Accidentally Like a Martyr - The Book

While the back cover of Accidentally Like a Martyr: The Tortured Art of Warren Zevon only promises "twelve essays on seminal Zevon songs and albums," music journalist James Campion delivers a baker's dozen, and in doing so manages to tell the late singer/songwriter's often sad, sometimes heroic story. Campion has written a book that only a Warren Zevon fan could write. Who but a fan would devote fourteen pages to "Studebaker," a song that was never recorded to Zevon's own satisfaction and therefore doesn't appear on any of his official albums? Campion's challenge is to make such minutiae compelling enough that readers unfamiliar with Zevon and his unique and impressive musical canon want to come along for the ride. For the most part, he succeeds.

The book really hits its stride with the final four essays: about the songs "Searching for a Heart" (expressing Zevon's undying capacity for love); "The Indifference of Heaven" (whose protagonist, like Paul Muni's character in I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, finally crosses the line from desperation to criminality); "My Ride's Here" (Zevon's most perfect song--among his many--about death; and the album The Wind (detailing what went into its recording and completion before the songwriter's death on September 7, 2003).

If the book accomplishes nothing else (and it does), it gives due credit to musician Jorge Calderón for how important he was to Zevon's songwriting process. The information Campion gleaned from his interviews with Calderón are enlightening, as are the comments and insights of several of the other interviewees, especially guitarist Waddy Wachtel and poet Paul Muldoon.

Full disclosure: Campion generously mentions my Paul Nelson bio-anthology when writing about Nelson's magnificent Rolling Stone cover story, "The Crack-Up and Resurrection of Warren Zevon: How He Saved Himself from a Coward's Death," and how the magazine brutally mangled it in publication. Campion writes: "Up until his death in 2006, Nelson was haunted by the full piece having never been given a proper presentation. Ultimately, it would appear years later in its entirety in the posthumous collection Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson."

Charles M. Young (1951 - 2014)

                                                                                                  Photo by Hilary Johnson

In 2007, when I interviewed Charles M. Young, who passed away this week from a brain tumor, one of the things we discussed was the imposition of the star rating system in the record-review section at Rolling Stone. It was one of the reasons that had caused his friend Paul Nelson to leave the magazine in 1982. Chuck remembered how he'd given one of his own reviews, of a George Winston album, a five-star rating, but when it was published it only had three stars. The reason? Because there were supposedly already too many five-star reviews in that issue.

"I'd never tell Christgau not to use grades, but I wouldn't tell anybody else who didn't want to use grades that they had to. I wouldn't even give grades in school. Grades are a disaster in education, grades are a disaster in rock & roll. You don't listen to music for a grade, you listen to music for its own sake. The point of a review, you describe what's there and then you convey your enthusiasm or distaste after in some way having an accurate description in there of what the album is, to be fair to the artist, and then you say 'it works' or 'it doesn't work,' you convey your enthusiasm or distaste, and that's what a review needs to do...

"When you're teaching kids to read and you give them a gold star for knowing some big word in the story or something, you're just sucking the joy out of learning from the kid. You're teaching them that what you do is work for the gold star, you work for the money. You don't do something because it's inherently worth doing. I mean, the only reason to read a book is because you love the book. The only reason to listen to music is because you love the music. This grade thing destroys that. It's one  manifestation of this horrible sickness in American society, which Paul would not participate in, to his great credit. Art was not about grades, it was not about money, it was something that you believed in, that you were committed to with an almost religious passion. And that was Paul."

And that was Chuck.

ARSC Award for Excellence

Last September, the Association for Recorded Sound Collections announced the winners of the 2012 ARSC Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research. 

My publisher, Fantagraphics, wrote at the time:

Kevin Avery was awarded a Certificate of Merit due to the exceptionally high quality work he accomplished researching and writing the book Everything is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson. Everything is an Afterthought follows the father of contemporary rock criticism, Paul Nelson, on his journey from Rolling Stone and beyond.

'Since 1991, the awards are presented to authors and publishers of books, articles, liner notes, and monographs, to recognize outstanding published research in the field of recorded sound. In giving these awards, ARSC recognizes outstanding contributions, encourages high standards, and promotes awareness of superior works. Two awards may presented annually in each category—one for best history and one for best discography. Certificates of Merit are presented to runners-up of exceptionally high quality. The 2012 Awards for Excellence honor works published in 2011.'

Cheers to Kevin and his thorough work which you can find here.

285 Words

Paul Nelson was always at his best when he wrote about something he loved, when he was an appreciator, a champion. And while he could perceptively convey what was wrong with a work of art, sometimes, if that work or its artist got under his skin, Paul could be merciless. And very funny.

Witness the 285-word review (Rolling Stone, December 13, 1979) of J.D. Souther's You're Only Lonely, which not only refused to take any prisoners but inadvertently ended Paul's close friendships with Jackson Browne and Warren Zevon.

