His interest is much less in the well-documented depths of bad behavior that defined Zevon’s early years, and more in his path to the sobriety he achieved in the ’80s and fitfully maintained for the rest of this life. For Kushins, Zevon’s story really picks up where so much of the coverage of him typically tended to leave off. Kushins, author of Nothing’s Bad Luck: The Lives of Warren Zevon. “His persona got the better of him for a while,” says C. He drove away his loved ones, offended and alienated powerful music industry players, and showed little regard for burning bridges with anyone who tried to help him along. Zevon was famous for cultivating chaos and then using it to his advantage when it could serve him as subject matter for his songs, as a hook for journalists, or as a way to burnish his image as the dangerous, excitable boy whose manic live performances and lyrically rich music came to be described as song-noir by his contemporaries. Zevon had already fallen off the wagon hard by the time it was published. When Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner finally caved-in and put him on the magazine’s cover in 1981, it was for a masterly piece, written by critic Paul Nelson, “ The Crackup and Resurrection of Warren Zevon” () that focused on the long road back from addiction. Zevon’s ups and downs with addiction were the focal point of most of the press coverage he received during his short burst of fame in the 70s. Thompson, who once described Zevon as “a dangerous drinker”. Indeed, he was no less of an authority on shotgun living than Hunter S. He’d live like Jim Morrison, Zevon once joked to David Letterman, but he lived a lot longer than Morrison had. Still, Warren Zevon’s intake rose to levels that tended to make people nervous around him. In the hard-driving world of California-based rocks stars in the ’60s and ’70s, substance abuse problems were practically issued alongside your first gold record.
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