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Samantha Bennett can be reached at sbennett@post-gazette.com or 412- 263-3572.
The announcement was made while I was on vacation, and somehow I missed it. So I was mystified by the reverential tone of the promos for Warren Zevon's appearance on "The Late Show with David Letterman" last week.
Zevon is dying of lung cancer, which has spread to his liver. It's too far along to be operable. He was diagnosed in August and made the official announcement Sept. 12.
Warren Zevon, for those unfamiliar with his work, is a brilliant singer-songwriter who first came to prominence in the ' 70s, has released nearly a dozen albums and counts among his friends and admirers such high rollers as Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Letterman and author and columnist Carl Hiaasen. He's one of those artists who is highly respected by his peers but not a regular on any Top-40 radio playlists. He is best known for the hit (heard mostly around Halloween) "Werewolves of London" and the offbeat classics "Lawyers, Guns and Money" and "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner."
"I might have made a tactical error," he told Letterman dryly the night before Halloween, "in not going to a physician for 20...