"I have no specific recollection of the above mentioned review itself," Souther himself generously e-mailed me back in 2008 when I was still researching and writing Everything Is an Afterthought, "though I remember Warren telling me he would trade the mean review or, for that matter, a rave review for a decent check anytime. Warren and I were staunch friends, in our way, unreserved fans of each other’s work, and always greeted each other with the same exchange; a slight bow, the words '...Fellow Classicist,' and a hug. I still carry his G harp with me when I travel but, out of respect, only play it (poorly, I fear) occasionally and usually in private.

"I remember the Nelson review mostly through Jackson’s reaction to it and Warren’s puzzled expression (a rarity) and caustic remarks (less rare) as to what must have preceded the reviewer’s missing the point so profoundly and publicly. Linda [Ronstadt] guessed I must have done something to make him (the reviewer) mad sometime before that, which is possible, as I was sometimes unintentionally curt with people back then, but I honestly don’t remember such an incident or anything said in the review itself.

"Maybe he should have been a bit nicer to me, but you can never predict anyone’s reaction to any art of any kind. I remember in studying Picasso, being stunned to learn that when Guernica was shown in New York, despite its political and artistic importance, not to mention its 11’x26’ dimensions, it was dismissed by one well-known critic of the time as a lukewarm version of his earlier work.

"It seems to me that anyone may have an incomprehensible reaction to any stimuli at any given time. So, I guess, however informed, there is really only the eye of the beholder in play here, wouldn’t you say?"

Paul Nelson's review also generated an indignant letter to the editor from the Eagles' Don Henley, also a friend of Souther's, who called Paul "an obviously biased little prick." Such letters from Henley, to not only critics he disagreed with but also to friends he was at odds with, were not uncommon. Nor, apparently, were the occasional physical threats.

Last year, critic Robert Christgau, responding to comments some readers had made about Henley in response to Christgau's MSN review of Brad Paisley's The Lonely Island (are all of these guys lonely?), wrote: "I'm not sure he's threatened violence, but he's sure written some mean letters, and I think one of them may have been to me. Think I just read about one in the Paul Nelson book--perhaps in response to Nelson's J.D. Souther review that began, 'If narcissism paid two bucks an hour, J.D. Souther would be a billionaire.'"

Christgau added: "(BTW, for some insane reason I just did the math on a calculator. Unless I'm making a mistake, it would take 57 years to reach a million at that rate.)"

ASCAP Deems Taylor Award

From Everything Is an Afterthought, after Paul Nelson resigns from Rolling Stone:

Paul was gone, his office vacated. “Somebody else had to clean it up,” [David] McGee says. “I do remember somebody in there boxing up the records.” Among what was left behind, the Deems Taylor Award presented to Paul by ASCAP in 1979 “in recognition of the excellence of his articles” published in Rolling Stone (for “Rod Stewart Under Siege” in particular). The plaque eventually found its way back to him.

Thanks to Scott Woods at rockcritics.com for unearthing the above page from Billboard's July 28, 1979, issue. (Click on either image to view larger versions.)

Cameron Crowe

When Cameron Crowe started writing for Rolling Stone in 1972 at the age of fifteen, Paul Nelson, thirty-six, was already old enough to be his very hip father. Though Crowe resided on the West Coast and Paul on the East, they came to have something more in common than just writing for the same magazine: their friendship with Lester Bangs.

Last week, Cameron, who went on to write and direct Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous (which recounted his early years at Rolling Stone), was kind enough to provide a blurb for Everything Is an Afterthought:

“Kevin Avery has done something heroic here. Avery has rescued the work and the passion, the life and the meaning of the great Paul Nelson. Nelson was a deep and beautiful writer, mysterious and painstaking and brilliant. Thanks to Avery and Everything Is an Afterthought, Paul Nelson’s work finally has a home. This wonderful writing is here for the faithful, and now forever available for new fans who’ll never forget him.”

Pop Culture Vultures

This Malaysian review of Neil Strauss's Everyone Loves You When You're Dead ties the book's significance and sincerity to--you guessed it--Paul Nelson:

Whatever doubts one has in the author’s motives for the book is dispelled by his piece on a predecessor: former Rolling Stone record reviews editor Paul Nelson (1936–2006). Strauss admits that it was hard to pen, and not just because of his respect for the late Nelson and the people who would read it. “Every word brought me closer to my own cautionary tale – or that of any writer, creative person, or dedicated follower of art, entertainment, or culture. Because it makes you ask: In the end, is it worth it?”

Probably not for Nelson. The man who’d done so much for the likes of Bob Dylan and Rod Stewart died alone and broke. A pair of baby shoes that belonged to Nelson’s son, found hanging near his bed, still haunts Strauss: “... because as someone who’s sacrificed personal relationships for the pursuit of culture and career, I know what (those shoes) symbolize: the regret of someone who has spent his entire life with his priorities wrong.” I could say the same about many of today’s pop culture vultures.

It's totally wrongheaded to compare Paul (who, as an aside, was not broke when he passed away) to "many of today's pop culture vultures." He never wrote about something simply because it was popular; it had to have some meaning--or some significant lack of meaning--for him to subject himself to the often painful process required to write about it.