The Wind - Zevon, Warren (CD 2003)

Today is August 27 and even in this town of 75,000 or so in Central Montana, I had one heck of a hard time finding this CD when it was released yesterday. It was sold out everywhere I had called or visited, except for one place, where I got the last copy around 4 PM! I'd already listened to the whole album a few days ago at VH1 on-line, but that link is now gone, I see. In its place are small snippets of each song, which does no justice to the entire album or to most of the songs.

The album is a real testament of the love this man has for a lot of people in his life and to his ability to press on, getting the project done, even as ill as he was, saying goodbye in the way he best knew how. Starting with the day he got the terminal diagnosis he wrote the first of nine songs he would write or co-write for this album; one he'd written previously and the other was a Dylan song. Most of the lyrics do deal with death, which has always been a recurring theme on Zevon's albums. In a few of the tracks that omnipresent message is sometimes not readily heard if you are not following the lyric, which is easier to do on some of the more rocking tracks.

Here are just some of the people that contributed: Emmylou Harris, Dwight Yoakam, Tom Petty, Ry Cooder, T-Bobe Burnett, Joe Walsh, Don Henley and Timothy B. Schmit (from the Eagles), Tommy Shaw, John Waite, Billy Bob Thornton, Jackson Browne (who once produced Zevon), Bruce Springsteen, his son Jordan Zevon, and his long-time producer, collaborator, and friend, Jorge Calderon.

If you buy the album, I'd say hop right to track 9 and listen to him sing Please Stay, with Emmylou Harris. About mid-way through the song Gil Benral plays some very beautiful sax solos that would be good in most any song, but they fit wonderfully with this song. Then go to track 5, Not Good Enough For Her, a song he had written previously about an old love. Timothy Schmidt and Don Henley of the Eagles do harmony on it as good as I have ever heard. It is a beautiful song, start to end.

The 6th track, Prison Grove, has a very haunting chorus - a chant done by a group of six, including many of the big-name stars that added to other parts of the album. In it I hear influences from Native American music, deep south sharecropper music, and a chain-gang sound. It very much sounds like a death march, which is what the song is about, an inmate being lead from his cell to where he will be put to death. Zevon's great songwriting really stands out in this song. About the execution he writes,

Knick Knack Paddy Wack
They say you'll hear your own bones crack
When they bend you back to bible black
Then you'll find your love

Some folks have to die too hard
Some folks have to cry too hard.

Track 11, Keep Me In Your Heart, is a beautiful tribute to his girlfriend. Jim Keltner played drums on six tracks. He said when Zevon was too sick to record from December to April they finished the music, just waiting for Zevon to be well enough to add vocals. Keltner said that when he played drums for this song that he had tears streaming down his face the whole time he was playing, knowing the lyric and what it meant to Zevon. Zevon completed his final vocals at home, in April of this year.

Zevon's cover of Dylan's Knockin' on Heaven's Door, the third track, is terrific. Calderon didn't want him to record the song, but once he heard it, he loved it. It sounds quite different from Dylan's original. Zevon uses his dry humor in some vocals under the chorus, such as "Knock, knock, open up, it's me St. Pete" or something similar. Those words weren't listed in the lyrics and are appear under the chorus, so they are a bit hard to hear.

Springsteen added vocals and really let the guitar rip on track 2, Disorder in the House. It is one of the more rocking songs on the album. If you saw the VH1 documentary, you would have seen Zevon totally drawn out on morphine for his pain, trying to get the vocals down for the song. He was about falling asleep in the process, had very slurred speech and no sense of rhythm. Calederon suggests Zevon might be "fresh" in the morning, to call it quits for the night. Zevon tells him, "I am dying, there is no fresh for me; it is not in my vocabulary," which really makes it more of a marvel that this project got done. And it shows his dry wit again. They try it again the next day and end up with a great song.

There is little mention of his health at this point anywhere. I read in one link that he has been bed-ridden since January. His agent states he was at the hospital when his daughter delivered his first grandchildren twin boys, in April. He appeared in a taped segment, not dated, at the end of the VH1 show looking REALLY GOOD. He said he'd outlived his three months long ago (a year now) and that he wasn't a hypochondriac, that he really did receive the grim news of having three months to live, in August 2002. I am not sure what his health status is, but he was able to get a few things done so that he can leave this world in peace, going out on a high note, leaving us perhaps his best work yet. Like many others, I am going to hate to see Warren go, but it looks like he took care of things and has been able to see a few things he never thought he would: another Thanksgiving and Christmas, his 56th birthday, and the birth of his grandsons. He has left a legacy with this album!

While trying to find The Wind Tuesday, very few people that assisted me even knew who Warren Zevon is. If I mentioned Werewolves of London some said they'd heard of that. Some people learned about it because it was such a hot seller. A couple music stores featured the album, while Wal-Mart didn't have it yesterday and still doesn't today, oddly enough. It is too bad more people don't know of Zevon and this project of love. They are going to miss out on a chance to hear a very well done CD, one that might become a classic for the ages once it has been around and more people get "Wind" of it. Enjoy it when you get it! This is a must-have album for Warren Zevon's "employers," as he calls them and for anyone wanting to hear a very well done album filled with songs of love and about leaving this life.

Stacey.