C.M. Kushins' Nothing's Bad Luck: The Lives of Warren Zevon opens with Zevon waking up in the middle of the night, confused and scared. The narrative quickly spirals into madness from there. Soon Warren is holding a Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum, aiming it at an approaching vehicle. When Zevon finally makes out the driver's face, he realizes it's himself. Then he wakes up again.
The preceding paragraph contains a horror movie trope and is steeped in noir. It's also strange, pregnant with the promise of violence, and feels dangerous. Those elements pop up time and again in Nothing's Bad Luck, a superb biography of mysterious and brilliant singer/songwriter Warren William Zevon.
Zevon was born in Chicago in 1947. His mother, a Mormon, soon divorced his father, a bookie, gambler, and boozer who was a small-time mobster and would be in and out of Zevon's life. After a rough childhood that included ever-changing household situations and constant moving from place to place, Zevon, a "pockmarked and inherently shy" teenager found refuge in music. He "used both his musical skills and sarcasm as tools to win friends and attention from girls."
His life-long love affair with music started at an early age with classical music and then moved on to rock and roll. It would be the one constant in his life. By the time Zevon was 20, he was heavily into songwriting and in 1976 released his first record, Warren Zevon, which received critical acclaim. For the rest of his career, Zevon would battle alcoholism, drugs, and internal turmoil while building a career that made him a rock star. Finally, he entered rehab in 1984. Sobering up produced the album Sentimental Hygiene, released in 1987.
Read Full Article »
