Zevon’s last

Well, I screwed up my courage and watched the VH1 special on Warren Zevon’s final abum the other night. It took courage because I’m a little touchy about this whole idea that he’s dying, and because these tributes are usually so very awful. But this one struck almost the perfect tone. I sure could have done with a whole lot more on the history of Warren Zevon, starting back with his high school duo “Lyme and Cybelle”. (The “First Sessions” disc carries the old White Whale label, which would explain how The Turtles came to record “Outside Chance” at a time when no one would have heard of Warren Zevon — they were label-mates. I’ve wondered about that since about 1980.) But that history will come. This was about making the new album. And despite a raft of well-knowns involved in the album, the show stayed focused on Zevon (though I have newfound respect for Bruce Springsteen for his guitar work on “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”). His new stuff sounds terrific, too (though I’d buy it even if it didn’t, of course). Somehow it deals with his dying without becoming maudlin or sentimental, and Zevon sets the tone himself, though Carl Hiaasen gets in the best line, pointing out that Zevon’s logo is a skull smoking a cigarette. All in all, it was an excellent work that left me wishing there was a little more . . . a very rare thing in television these days.

But then VH1 hobbled the ball. They presented it commercial-free, so it ended at an odd time. They went into some other filler, and I started flipping around and found, on sister station VH1 Classics, video after video by Warren Zevon, including a presentation of songs from the new album (set to video from the special) and all his old stuff. Don’t you think they could have promoted that?

The man who wrote “Splendid Isolation” and “Searching for a Heart” doesn’t owe us anything, but this new album sounds excellent. And they are starting to digitally remaster his older albums, which need to be rescued from ’70s California laid-back production values.