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58 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"I got to be Jim Morrison a lot longer than he did", May 2, 2007
An unusually witty, intelligent, insightful and downright poetic songwriter, Warren Zevon embraced stardom even when it didn't embrace him back--he struggled with various addictions OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), watching his contemporaries achieve fame and hold on to it longer. Zevon watched his early fame with the novelty hit single "Werewolves of London" (the title was supplied by Don Everly)gradually dissolve despite releasing a series of terrific albums in its wake. Warren avoided doctors for 20 years (he would see his dentist whenever he had a problem)finally giving in when he found himself short of breath and exhausted after a tour of Canada--but by then it was too late for him.
Written by Zevon's former wife Crystal, the book is a mix of narrative written by Crystal along with quotes from friends, family and fellow musicians that played with and admired Zevon that Crystal interviewed for this book. Zevon could be petty, was a nasty drunk but could also be a good friend to those he loved when he was sober. She has also includes excerpts from Warren's diary as well as illustrations by Mr. Bad Example and personal photos. When Warren found out he was going to die he embraced the potential publicity by asking his agent to exploit it knowing that this would truly be his last paycheck and that his family could benefit from it. He appeared on David Letterman's show (Letterman was a long time fan and Warren appeared with his band during at one point on the show), did multiple interviews and rushed to finish one final masterpiece before succumbing to "the big C". He beat doctors predictions and expectations surviving long enough to greet his twin grandsons.
The book is filled with a number of heartbreaking, amusing, infuriating stories. Among them Warren instructing his assistant to go to a Beverly Hills store to buy him cigerettes--his stipulation beyond the type was that the packaging couldn't say anything about cancer--it could say that smoking caused heart disease, pulmonary disease, etc. but NOT cancer. We also find out that the line about the "Excitable Boy" rubbing the pot roast all over his chest is based on something Warren did.
Many of Warren's albums are essential and his brilliance is as undeniable as his inability to conquer many of his demons. Even after reading the profiles of him in Rolling Stone, the obits and other comments from friends, lovers, family and collegues, I had no idea as to the extent of Warren's problems. He was a mass of fascinating contradictions. He was a serial womanizer who longed for committment but couldn't be faithful for too long. Before he died, he asked Crystal to document his life and dirty times in a book. He didn't ask her to sanitize his life recognizing that his shortcomings were every bit a part of him as his unique gifts. Interestingly, I found that I appreciated the albums he made even more after learning about all the disorder in his house.
Coinciding with the release of Crystal Zevon's book is "Preludes" a collection of rare, previously unreleased songs and demos all pre-1976 (except for a couple of album tracks and a single live track on the second disc). It's a two disc set with an interview on the second.
Also recommended some of his essential recordings: Warren Zevon,Excitable Boy,Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School,The Envoy, The Wind
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49 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Poor, Poor Pitiful Me, May 20, 2007
Crystal Zevon's "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" is un-putdownable for Warren Zevon fans like me. And I imagine even those unfamiliar with his work will be mightily entertained. I don't think I've read such a revealing rock book since Stephen Davis' Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga, about Led Zeppelin. I remember when Zevon's album "The Envoy" came out in 1982 it seemed to me to be a little thin compared with his previous epic, brilliant records. I had no idea, of course. It turns out Zevon was drinking and drugging himself into near oblivion during the 1970's and much of the '80's. When he emerged from this ordeal for the '90's he had lost commercial momentum and he watched his career dwindle to almost nothing. It's a sad story much of the time, but it's enlivened by Zevon's brilliantly perverse personality. He was called the Dorothy Parker of rock because of his wit, but he was something much tougher: some sort of mutant combination of Hemingway, Raymond Chandler, Randy Newman, and Igor Stravinsky.
Crystal Zevon, his former wife and mother of his daughter, has interviewed many of the closest people to the late musician and has constructed an oral history of his life. Within her narrative framework each person takes turns telling stories in their own words, supplemented by Zevon's surprisingly detailed and hair-raising, candid diaries, and dozens of terrific personal and family photos. It's a similar format to George Plimpton's Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintences and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career and Peter Manso's Mailer: His Life and Times. (I think that is company in which Zevon would be glad to be included, given his literary bent.) Crystal has been able to put together an amazingly life-like, three-dimensional portrait of a complex person for whom the good and bad parts were inextricably linked.
