![]() The Wind won two Grammys, with the album itself receiving the award for Best Contemporary Folk Album, while ‘Disorder in the House’, Zevon’s duet with Bruce Springsteen, was awarded Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocal. He’s in fine vocal form on this track, and the lyrical content is heartbreakingly beautiful. ![]() Then there’s the closer ‘Keep Me In Your Heart’. Not since his first self-titled record were the twists and turns of Warren’s elusive character better displayed side by side than on The Wind, which moves from the tender ‘Please Stay’ to the bluesy raunch of ‘Rub Me Raw’. Still, he never lost his real gifts, which were contradictory: a passion for rousing the populace from their ordinary lives, and a talent for digging deep into the vagaries of the human heart. There’s an old saying that “life is what happens while you’re making other plans”, and life, in the form of drugs, alcohol and the road were what happened to Warren. Warren often tried to make himself and us forget that he had once nourished symphonic ambitions. He was a teenage prodigy who had received both instruction and friendship from Igor Stravinsky. You may not be aware what an exceptional pianist and composer the classically-trained Warren was. He played everything for all it was worth. Yes, and while it’s bitterly ironic and fitting that he chose this song to offer up in his final work, Warren’s vocal demands at the end of this track “open up, open up, open up” demonstrate something only he would do. Speaking of which, Warren’s cover of the Dylan classic ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’ is alone worth the price of admission to this album – and while Warren was not noted for doing covers (he simply wrote too many great songs of his own) this track demonstrates he was a splendid interpreter of others’ material. ‘Dirty Life and Times’ and ‘The Rest of The Night’ echo some of his early tracks such as ‘I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead’, and ‘Excitable Boy’, while providing the disquieting knowledge that he wouldn’t be around much longer. And while Warren’s voice was considerably diminished by his rapidly deteriorating health, the intent, the vigour and his indomitable spirit shine throughout the record. It’s more than a stellar assembly: Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Dwight Yoakam, Ry Cooder, David Lindley, Joe Walsh, Don Henley, and Jim Keltner appear, providing exceptional accompaniment to new material. Warren rounded up his finest friends to help him out on The Wind. In the meantime we can remember what we had and what we lost with Warren’s passing. It won’t be nearly as good as the originals of The Wind or Excitable Boy or Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School but it will be regarded as a major musical event. Somewhere, sometime, some young kid is going to discover the Warren Zevon catalogue and make his or her name with a tribute album. ![]() One thing is for sure: these songs are gonna last a long time. The record had been released a scant two weeks previously. ![]() Others, well, they’ll leave you gasping with envy and astonishment (‘Prison Grove’) at the sheer force of his musical inventiveness and insight. Some of his stuff will break your heart (‘She’s Too Good For Me’) and make you wonder why he never really broke into the big time. Brilliant, witty, infused with rock and roll to the core, coming up with killer lines unequalled by anyone in the lyric writing game: such is the stuff of The Wind, which was his last release, recorded short months before he died of mesothelioma. Walking in the valley of the shadow of death and pale as a ghost, Warren feared no evil, as he delivered up “another bad one”.ĭependable to the end was Warren Zevon. His final album, The Wind was a triumph of imagination over impending disaster. This year will mark the 16th anniversary of the death of Warren Zevon.
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