I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon
by Crystal Zevon
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Book Summary Information
Author: Crystal ZevonEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-05
ISBN: 0060763450
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Ecco
Book Reviews of I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon
Book Review: Poor, Poor Pitiful Me
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Summary of I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon
Told in the words of his musical accomplices, fellow-travelers, friends, and lovers, "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" is an intimate and unusual biography of fabled singer-songwriter Warren Zevon, the musical force behind such dark, witty rock-and-roll classics as "Werewolves of London" and "Roland, the Headless Thompson Gunner." Narrated by Crystal Zevon, Zevon's former (and only) wife, it draws on interviews with Jackson Browne, Tom Petty, Emmylou Harris, Linda Rondstadt, Stevie Nicks, Lindsay Buckingham, the Everly Brothers, and a host of other denizens of Southern California's influential rock scene to tell the story of the original "Excitable Boy": literary hoodlum, OCD sufferer, brilliant songwriter, and rock-and-roll icon.Rock Books
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