Though his later work was spotty at best, his two 1970s albums – 1976’s self-titled effort and 1978’s Excitable Boy – have aged remarkably well and include all the hallmarks that make Zevon’s music still so intriguing. An artist who straddled the line between cult favorite and household name, the popular yet somewhat stereotypical image of Zevon that still persists to this day is that of an unhinged artist with a strong nihilistic streak and hardass persona, albeit with a mordant sense of humor writing songs about cattle dying of brucellosis and giving albums thinly veiled titles like My Ride’s Here will have that effect on your image. Now five years removed from his death, Zevon’s place as one of music’s more innovative and uncompromising artists is secure. A high profile VH1 documentary chronicled his battle against cancer as well as the making of final album The Wind, including cameos from top tier musicians like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Emmylou Harris and, um, Billy Bob Thornton various critics who had written Zevon off years ago weaseled up to the bar to sing his praises one more time Bob Dylan even “covered” “Mutineer,” “Boom Boom Mancini” and “Lawyers, Guns and Money” as standard entries in his concert setlists throughout 2003. For a brief period, it looked like Zevon was finally going to be afforded the mainstream attention he briefly flirted with early in his career. It’s perhaps morbidly appropriate that it took the news of Warren Zevon’s cancer diagnosis in 2002 to re-introduce the musician to the general music public.
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