Background and career
Warren William Zevon (; January 24, 1947 – September 7, 2003) was an American rock singer and songwriter. His most famous compositions include "Werewolves of London", "Lawyers, Guns and Money" and "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner". All three songs are featured on his third album, Excitable Boy (1978), the title track of which is also well-known. He also wrote major hits that were recorded by other artists, including "Poor Poor Pitiful Me", "Mohammed's Radio", "Carmelita" and "Hasten Down the Wind". Per The New York Times, "Mr. Zevon had a pulp-fiction imagination" which yielded "terse, action-packed, gallows-humored tales that could sketch an entire screenplay in four minutes and often had death as a punchline. But there was also vulnerability and longing in Mr. Zevon's ballads, like 'Mutineer,' 'Accidentally Like a Martyr' and 'Hasten Down the Wind'." Zevon had early music industry successes as a session musician, jingle composer, songwriter, touring musician, musical coordinator and bandleader. However, he struggled to break through with a solo career until Linda Ronstadt recorded his song "Hasten Down the Wind" on her 1976 album of the same title. It launched a cult following that lasted 25 years, with Zevon making occasional returns to album and single charts until his death from mesothelioma in 2003. He briefly found a new audience by teaming up with members of R.E.M. in the blues rock outfit Hindu Love Gods for a 1990 album release, although no tour followed. In 2025, Zevon was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Musical Influence Award category. Known for his dry wit and acerbic lyrics, he was a frequent guest on Late Night with David Letterman and the Late Show with David Letterman. On Zevon's last appearance, Letterman asked him if he had learned anything about matters of life and death. Zevon said he'd learned to "...enjoy every sandwich."
Zevon was born in Chicago, the son of Beverly Cope (née Simmons) and William Zevon. His father was a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine, originally surnamed Zivotofsky. William Zevon worked as a bookie who handled volume bets and dice games for the notorious Los Angeles mobster Mickey Cohen. His father worked for years in the Cohen gang, in which he was known as Stumpy Zevon, and was best man at Cohen's first wedding. Warren's mother was from a Latter-day Saint family and of English descent. They later moved to Fresno, California, and by the age of 13, Zevon was an occasional visitor to the home of Igor Stravinsky, where he briefly studied modern classical music alongside Robert Craft. Zevon's parents divorced when he was 16 years old. He soon quit high school and, driving a sports car William won in a card game, moved from Los Angeles to New York City to become a folk singer.
Zevon turned to a musical career early, forming the folk rock duo lyme & cybelle (deliberately stylized in lowercase) with high school friend Violet Santangelo. Bones Howe produced their first single, the minor hit "Follow Me", which was written by Zevon and Santangelo and reached number 65 on the Billboard pop charts in April 1966 and number 59 in Canada on May 9. The follow-up single, a cover of Bob Dylan's "If You Gotta Go, Go Now", flopped, and Zevon quit the duo. A third single without Zevon and another session that included him but was not previously released were included on the 2003 compilation The First Sessions. Zevon spent time as a session musician and jingle composer. He wrote several songs for his White Whale labelmates The Turtles ("Like the Seasons" and "Outside Chance"), though his participation in their recording—if any—is unknown. Another early Zevon composition, "She Quit Me", was included in the soundtrack for the film Midnight Cowboy (1969); to suit its place in the film, the song was re-recorded by Leslie Miller as "He Quit Me". Zevon's debut solo album, Wanted Dead or Alive (1970), was spearheaded by 1960s cult figure Kim Fowley but received almost no attention and did not sell well. Though Zevon continued to play occasional live dates as a solo artist, the next several years of his career were dominated by session work with other musicians. During the early 1970s, Zevon toured regularly with The Everly Brothers as keyboard player, band leader, and musical coordinator. Later that decade, he toured with Don Everly and Phil Everly separately as they tried to launch solo careers after their breakup. He worked particularly closely with Phil, arranging and playing keyboards on his solo albums Star Spangled Springer (1973) and Mystic Line (1975) and co-writing tracks on Phil's Diner (1974) and Mystic Line. Zevon's song "Carmelita" was also recorded by Canadian singer Murray McLauchlan on his self-titled album of 1972. These small successes were not particularly rewarding financially, and Zevon's dissatisfaction with his career (and a lack of funds) led him to briefly move to Spain in the summer of 1975. He lived and played in the Dubliner Bar, a small tavern in Sitges, near Barcelona, owned by mercenary David Lindell. Together they composed "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner".
By September 1975, Zevon had returned to Los Angeles, where he roomed with Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac. There he collaborated with Jackson Browne, who produced and promoted Zevon's self-titled major-label debut in 1976. Contributors to the album included Nicks, Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, members of the Eagles, Carl Wilson, 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, in 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. Produced by Browne, Warren Zevon (1976) was his first album to chart in the United States, peaking at No. 189. The first edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide (1979) called it "a masterpiece". The guide's latest edition (2004) calls it 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 look at life and lust in the L.A. music business (which was partially about and inspired by his relationship with Marilyn Livingston, his long-time girlfriend and mother of his son, Jordan); and "Desperados Under the Eaves", a chronicle of Zevon's increasing alcoholism.
In 1978, Zevon released Excitable Boy (produced by Jackson Browne and guitarist Waddy Wachtel) to critical acclaim and popular success. The title tune is about a juvenile sociopath's murderous prom night and referred to "Little Susie", the heroine of the song "Wake Up Little Susie" made famous by his former employers The Everly Brothers. Other songs, such as "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" and "Lawyers, Guns and Money", used deadpan humor to wed geopolitical subtexts to hard-boiled narratives. The single "Werewolves of London", featuring McVie, Fleetwood, and Zevon's signature macabre humor, reached No. 21 on the charts. Dave Marsh called Zevon "one of the toughest rockers ever to come out of Southern California". Rolling Stone record reviews editor Paul Nelson called the album "one of the most significant releases of the 1970s" and placed Zevon alongside Jackson Browne, Neil Young, and Bruce Springsteen as the four most important new artists to emerge in the decade. On May 11, 1980, Zevon and Willie Nile appeared on the King Biscuit Flower Hour.
Zevon followed Excitable Boy with Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School (1980). The album was dedicated to Ken Millar, better known under his nom-de-plume as the detective novelist Ross Macdonald, one of Zevon's literary heroes. Millar and Zevon first met in an intervention organized by Nelson, which helped Zevon temporarily curtail his addictions. Featuring a modest hit with the single "A Certain Girl" (Zevon's cover of an R&B record by Ernie K-Doe) which reached No. 57 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, the album sold briskly but was uneven , and represented a decline rather than commercial and critical consistency. It contained a collaboration with Springsteen on "Jeannie Needs a Shooter". The ballad "Empty-Handed Heart" (featuring a descant sung by Linda Ronstadt), is about Zevon's divorce from his wife, Crystal, the mother of his daughter Ariel. (Zevon was in a long-term relationship with Marilyn "Tule" Livingston, the mother of his son, Jordan, but they never married.) Later in 1980, he released the live album Stand in the Fire, recorded over five nights at The Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles and dedicated to Martin Scorsese.
