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Warren Zevon

Warren Zevon

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Warren Zevon: Warren Zevon (Ayslum) ****

Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, 26 June 1976

THIS ALBUM is a surprise. With a recent spate of LA flavoured albums released simultaneously I was suffering from a bad case of West Coast ...

Crystal Zevon's Story: Warren from A to Z

Interview by Fred Schruers, Los Angeles Times, 4 May 2007

Through interviews and diaries, the musician's ex-wife chronicles the hedonistic life of one of the genre's bad boys. ...

Audio interviews

Warren Zevon (1995)

Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, Summer 1995

Zevon talks about recording new album Mutineer using modern technology; his early musical activities including being musical director for the Everly Brothers; his various record labels; his songwriting viewpoint, and not being a cynic; his drink and drugs use, and detoxing; being happy with his career; the success of ‘Werewolves of London’; meeting Stravinsky; novelists he likes; his fascination with the dark side of society; albums like Transverse City and Mr Bad Example; classical and other modern serious music; the Oklahoma bombing; writing with Carl Hiaasen, and writing music for television.

File format: mp3; file size: 103mb, interview length: 1h 47' 16" sound quality: ****

Warren Zevon (2000)

Interview by Adam Sweeting, Rock's Backpages audio, May 2000

Taking tea in Soho's brand-new Sanderson Hotel, the great singer-songwriter talks about... well, almost everything: getting older; being perceived as a "dark" moralist; not being commercial; his good pal Jackson Browne; David Geffen; addiction, sobriety and therapy; his parents; plus songwriting and his diffidence in talking about it.

File format: mp3; total file size: 43.6mb, interview length: 45' 22" sound quality: ***

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Warren Zevon: Warren Zevon (Asylum)

Review by Bud Scoppa, Phonograph Record, June 1976

THEY'RE ALL HERE – various Eagles, an Everly Brother, Buckingham/Nicks, Bonnie Raitt, Carl Wilson, David Lindley, J.D. Souther, and Jackson Browne himself, acting as producer ...

Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon: Apollo, Glasgow

Live Review by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, 11 December 1976

Jackson: after the deluge ...

We are all on tour: Are you prepared for The Pretender — Jackson Browne?

Special Feature by Paul Nelson, Rolling Stone, 16 December 1976

HOMBRE — I loved that movie. I dig Paul Newman. I love the way he smashed that shot glass into that guy's face. Richard Boone ...

Warren Zevon: Palace Theatre, Manchester

Live Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, 18 December 1976

LOOKING like a university student with a major in English Lit, Warren Zevon walked onstage at the Manchester Palace Theatre, greeted warmly by an audience ...

Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon: New Victoria Theatre, London

Live Review by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 25 December 1976

WARREN ZEVON hits the stage an hour and five minutes late. This is not without significance. ...

Warren Zevon: Looking For Links In L.A.

Profile and Interview by David Hancock, National RockStar, 25 December 1976

Warren Zevon explains patiently to David Hancock ...

Warren Zevon: Excitable Boy (Asylum)

Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, 18 February 1978

UNDOUBTEDLY, Excitable Boy is one of the finest albums to emerge since Warren Zevon's first album surfaced over a year ago. It transcends California and ...

Warren Zevon: Rained out of his home

Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 3 March 1978

THIS WINTER has done more than dump masses of snow on the East. It's also made a lie out of Albert Hammond's song 'It Never ...

Warren Zevon on the Loose in Los Angeles

Profile and Interview by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 9 March 1978

IN THE OPENING LINES of the title song from Warren Zevon's new album, Excitable Boy, the title character smears Sunday pot roast all over his ...

Warren Zevon: Excitable Boy (Asylum 6E-118)

Review by Geoffrey Himes, Unicorn Times, April 1978

The Excitable Warren Zevon: Accidently Like a Rock Star ...

Costello, Zevon dazzle beantown

Live Review by Jim Sullivan, Bangor Daily News, 15 May 1978

LAST WEEK, two of rock's most exciting new artists, Elvis Costello and Warren Zevon, played Boston concerts on consecutive nights. Both shows were hotly anticipated ...

Warren Zevon: Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School (Asylum) and Wanted Dead Or Alive (Pickwick)

Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 15 March 1980

IF YOU'VE been scanning this paper long enough you'll know that Warren Zevon's last album, Excitable Boy, got a snazzola review in same. That was ...

Warren Zevon: How L.A.'s 'Excitable Boy' Won the Battle with the Bottle

Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 10 April 1980

"L.A. rock's newest darling desperado, Warren Zevon, likes to start his day with a screwdriver, then clear his head with coffee and a side of ...

Warren Zevon: Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School (Asylum)

Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, May 1980

IT'S EASY to see why the music of Warren Zevon — make that the idea of the music of Warren Zevon — has the more ...

