Warren Zevon born 24 January 1947

Warren Zevon (January 24, 1947 – September 7, 2003) was an American rock singer and songwriter. 

Warren William Zevon was born in Chicago, he moved with his family to California as a child, and though he described his father as a gangster and gambler, William Zevon took his parental responsibilities seriously enough to sign his son up for formal tuition in classical piano. He even got to know Igor Stravinsky, then living in the Hollywood Hills. 

Despite his lifelong interest in classical music, Warren's first professional involvement was as one half of the boy-girl pop duo, Lyme and Cybelle. He recorded the little-noticed album Wanted Dead Or Alive (1969), but it was signing to Asylum records in the mid- 1970s that lit the blue touch paper on his career. He sent a couple of years in the early 1970s touring as the Everly Brothers’ pianist/bandleader. His Asylum debut, Warren Zevon (1976), bristled with west coast rock deities - including Glenn Frey and Don Henley, of the Eagles, and Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, from Fleetwood Mac. 

On board as producer was Jackson Browne, who became one of Zevon's closest friends and also produced his follow-up album, Excitable Boy (1978), another batch of powerful and alarming songs, outlining the career of a murderous rapist in the title tune and including his only hit single, Werewolves Of London. Excitable Boy hit the American top 10, but despite several covers of his songs by Linda Ronstadt, Zevon's work was too dark and perverse for mainstream tastes. But his career was temporarily set back by alcoholism. While 1980's Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School also made the top 20, it signalled the end of its author's period of commercial visibility. 

                                    

Not that this made his music any less fascinating. Stand In The Fire (1980) was a live album of rare ferocity, while the title song of The Envoy rings as true today as it did 20 years ago - "Nuclear arms in the Middle East/ Israel's attacking the Iraqis . . . Looks like another threat to world peace/ For the envoy." Zevon's tenure with Asylum lapsed, and the superb Sentimental Hygiene album (1987) came out on Virgin records. The cast of guest stars alone confirmed Zevon's status as the connoisseur's delight, with Neil Young, Bob Dylan and members of R.E.M. and Tom Petty's Heartbreakers queueing up to participate. The disc was arguably his finest, ranging from plaintive ballads and the boxer's yarn, Boom Boom Mancini, to the caustic Detox Mansion, a song inspired by the 25 years of alcoholism he had recently managed to curtail. 

Viewing his commercial invisibility philosophically, Zevon continued to make albums that probed, challenged and laughed in the face of political correctness. Any record collection ought to contain copies of Mr Bad Example, Mutineer, Life'll Kill Ya or My Ride's Here, this latter featuring Warren's best buddies Hunter S Thompson, novelist Carl Hiaasen and David Letterman. The compilation album I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (1996) is an excellent survey of his best work. 

Shortly before playing at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival in 2002, he started feeling dizzy and developed a chronic cough. After a period of suffering with pain and shortness of breath, Zevon was encouraged by his dentist to see a physician; he was diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma, a cancer (usually caused by exposure to asbestos) that affects the pleura, a thin membrane around the lungs and chest lining. Zevon was deeply shaken by the news and began drinking again after 17 years of sobriety. 

News of his illness galvanised Zevon into a late burst of creativity. Refusing treatments he believed might incapacitate him, he began to write many songs which began to pour out of him, and with the blessing of Danny Goldberg, boss of his latest record label Artemis, he recorded his last album, The Wind. Many of the great names in American rock 'n' roll turned out to lend a hand, with Bruce Springsteen giving a loose and rowdy performance on Disorder In The House, while Jackson Browne, Ry Cooder, Emmylou Harris, the Eagles and actor and songwriter Billy Bob Thornton all clocked in for the sessions. 

Zevon died of mesothelioma on September 7, 2003, aged 56, at his home in Los Angeles. His body was cremated, and his ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean near Los Angeles. Browne, who described what Zevon did as song-noir, commented: "He had a very stern moral disposition as well as a willingness to take on this berserk persona. I once tried to introduce him to an audience as 'the Ernest Hemingway of the 12-string guitar'. Afterwards, he said, 'No, no - Charles Bronson'." 

(Edited from Adam Sweeting obit @ the Guardian  & Wikipedia)