#Warren zevon raspberry beret youtube update

Time Magazine heralded the album, which Browne produced, as one of the best records of the 1970’s. Their relationship led to Zevon’s return from Europe and, ultimately, in 1976, the release of “Warren Zevon,” a driven, confessional collection of songs that perfectly captured the hedonistic spirit of life in the late 1970’s. The singer Jackson Browne, a friend of Zevon since 1968, was busy in America getting Zevon’s songs noticed and heard by recording industry executives. He left the United States about 1974, living the vagabond life in Spain with his second wife, and singing songs in bars. He reportedly visited Aspen, Colo., staying long enough and making enough of an impression to be named the honorary coroner of Pitkin County - an honor bestowed in the bar of the Hotel Jerome, haunt of Gonzo writer Hunter S. When the Everly Brothers quit touring, he traveled in the West, singing in clubs in northern California and elsewhere. Zevon spent two years working with the Everly Brothers, touring with the duo as pianist and bandleader. He wrote songs for other groups, and also worked in the advertising world, writing jingles for Chevrolet and Boone’s Farm wines.Īn itinerant phase followed. His debut album, “Wanted Dead or Alive” (1969) was poorly received, but one song, “She Quit Me,” was featured in the Oscar-winning 1969 film “Midnight Cowboy.”

The folk duo, and the marriage, later broke up. The group made its album debut on the White Whale label, which was also home to Nino Tempo and April Stevens, and The Turtles, who recorded a Zevon song, “Like the Seasons,” in 1967. He started his musical career in 1966, as half of lyme and cybelle, a folk duo he formed with Violet Santangelo.

High school was uneventful, so much so that Zevon dropped out. He received formal training in classical piano, and in junior high school struck up acquaintances with Robert Craft, the veteran conductor and biographer, and the legendary Russian pianist Igor Stravinsky, who lived near Hollywood. He moved to Arizona and Los Angeles as a child with his family. 24, 1947 in Chicago, son of a Russian Jewish immigrant and a Scots-Welsh Mormon. his hair was perfect.”īut the pain of loss and the longing for human connection were evident in other songs that revealed a depth and complexity that contrasted with more offbeat compositions. Or they could be imaginary creations: a headless mercenary loose in Africa an excitable soul so enamored of pot roast he rubs it all over his chest or “a werewolf drinking a piòa colada at Trader Vic’s. They could be real-life cartoons like Bill Lee, the self-styled former Boston Red Sox pitcher. Zevon also betrayed a footloose imagination, his songs painted pictures of characters - characters in every sense of the word. I like to think I have some goodhearted romantic impulses now and then, but for the most part I write a different kind of song.”

We live in a culture where violence is all around us and I found myself writing more songs about violence than romantic subjects. “Some of them are based on my upbringing and some are based on my reading habits. “Hemingway said all good stories ended in death, and I write songs about death and violence for some reason,” he told VH1 in an interview this year.

#Warren zevon raspberry beret youtube update

Like many other successful rock acts, Zevon eventually adopted a logo: a skull adorned in sunglasses with a cigarette dangling from its mouth - a hipster update of an 1885 painting by Vincent van Gogh. Excess and dissolution were frequent topics in his lyrics songs from “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead,” a rousing anthem to the party life (from his breakthrough 1976 album) to “Werewolves of London,” a tongue-in-cheek horror story set to a jaunty melody (on “Excitable Boy,” 1978) revealed a fascination with the macabre.