Much of the rock-star behavior detailed here can only be described as despicable. As Crystal walked out the door for the last time Zevon hurled at her, "You're trying to turn Dylan Thomas into Robert Young" and more poignantly, "I'll never be your father." Zevon hit his wife when he was loaded; was a financial deadbeat with some of his closest musical collaborators; was a shamefully neglectful father; emotionally manhandled a series of smart, pretty girlfriends; wasted fortunes on OCD-compelled shopping sprees; had many sordid misadventures with groupies and self-produced porn; and could be a spiteful, sorry jerk to be around. Much of this can be laid at the feet of his alcohol and drug addictions (which continued even after the famous "Rolling Stone" cover story which celebrated his supposed new sobriety.) What makes us care about his tale is his palpable humanity which comes through clearly in these pages. He was fiercely intelligent (if something of an intellectual star-chaser, to use a less obscene term). He was touchingly humble about himself, even as he was aware of his commanding strengths as a songwriter. When he wanted to he could be an awesome companion and father. He counted among his pals some very famous folks like David Letterman (who was "the best friend my music ever had"), Stephen King, Dave Barry (who alone among the interviewees cried while talking about Zevon) and Carl Hiaasen (who wrote the classy and moving introduction to this book.) In fact it seems that Zevon had met most of American show-business at one time or another, which gives his biography an extra dimension (Hunter Thompson called Zevon a "Mormon Jew" because of Zevon's moralistic streak and the background of his mother and father.)
The book begins and ends with a painfully honest account of Zevon's final illness and death. After he was diagnosed with terminal cancer he fell off the wagon in a heap, after 16 sober years. It got pretty gruesome, but he pulled himself together long enough to record his farewell album "The Wind", make a legendary hour-long appearance on the Letterman show, and witness the birth of his twin grandsons. Zevon's music will continue to live because of its sheer melodic beauty, hard-rocking power, and devastatingly funny depictions of certain dark sides of American male experience. This book is an invaluable resource for understanding this great artist; and it's one of the most readable books of this year.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Warren from Every Angle--A Genius of a Biography, June 21, 2007
My introduction to Warren Zevon came in the early 1980's when I was in a record store in Gainesville, FL looking for a new album that had just came out (I don't remember what the album was). While in the store I was caught up with the album they were playing over the PA system..a singer was singing about being in Hawaii and abandoned by his girl to the "Hula, Hula" boys with a refrain in Hawain. It piqued my interest. I listened on to the next song which was about going to Memphis, Graceland to be exact and digging up the king and begging him to sing about those heavenly mansions Jesus mentioned and imagining him (Elvis) walking on the water with his diet pills. I was hooked.
Who was the artist? I asked the guy at the counter.
Warren Zevon. The album? The Envoy. The EnvoyWhich only recently has been made availble on CD. Thus I was introduced to Warren Zevon.
I became a big fan, there is something about a certian class of artists, usually more know for their songwriting than their singing that has always categorized my favorite singers. People as diverse as Tom T. Hall, David Alan Coe, John Prine, Matraca Berg, Neil Young, Neil Diamond and Warren Zevon have long been my favorites. In some ways Zevon was the most diverse of all of them. One minute you were apt to hear a classical string piece introducing some twangy anthem to "playing that dead band's song...all night long" (the dead band referring to another of my long time favorites Lynyrd Skynrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" the next some hard rocking tune. Zevon in many ways defies definition.
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon in some ways is just as quirky a biography as the singer was in life. When my copy first arrived I was disappointed, because it didn't seem like a biography at all, but rather a collection of interviews, journal entries, reminicences. But like the genius that the book is about, I soon found their was a genius to what Crystal Zevon (Warren's second ex-wife) had put together. Here is the gripping and moving tale of the real Warren Zevon told from every angle, by people who both loved and hated hiim. The details read like a life long confession--mostly of failures, but with glimmers of grace here and there. The stories behind many of the songs co-written by Warren Zevon are here and as this became my lunch time reading over the past month, I found myself going back and listening to the music from the different periods of his life.
One of the most intriquing elements of the bio, that is very minor in the book but is there throughout his life is Zevon's fascination with the Catholic Church. In Spain he tries to convince then wife Crystal that they convert--she's reluctant, so nothing happens. Later when asked by someone what his religion he says, "Catholic." He attends Mass with a woman whom he sleeps with in the same apartment building, another time when troubled in Ireland he finds a Catholic Church and enters during Mass emerging afterwards and writing in his journal of the experience "Peace be with you" which seems to be something that eluded him throughout his life--hence the song title and book title "I"ll sleep when I'm dead." Perhaps the worst part of this flirtation with Catholicism happens when he is diagnosed with terminal cancer and given only three months to live and visits a Catholic priest with a friend only to be told that he does not have time enough to convert (for non-Catholics and Cathoilcs out there--this must be some reference to the RCIA process which normally takes about nine months to complete, but the priest was wrong to say this--but may not have understood the situation).
As a Warren Zevon fan I loved this book. As a Catholic I wished that Warren might have fell into the hands of a saintly priest or Catholic who might have given him the tools to redeem all of the demons that tormented his soul and kept him from committing to anything but death in his life. To paraphrase another author, we all are either living to sleep or sleeping to rise--unfortunately Warren was haunted by death (see the skulls that dominate his album art--complete with dangling cigarette), but somewhere in the midst of it all I think the grace that haunted him might have won out in the end.
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