Backbeat: Warren Zevon

Interview by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, July 1980

Don't the sun look angry through the trees Don't the trees look like crucified thieves Don't you feel like desperados under the eaves ...

Warren Zevon: Life In The Mental Combat Zone

Interview by Toby Goldstein, Creem, August 1980

"THIS IS A .44 magnum revolver...do I have five or six bullets left...Are you feelin' lucky tonight, PUNK?" And then the hapless caller to Warren ...

Warren Zevon: Hollywood's Prince of Darkness

Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 28 February 1981

I SHOULD'VE known better with an excitable boy like him. "You misjudge my sense of humour," said Warren Zevon, carefully disarming me of my .44 ...

Warren Zevon: How He Saved Himself from a Coward's Death

Special Feature by Paul Nelson, Rolling Stone, 19 March 1981

  ALCOHOLISM. THAT'S what this story's supposed to be about. How Warren Zevon, after some heartwarming and colorful misadventures, licked the Big A and lived happily ...

Warren Zevon: The Envoy

Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 7 August 1982

ASYLUM RECORDS really should get rid of Warren Zevon; he's so good he shows up just how dire everybody else on the label really is. ...

Warren Zevon: The Envoy (Asylum)

Review by Craig Zeller, Creem, November 1982

THE ZEVE is one of our most critically overrated troubled troubadours. 'Member those in-print cartwheel raves his debut garnered? Ever listen to the damn thing? ...

Warren Zevon: The Ritz, New York NYC

Live Review by Karen Schlosberg, Trouser Press, February 1983

WARREN ZEVON is arguably the most compelling and exciting member of the LA singer/songwriter set. His latest album, The Envoy, is his most movingly powerful ...

T Bone Burnett: Bottom Line, New York NY

Live Review by Fred Schruers, Musician, February 1984

America as Fallen Starlet ...

Warren Zevon: Rugged Individualism

Interview by Mark Cooper, Q, July 1987

The return of Warren Zevon (with a little help from Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Don Henley, George Clinton, REM...) ...

Warren Zevon

Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, October 1987

WARREN ZEVON has perfected the art of squirming without perceptible movement. Crumpled on a couch in a windowless record company boxroom, the man with the ...

Warren Zevon: Sentimental Hygiene

Review by Bud Scoppa, Creem, October 1987

AS A HARD-BOILED confessional work, Sentimental Hygiene (Zevon's seventh album and his first in five years) has less in common with current rock than it ...

Warren Zevon: Wiltern Theatre, Los Angeles CA

Live Review by Don Waller, Los Angeles Times, 23 November 1987

Zevon: Mean and Black ...

Warren Zevon: The low-key life of a rock star

Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 4 November 1989

LOS ANGELES — These days, it seems every movie and rock star has a charity to tout or a special cause to promote. Singer-songwriter Warren ...

Warren Zevon: Transverse City (Virgin America LP/Cassette/CD)

Review by Edwin Pouncey, New Musical Express, 27 January 1990

WARREN ZEVON is one hell of an American songwriter with a brilliant — albeit sometimes cynical — eye zoomed in on the way both his ...

Warren Zevon: Your Guide Through Transverse City

Profile and Interview by Steven P. Wheeler, Happening, February 1990

ROCK & ROLL'S Master Of Disaster Warren Zevon, entering his fourth decade in the music business, has released the most impressive album of his roller ...

Warren Zevon In Hard Times

Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 13 December 1990

FOR WARREN Zevon, the past year has not been the best of times. It has been rough and it has been weird. To start with, ...

Warren Zevon: Tales from the Dark Side

Profile and Interview by Graham Reid, The New Zealand Herald, September 1992

THE VARIOUS ENCYCLOPAEDIAS of rock don't do justice to Warren Zevon. He got a snippy microscopic reference in the 1991 New Illustrated Rock Handbook ("well-established ...

Warren Zevon Flinches at Life Without Humor

Report and Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 1993

LAST SUMMER, as he was in the early stages of playing concerts being taped for a live album, Warren Zevon decided the album would be ...

Flinching Time: Warren Zevon and the Vast Indifference of Heaven

Report and Interview by Gerrie Lim, BigO, 1 May 1993

SPRINGTIME BLOWS AN idiot wind here in tinseltown, a change of seasons ridden with uncertainly as hay fever breaks out, pet animals act skittish, and ...

Warren Zevon: The Mutineer And His Bounty

Interview by Gerrie Lim, BigO, Spring 1993

LIKE ALL GREAT writers, Warren Zevon likes to quote his own favourite great writers. Graham Greene, for instance, who called his own belief in Christianity ...

Warren Zevon's Mutiny

Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, August 1995

If anyone has done it his way, it is "that gonzo party guy" Warren Zevon. And over the years such luminaries as Dylan, Neil Young ...

Warren Zevon: Left Jabs and Roundhouse Rights

Interview by Steve Roeser, Goldmine, 18 August 1995

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE a romantic. These might be the words of wisdom for those who have ever counted themselves fans of singer/songwriter Warren Zevon, especially the ...

