UPDATE:

Editors Note: I made a grave error and rushed to judgment about this book.  I will not defend my actions, but suffice it to say it was written with a noble intentions.  I received this thoughtful email that says it better than I could.  I am humbled and embarrassed, but I hope my general statements about Warren Zevon have merit and are appreciated.  I am a genuine fan of his music.

 Hi.

I’m a huge Warren Zevon fan, and caught your blog post from today in a Google alert.  I agree with everything you said about his music and his struggles.  My only concern is that you come down hard on his ex-wife.  I’m sure that in most circumstances that would be fair, but here it isn’t.

This is as close to an authorized biography as you can get when the subject is not alive.  Zevon’s relationship with his ex was close.  In fact, it got even closer as he was dying.  She was a supporter and confidante during that time, along with his then-girlfriend and his grown children.  And he specifically asked her to write this book.  It was part of a three-pronged project to try to give himself more of a legacy than he otherwise would have had.

The thing that ate at Warren during his life was that he never got the fame he deserved.  One hit single, based on a passing comment by one of the Everly Brothers, and that was it.  So when he was dying he let a documentary filmmaker trail him (the DVD of this, by the way, is awesome - funny, sad, and musical genius).  He made what I consider the second best album of his long career (the first, “Warren Zevon,” is still my favorite).  And he told his ex-wife to talk with everyone and to write a history of his life.  And to make sure she put in all the crazy stuff.  So she did.

I haven’t finished the book.   What I have read is wonderful.  It is an oral history in the words of the people who knew him, worked with him, were his friends and his lovers.  And it is warm, loving, and touching.  It is the farthest thing from a hatchet job I could imagine.   If you are a fan, please read it.

Thanks again for a thoughtful post.

[name withheld]

Original Post:

The late, great Warren Zevon’s life is set to be retold through the eyes of his ex-wife (always a fount of selective memories) Crystal Zevon in a memoir that will reveal that Zevon returned to a life of drugs and alcohol in his final days as he struggled with lung cancer.

Zevon is fondly recalled for his eccentric style and quirky LA novelist rock. In terms of rock history, he is best known for his hits, “Werewolves of London,” “Poor Poor Pitiful Me, ” “Excitable Boy,” and my favorite, “Lawyers, Guns and Money.” But really that’s just the tip of the iceberg. What Hunter Thompson is to writing, Warren Zevon is to music. Employing a guerrilla-style sense of story-telling, Zevon channeled his acerbic wit, but thoughtful take on the world into song. The results were wildly unpredictable, earnest, simultaneoulsy self-deprecating and arrogant, with a pinch of wistful. Either you got it, or you didn’t it. And if you didn’t, it was your problem, not his.

Word of his diagnosis came in the fall of 2002 and Warren hung in for an entire year, mostly by sheer willpower to see the birth of his twin grandsons in June 2003. He died a mere three months later on September 7, 2003.Not surprisingly, Warren faced with the knowledge he was suffering from incurable cancer, turned to his saving grace: his musical creativity. He was given a rare opportunity to do something special: write his own ending. That ending, Zevon’s swan song of sorts, was The Wind. A beautifully crafted album featuring many of his musical peers and friends (Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley, Tom Petty, Emmylou Harris) which gave us the beautiful ballad “Keep Me In Your Heart.” Warren received five Grammy nominations for that album, including Best Song Of The Year for “Keep Me In Your Heart” and ended up winning two posthumously, for Best Contemporary Folk Album and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocal for “Disorder In The House,” a duet with Bruce Springsteen also off of The Wind.

Sadly, these were the only two Grammy awards that Warren Zevon would win in his 30+ year career.

We had the tremendous fortune of meeting Warren Zevon the summer before his death in July of 2002 at a blogger party in LA - undoubtedly the greatest party of my life. Warren, who was friends with the host, quietly appeared in the kitchen as we were going for more wine. I was awestruck. He and his friend, well-known music videographer Nigel Dick, we chatting as I stood there mouth agape.

After we were introduced, I rambled on and on about what huge fans my sister and I were of his music. I have no doubt in retrospect, that he was likely annoyed by my fawning, but flattered nonetheless. Fortunately my husband having met many a famous person was able to communicate like a normal person and I was able to finally just stand there quietly basking in the glory of meeting one of my heroes face to face.

It was only a couple of months after this meeting that Warren Zevon announced he had been diagnosed with cancer. Armed with this knowledge, I was flooded with a wave of embarrassment. What I took as a quiet reserve was in fact suppressed pain and likely a subconscious concern for his health. He would later confide that he had a tremendous phobia of doctors and waited far too long to see someone about lingering symptoms. Warren assumed that the tightness he felt in his chest was a result of a new rigorous workout he’d taken up, but deep down he must have sensed something more malignant was happening.

I must admit, I was starstruck. My early years as a young teen were filled with memories listening to my older sister’s music collection and we both LOVED Warren’s irreverent humor and rollicking licks. He was gracious and tolerant, but noticeably subdued and quiet. My enthusiasm in contrast to his reserve is something that haunts me even now, once we discovered how sick he truly felt. I am truly blessed to have met a hero before he left us — far too soon.

And, now his ex-wife is going to defile his memory with sensational claims that after 17 years of sobriety he once again, though certainly with reasonable cause, turned to alcohol and drugs to cope with the pain and his own looming mortality. From the article:

Crystal Zevon, who was married to the rock star from 1974 to 1979, admits her late husband’s death was tough on the family because he turned his back on 17 years of sobriety in a bid to cope with the fact he was losing his cancer battle.

Zevon’s ex-wife admits the book took her a long time to write because painful memories of her life with Zevon, who she says could be “cruel for cruelty’s sake,” made her consider quitting the project.

She tells the Los Angeles Times newspaper, “There were many times where I said, `I can’t do this, I don’t want to read another word, let alone put us all out for public consumption.’Then I’d run across some great line of the moment when a song trigger came to him, and I’d say, `The story has got to be told…’ I fell in and out of love a lot of times.”

I can’t imagine revealing my husband’s (or ex for that matter) final struggle to come to grips with his own death into a sensationalistic tell-all just for a quick buck. Shame on her. She easily could have written about the amazing things he did in his life and people would have enjoyed it all the more, but wherever there is cash to be made, there are people who are willing to do just about anything to get their hands on. Don’t count on me buying it.

If I want to know more about Warren Zevon’s life, I need look no further than his music.