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jb wrote:
Is he still alive?

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Lazy Bones wrote:


Ailing Zevon's album brings artists together in
emotional tribute

By Geoff Boucher
Los Angeles Times
Originally published August 19, 2003

Warren Zevon is dying, and he wants to make a record."

It was a jolting and macabre message to be sure, and that only propelled
it faster through the wiring of famous friends, managers, agents and labels
that links rock musicians to one another.

The ones who know Zevon best probably allowed themselves a sad
smile. This was exactly the sort of thing you would expect from the
singer-songwriter, whose grim and funny music always seemed like a
margarita stand in a mausoleum - sure, the songs all seemed to say, have
some fun, just don't forget where this big party is going to end.

So when the call went out, many answered: Bruce Springsteen, Jackson
Browne, Don Henley, Tom Petty, Emmylou Harris, Ry Cooder and many
others, some contributing from afar, others coming to see the stricken
Zevon, who had gone public with the diagnosis of his terminal cancer.

Zevon is beloved by many of his fellow artists (for his talent, to be sure,
but also in equal measure for his uncompromising career path and wry
charm) and the result of their collective efforts, The Wind, is due Aug. 26
and has the feel of a tribute done while it still matters -- when the honoree
is still here.

The context of the album's recording, as well as the presence of VH1
cameras for a documentary, makes it a strange hybrid between a tribute
album and an Irish wake (although a mellow wake, especially considering
Zevon was known in the 1970s and part of the 1980s for hellacious
excesses).

For Browne, the project was "a task, an enjoyable task that you stepped
into in hopes of, for a minute, finding some joy and dealing with grief."
Browne and Zevon have been close friends for decades, and Browne
produced the 1976 album Warren Zevon, which put its title troubadour
on the music map.

Since then, Browne has marveled at Zevon's songbook (with
"Accidentally Like a Martyr," "Lawyers, Guns & Money," "Excitable
Boy" and "Carmelita" among the most potent songs). "It's such a difficult
place he is in," Browne said, "and he is approaching it as best he can in his
trademark style of honesty and artistic courage."

Zevon has been bedridden since January. The album was assembled late
last year, much of the work done in Zevon's home studio. "He had a
choice how to proceed with his life at this point," says Danny Goldberg,
chief of Artemis Records, Zevon's label. "It speaks of him as an artist that
he wanted to make art."

Standing closest to Zevon on The Wind is Jorge Calderon, his longtime
friend and collaborator. He produced the album, played or sang on all 11
tracks, co-wrote seven of them, and often laid down dummy lead vocals
on songs when Zevon was too ill to show up. For him, Springsteen's visit
was especially memorable.

"I've never heard Bruce play like that in my life," Calderon said. "What he
brought emotionally into the room, the way he handled himself and gave of
himself - well, to me he is a national treasure." Calderon laughed and
added that Zevon, after Springsteen played, shook his head and said, "So
you are him."

Zevon has made a habit of deflating the melodrama with his one-liners.
Another example: After Zevon heard one of his true idols, Bob Dylan,
sprinkle his Los Angeles concerts with Zevon songs, the dying man
cracked a smile. "Maybe this is worth it," he told Calderon.

Zevon included a Dylan song on The Wind, much to the initial dismay of
Calderon, who didn't object to the songwriter but to the song. "Knockin'
on Heaven's Door" was hardly screaming out for reinterpretation, and he
worried that it might be a bit clumsy in the emotional setting of the
moment. "But I was wrong. When I heard him sing it, well, I knew I was
wrong. His vocal takes it to a place I was not expecting."

The most compelling piece on The Wind is the final track, "Keep Me in
Your Heart," a Dylan-esque song that bids farewell with lines such as
"Shadows are falling and I'm running out of breath/ Keep me in your heart
for a while" and "I'm tied to you like the buttons on your blouse/ Keep me
in your heart for a while."

Drummer Jim Keltner said he was overwhelmed with emotion as he
played the final version. The song had to be assembled in layers, and
Zevon, too ill to visit the studio, wasn't there the day the track was
finished. "To be playing that song, to know the words and not have him
there to sing it, well, it really hit me," Keltner said. "I was playing through
tears."

Calderon remembered: "I kept thinking in helping with the songwriting that
I had to put myself in the place of my dying friend."

With Zevon himself too ill for interviews, some of the artists involved
agreed to speak to promote the cause of the album.

"It's hard to know what to say with something like this," said a hushed
Billy Bob Thornton. The actor and singer sang backup on "Knockin' on
Heaven's Door" and another track. "Of all the things I've done in my
professional life, all the things I will do, being part of this will be one of the
things I know I'll remember the most."

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jb wrote:
I find cancer even worse b/c there is no hope and it is a slow, agonizing death. Unfortunately, the moral leaders of our country won't even allow proper pain medication to be administred to those dying and or the right to die on ones on terms...Thus, millions suffer horrible pain and prolonged illness and family devastation

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