was an adult. Before playing at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival in 2002, he started feeling dizzy and started to have a chronic cough. When Zevon told his dentist his problems, his dentist recommended seeing a doctor. When he finally visited one, the doctor diagnosed him with mesothelmia.

Warren Zevon did not want to get treated for his cancer if it might keep him from making music. So instead he started to make his final album, titled The Wind. He had a lot of friends who helped him make the album. These friends included Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley, Jackson Browne, Timothy B. Schmit, Joe Walsh, David Lindley, Billy Bob Thornton, Emmylou Harris, Tom Petty, Dwight Yoakam, and others.

On October 30, 2002, Zevon was featured on the Late Show with David Letterman as the only guest for the entire hour. The band played "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" as his introduction. 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 broadcast during 1982. He noted, "I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." It was during this broadcast that, when asked by Letterman if he knew something more about life and death now, he first offered his oft-quoted insight on dying: "Enjoy every sandwich." He also took time to thank Letterman for his years of help, calling him "the best friend my music's ever had". For his final song of the evening, and his final public performance, Zevon performed "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" at Letterman's request. In the green room after the show, Zevon presented Letterman with the guitar that he always used on the show, with a single request: "Here, I want you to have this, take good care of it." The day after Zevon's death, Letterman paid tribute to Zevon by replaying his performance of Mutineer from his last appearance. The Late Show band played Zevon's songs throughout the night.

Zevon stated previously 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 2003 and the release of The Wind on August 26, 2003. Owing in part to the first VH1 broadcasts of Nick Read's documentary Warren Zevon: Keep Me In Your Heart, the album reached number 16 of the US charts, Zevon's highest 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 accomplished. Coincidentally, the film was titled Die Another Day.

Warren Zevon died on September 7, 2003, aged 56, at his home in Los Angeles, California. The Wind was certified gold by the RIAA during December 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.

He was cremated and his ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean near Los Angeles.

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 music video from a new compilation, Reconsider Me: The Love Songs. The video, titled "She's Too Good For Me", aired every hour on the hour throughout the day.

First and last issues of the Zevon albums Stand in the Fire and The Envoy were released on March 27, 2007 by Rhino Records alongside a Rhino re-issue of Excitable Boy, with the three albums expanded from all previous versions by four tracks each. Noteworthy rarities in these editions include the outtakes "Word of Mouth" and "The Risk" from the Envoy sessions and "Frozen Notes (Strings Version)", a melancholic outtake from Excitable Boy performed on acoustic piano with a string quartet in the style of 1976's Warren Zevon LP. Also included on the expanded Excitable Boy CD is the brief but hilarious "I Need A Truck", Zevon's first-ever a cappella studio release.

On May 1, 2007, Ammal Records, the new label started up as a partnership with New West Records by Zevon's former boss at Artemis Danny Goldberg, released Preludes - Rare and Unreleased Recordings, a two-disc anthology of Zevon demos and alternate versions culled from 126 pre-1976 recordings found inside an old road case after Zevon's death. The album contains five previously unreleased songs: "Empty Hearted Town", "Going All the Way", "Steady Rain", "Stop Rainin` Lord" and "The Rosarita Beach Cafe", along with Zevon's original demo for "Studebaker", the song performed by Jordan Zevon on Enjoy Every Sandwich. Selections from an interview between Zevon and Austin-based radio personality Jody Denberg are blended with about 40 minutes of music on the collection's second disc.

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon, a biography/oral history compiled by ex-wife Crystal Zevon, was published in 2007 by Ecco Books. The book is made up of interwoven interviews from many of Zevon's friends and associates, and is notable for its unvarnished portrayal of Zevon (reputedly at his request).

• The 1997 film The Lost World: Jurassic Park has characters named Nick Van Owen and Roland Tembo, as a tribute to Zevon's Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner.
• Music by Warren Zevon is featured in several episodes of the Showtime television series Californication..
• In the 2009 movie Funny People, George Simmons, a dying comedian, reacts when he hears a recording of Keep Me In Your Heart.
• American director Kevin Smith is currently (as of 2010) writing a hockey film titled Hit Somebody! based on Zevon's song of the same name.
• American author Stephen King references the quote "Play that dead band's song" in his novel "Under The Dome"
• In an episode of Boston Legal featuring guest star Michael J. Fox, Keep Me In Your Heart played towards the end of the episode.

Discography

Studio albums

• Wanted Dead or Alive (Warren Zevon album)|Wanted Dead or Alive – 1969 – Initial release credited simply to "Zevon".
• Warren Zevon (album)|Warren Zevon – 1976
• Excitable Boy – 1978 (United States: Platinum)
• Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School – 1980
• The Envoy – 1982
• Sentimental Hygiene – 1987
• Transverse City – 1989
• Hindu Love Gods – 1990 – As a member of "Hindu Love Gods".
• Mr. Bad Example – 1991
• Mutineer – 1995
• Life'll Kill Ya – 2000
• My Ride's Here – 2002
• The Wind – 2003

Live albums

• Stand in the Fire – 1980
• Learning to Flinch – 1993

Compilations

• A Quiet Normal Life: The Best of Warren Zevon – 1986 (US: Gold)
• I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (An Anthology) – 1996
• Genius: The Best of Warren Zevon – 2002
• The First Sessions – 2003
• Reconsider Me: The Love Songs – 2006
• Preludes: Rare and Unreleased Recordings – 2007

Images for kids

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  Zevon touring solo in Heidelberg as the opener for Jackson Browne in 1976

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  Country rock musician Linda Ronstadt helped popularize Zevon's songs in the 1970s

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  Comedian and TV host David Letterman was credited by Zevon as "being the best friend my music ever had"

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  Friend Jackson Browne reunited with Zevon for his final album

See also

In Spanish: Warren Zevon para niños