Five years. Five years.
people said he was a critical success and a commercial failure. All I know is that he isn't in the rock n roll hall of fame, that Rolling Stone doesn't think any of his albums or songs are among the 500 best, that he didn't win a grammy until after he died, and then for the wrong song,
all I know is that he had two gold ablums, and one platinum, that he probably sold three or four million units when he was alive, that he made a fair amount of money from publishing rights, and that I once bought one of the last available scalped tickets to a concert by having the money ready instead of asking the price. "snooze ya lose" I told the other guy. I was a bigger fan anyway.
he played with country hall of famers and rock and roll hall of famers and pulitzer winners, and people who sold a combined 100 million albums. and most of that was on his first album (Warren Zevon. check it out-Jackson Browne and Carl Wilson and Don Henley and Lindsay Buckingham and Bonnie Raitt and Stevie Nicks and Glenn Frey and Phil Everly and probably others). he played with Springsteen and Neil Young and R.E.M and Paul Muldoon and David Letterman and Tom Petty and Dylan and Hunter S Thompson and Chick Corea and George Clinton and on and on on others. Stephen Stills tried to recruit him for Buffalo Springfield. he toured with the Everlys for years.
the musicians knew. the writers knew. the Z-heads knew. he played with oscar winners and emmy winners and grammy winners and tony winners and pulitzer prize winners and ran lyrics past nobel prize winners
the critics praised some of his early work and then he fell of the face of the earth for them.
I lived in a small house in college with the dominant stereo and the people who weren't fans at the start were fans at the end. and one of those guys, when he knew I was down and out, bought me a ticket for Zevon and wouldn't take any money, not that I had any, because he owed me. he wouldn't have been going to the show if not for me.
Some critical success. Some commercial failure.
So, we did our job. It was the critics who fucked up
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Warren Zevon
the masterpiece returns from Rhino Records, remastered with bonus tracks (presumably only on the cd and not on the 180 gram vinyl). It's too much to hope for that the 180 gram version has those, but in the old desert island discs game, I alwasy took 1) only ten discs: a double album was two; and 2) two copies of this one, cause you might scratch the first.
I used to have 3 but I gave one away to a kid who had none.
Post a Comment