Fifteen years ago Warren Zevon was the most daring and brilliant of a crop of talented west coast singer-songwriters that included Jackson Browne and the Eagles, among others. The Zevon of those years combined a macabre, surreal comic sense (“Werewolves of London,” “Excitable Boy”) with a penchant for tender sentimentality (“Hasten Down the Wind,” “Accidentally Like a Martyr”). Borne along by the rising tide of easy rockers, and specifically by the gracious patronage of Browne and Linda Ronstadt, the Chicago-born Zevon was a rising young star, a critic’s darling, and a miserable alcoholic. True to his Russian roots, Zevon picked vodka as his poison–screwdrivers with breakfast, Stoli and coffee as a pick-me-up, straight fuel in the afternoons.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
It’s impossible to listen to Zevon without thinking of his troubled past. But it’s also impossible to listen to him without thinking how far he has come. The Envoy, released in 1982, was his first “sober” studio album, an attempt to prove that he could dry up without his talent following suit, and it proved that in spades. The title track’s understanding of the moral relativity of international politics was chilling, the stark headbanger poetry of “Ain’t That Pretty at All” hilarious. After The Envoy, Zevon took a five-year hiatus to reassemble his private life and renegotiate rock stardom. When he reappeared in 1987, it was with a masterpiece–the terse and unrelenting Sentimental Hygiene, recorded with a Stipe-less R.E.M. plus a host of special guests. Since then Zevon has been offering his scarred vocals and sharp insights at a steady every-other-year clip with 1989’s Transverse City and last year’s Mr. Bad Example. In early June he graced Chicago with a one-man show at the Park West, part of a tour from which he will mine a live album. With a stage set rife with instrumental possibilities–an acoustic piano stage right, a synth console stage left, a full assortment of guitars waiting in the wings–Zevon walked on in jeans and a T-shirt, long hair slicked back and pulled tight in a ponytail, and proceeded to guide his grizzled larynx down memory lane.
Zevon may have felt the unevenness and compensated consciously, or he may have merely settled into his own rhythm as a matter of course. Whatever the case, the short intermission that followed the endless “Roland” seemed to clear the debris. An extended guitar set found a lovely, fluid “Searching for a Heart” holding the door open for “Poor Poor Pitiful Me,” which in turn stepped aside for the anthemic roar of “Boom Boom Mancini.” The glove-means-never-having-to-say-you’re-sorry tribute to the great Ohio lightweight may not be the greatest requiem for a palooka, not with Dylan’s “Hurricane” lurking around the ring, but it’s a miraculous creation nonetheless, a hulking riff kept in line by razor-sharp lyrics. The six-string barrage peaked with “Detox Mansion,” Zevon’s wry personal ode to the subtext of hypocrisy in the celebrity cleanup game:
Michael Jackson in Disneyland. Don’t have to share it with nobody else. Close the door, Goofy, take my hand, And lead me through the World of Self. Has misanthropy ever been so endearing?
