Singer Warren Zevon Dies

Warren Zevon, the sardonic singer-songwriter who unleashed "Werewolves of London" on the world, died in his sleep at his Los Angeles home on Sunday, just over a year after being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. He was 56.

The acclaimed, though underappreciated rocker announced his terminal diagnosis in September 2002. Doctors gave him only months to live, and the musician said he planned to spend his remaining time with his two grown children and working on a final album.

He lived to see The Wind released two weeks ago, entering the charts at number 16 with an A-list roster of collaborators, including Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley, Tom Petty, Dwight Yoakam, Billy Bob Thorton and Jackson Browne.

All the while, the cancer-stricken rocker kept his dark sense of humor, even recording a cover of Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" for his album. (This is the same songwriter who penned the tunes "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead," "Lawyers, Guns and Money" and "Life'll Kill Ya.")

"I was the hardest-living rocker on my block for a while...Then, for 18 years, I was a sober dad of some amazing kids. Hey, I feel like I've lived a couple of lives," Zevon told the Los Angeles Times when going public about his condition.

His openness extended to allowing VH1 to capture the recording sessions for Wind for an emotional documentary aired in conjunction with the album's release date.

Born Jan. 24, 1947, in Chicago, Zevon was in his late teens when he scored his first musical gig with the Everly Brothers, initially as a pianist and later as their bandleader.

In the 1960s, he moved to Los Angeles, where he earned a living writing jingles for TV commercials. His first album, 1969's Wanted--Dead or Alive, bowed to little fanfare, but he gained recognition in the '70s by writing a string of hits for Linda Ronstadt, including "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me," "Carmelita" and "Hasten Down the Wind."

Zevon generated more interest with his lauded 1976 self-titled release, produced by pal Jackson Browne. But he didn't truly hit the big time until 1978's follow-up, Excitable Boy, which spawned the classic piano-driven ditty "Werewolves of London," as well as two of his other best-known tracks, the title cut and "Lawyers, Guns and Money."

Although those tracks remain staples of classic-rock radio, Zevon never repeated that initial commercial success. Over the last two decades, his work was off the mainstream radar, despite critical acclaim and a cult following among his peers. He released six albums in the '80s, including 1987's Sentimental Hygiene backed by members of R.E.M., and four more in the '90s.

Zevon also has flirted with Hollywood. He had a cameo in the 1988 John Hughes comedy She's Having a Baby, served as a fill-in bandleader on David Letterman's Late Show, had a small role in the Dwight Yoakam-directed western South of Heaven, West of Hell and contributed several songs to soundtracks, including the themes to the TV series TekWar and the film Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead (the title of which was inspired by one of Zevon's song).

Faced with the loss of their friend, many paid tribute to Zevon in the past year, including Dylan, a former collaborator, who inserted several of Zevon's songs into his concert set-list--the dying rocker caught one of Dylan's shows at Los Angeles' Wiltern Theater in October. The same month, Letterman devoted an entire episode of the Late Show to his old friend.

But it was the recent birth of his twin grandsons to daughter Ariel that reportedly touched Zevon the most, a family moment doctors had predicted he'd never live to see.