When Kevin Coyne was asked to take over the lead singing duties in the Doors by the head of Elektra Records after the death of Jim Morrison. He refused. "I didn't like the leather trousers" was the excuse he gave for not even going to the States to discuss it.
Kevin Coyne always did march to his own beat, in his life and his career. Like a lot of his United Kingdom contemporaries, he learned to love the Blues through American influences and started to play guitar and sing after hearing that music. But instead of following a conventional path of playing in bands and getting gigs in pubs, he was working as a psychiatric nurse and social worker counseling patients with mental illnesses.
It wasn't until 1968, long after his contemporaries, that he and his band Siren were signed to their first deal. But as you can tell by him turning down the Doors job, he was not ready to compromise what he did musically for the sake of success. You could say that it was almost in spite of himself that he became famous.
Unfortunately by the 1980s he stopped being able to cope with the pressures of the music business and developed a serious drinking problem. Following a nervous breakdown, he left the United Kingdom and moved to Germany where he lived until his death in December of 2004 of lung disease.
During his time in Germany he was probably at his most creative, constantly recording, touring, drawing, painting, and writing. Three of his last albums were released on the German Blues label Ruf Records and are still currently available in their catalogue.
Thomas Ruf, owner and founder of the label, commenting about watching Kevin record, said that he was always amazed at how he would come into the studio and be able to "create" a whole album in two days. His song lyrics were all improvised on the spot, and are amazing poems dealing with such subjects as the normally taboo mental health and treatment of mental health patients.
Article comments
1 - Charlene Komar Storey
Warren Zevon's songs are intelligent, yes, but characterizing his work as marked by "constant irony, bitterness and sarcasm" simply doesn't hold up. Yes, there's irony in Zevon's writing. But it's far from constant. There's much more humor than bitterness. And there are plenty of just plain rockers and romantic songs as well. In fact, his range is pretty damn impressive.
Take a look at just a couple of his albums. Going back to the beginning of his popularity, the songs on "Excitable Boy" hardly fit your description. Even "Accidentally Like a Martyr" has only one line that might possibly be called bitter ("the hurt gets worse/and the heart gets harder"). Yes, there are songs that look at things a bit differently, shall we say, but "constant bitterness, irony and sarcasm"? No.
Later CDs? I'll pass over "The Wind" -- notable though it is for a lack of bitterness and a plethora of humor from a dying man -- because of the circumstances of its recording. Put "Life'll Kill Ya" on the player instead. Again, yes, there's irony, but hardly constant. There's some sarcasm, but again, far from constant. Some songs are rueful. More are funny ("Life'll Kill Ya" and "My Shit's Fucked Up") or touching ("Hostage-O," "Ourselves to Know" and "Don't Let Us Get Sick").
It's all too common to try to limit Zevon, but it's like trying to get a multi-sided peg into a round hole.
I understand that on March 27 we'll see re-issues of "Excitable Boy," "Stand in the Fire" and "The Envoy." Give them a listen.