Zevon recalled as an excitable boy.(Arts & Entertainment)

Byline: JANET MASLIN - New York Times

One self-composed epitaph Warren Zevon delivered after learning he had terminal cancer was this: "It's a damned hard way to make a living, having to die to get 'em to know you're alive." Like so much of what he said, wrote and sang, it was quotable, savagely funny and true.

Near the end of his life (he died at 56 on Sept. 7, 2003), doing some of his best work in the face of adversity, Zevon remained stuck in a commercial vacuum. The great promise of his sensational early albums had never brought him the wide following he deserved. So he decided to make the most of a terrible situation, advising his manager to exploit his illness in any way that might advance a soon-to-be-over career. (The manager refused. Still, there were posthumous Grammys.) And he called upon his estranged wife, …