About Warren Zevon

Having a signature song can be both a blessing and a curse for an artist – a dilemma Warren Zevon has faced for nearly three decades. Despite the fact that he's one of pop music’s greatest storytellers, to the world-at-large, he remains "the guy who sang 'Werewolves of London'." It would seem only the faithful understand that Zevon was that rarest of artist – a world-class cynic with a sentimental core, and a fighter who came back stronger after every career knockout.

The son of an itinerant gambler, Zevon spent most of his youth on the move, developing a love of language and music along the way. After a brief stint in New York in his teens, he moved to California, eking out a living as a session musician. His solo debut, Wanted: Dead Or Alive (1969) was met with critical indifference, though several tracks, particularly “A Bullet For Ramona” were barometers of the greatness to come. Zevon spent much of the next seven years as a commercial jingle composer and session player, including a stint as The Everly Brothers’ pianist. By the mid-seventies, he had enough underground cache as a songwriter (and enough connected friends in the industry) to land a record deal; his eponymous 1976 debut remains one of the benchmarks of his career, a collection of subtle, poison-laced letters to LA’s lovers, losers, and low-lifes. He followed in ’78 with his best-known album, Excitable Boy, which featured the #21 hit “Werewolves of London” – the album was a critical and commercial smash, but hinted at Zevon’s mounting problems with rock ‘n roll excess.

1980’s Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School was a thinly-veiled document of Zevon’s struggle to stay on the wagon – more focused than Excitable Boy, it was a solid return to the promise of Warren Zevon. He upped the ante on The Envoy (1982), but the album tanked commercially, sending Zevon off on a five-year odyssey of substance abuse and recovery. When he finally returned in 1987 with Sentimental Hygiene, Warren Zevon was once more in top form. Backed by Peter Buck, Bill Berry, and Mike Mills of REM (with special guests Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and George Clinton), Hygiene was a rebirth for the 41-year-old, a perfect marriage of melody, muscular rock and snide, self-reflective lyrics. The album was successful enough that Zevon, Buck & Co. released the leftover tracks under the pseudonym Hindu Love Gods (1990).

Zevon flew under the radar for much of the next decade. While Transverse City (1989), a cyber-punk influenced concept piece, was a strong followup to Sentimental Hygiene, 1991’s Mr. Bad Example and 1995’s Mutineer found Zevon struggling musically. Typically, he returned re-invigorated after a five-year sabbatical, dropping the excellent Life’ll Kill Ya in 2000, showing that time had dulled neither his biting wit, nor his gift for melody.

Shortly after the release of My Ride’s Here in 2002, Zevon shocked the musical world by announcing that he was suffering from inoperable lung cancer. He returned to the studio for one final album, enlisting the help of such fellow rock greats as Browne, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, and members of the Eagles, among many others. The resulting Artemis release The Wind serves as a fitting valediction from one of rock’s most incisive songwriters.