Warren Zevon: Pictures From Life's Other Side

Interview by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 4 February 2000

'Death doesn't scare me. I have the impression that life is the lobby and death is the apartment – maybe it's OK' ...

What ever happened to rock critic Paul Nelson? An Interview

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, March 2000

ROCK WRITING WAS not the first choice of Paul Nelson. A pioneer of rock criticism, and one of its most talented practitioners, Nelson (who cites ...

Warren Zevon: Live

Live Review by Nick Hasted, Uncut, August 2000

THE GREATEST night of Warren Zevon's performing life was in the hometown of the boxer, Buster Douglas, after Douglas had become the first man to ...

Warren Zevon: Life'll Kill Ya

Review by Ed Doheny, Rock's Backpages, December 2000

WHEN IT COMES to matters Californian, Warren is even more jaundiced than Steely Dan: if the Becker/Fagen take on El Lay was Elmore Leonard meets ...

Warren Zevon: A Literary Answer to Lyricist's Block

Report and Interview by Marc Weingarten, Los Angeles Times, 16 May 2002

Musician/bookworm Warren Zevon recruits famous authors for lyrics on a new album. ...

Warren Zevon: Life'll Kill Ya

Retrospective and Interview by Nick Hasted, Uncut, September 2002

PITTSBURGH, 1989: WEREWOLF IN THE MALL "I'd read things I didn't know I'd done/It sounded like a lot of fun..." (Warren Zevon, 'Trouble Waiting to Happen') ...

The French Inhaler Hastens Down The Wind: Warren Zevon Learns To Let Go

Essay by Holly Gleason, Rock's Backpages, October 2002

THERE'S THAT THING called friend-of-a-friend, where you're "in" even before you know about the other person. And so it was with Warren Zevon, produced by ...

Genius: The Best of Warren Zevon

Sleeve notes by Will Self, Rhino Records, Fall 2002

WHAT I DO is this; I leave the city and go about 50 miles away to a town in the county of Wiltshire called Swindon. ...

Warren Zevon: Review of Genius – The Best Of Warren Zevon

Review by Adam Sweeting, Uncut, January 2003

FATE DECIDED IT should be the sound of The Eagles which travelled around the world and defined the popular clichés of 1970s California, but Warren ...

Parting Shot: The L.A. Purveyor of rock noir Makes His Last Stand

Comment by Michael Goldberg, Neumu, September 2003

I FELT LIKE crying as I watched VH1's special on Warren Zevon. How sad. Zevon, as you likely know, died on Sunday, Sept. 8; he's ...

Warren Zevon: The Wind

Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 12 September 2003

Warren Zevon's final, valedictory album provides ultimate proof that those of us who believed him to be one of the greatest songwriters of his generation ...

Warren Zevon: The Wind

Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, November 2003

Thirteenth and final studio album. Guest appearances by an impressive list of pals. ...

Various Artists: Enjoy Every Sandwich - The Songs Of Warren Zevon

Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, November 2004

LONG BEFORE his death last year from inoperable lung cancer, Warren Zevon knew his time was almost up. Undeterred, he carried on making records bulging ...

Various Artists: Enjoy Every Sandwich – The Songs of Warren Zevon

Review by Bud Scoppa, Tracks, December 2004

LIKE THE hard-boiled American novelists he so admired, Warren Zevon was a wiseass with an oversized heart and a gift for locating big truths in ...

Keep Him In Your Heart: Swan Songs of the Late Great Warren Zevon

Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, eMusic.com, July 2007

LIFE'LL KILL YA, Warren Zevon sang in one of his most grimly humorous songs - and it did. The grotesque multiplication of cells we know ...

Warren Zevon: The Wind

Review by Adam Sweeting, Uncut, December 2007

Affecting all-star valediction from an American original. ...

Warren Zevon: Warren Zevon

Sleeve notes by Bob Mehr, Rhino Records, 2008

THIS STORY BEGINS like one of Warren Zevon's own songs – with a few pleading lines scribbled on a postcard sent to some far-off locale. ...

School of Rock Study Guide: Singer-Songwriters

Guide by Barney Hoskyns, iTunes, October 2008

"WHERE DO YOU have left to go but in?" It was a question posed by Joni Mitchell, the brilliant Canadian blonde who specialized in intensely ...

Warren Zevon: Warren Zevon

Review by Andrew Mueller, Uncut, January 2009

His first classic, midwifed by L.A.'s rock royalty, plus a disc of extras. ...

Keep Him In Your Heart For a While: Remembering Warren Zevon

Retrospective by Jim Sullivan, Rock's Backpages, September 2013

IT WAS THE FALL of 1989 and I was having lunch with Warren Zevon at Musso & Frank's, the famous Old Hollywood restaurant where he ...

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