Warren Zanes is an American musician and writer who has been known as guitarist for

The Del Fuegos The Del Fuegos were an American 1980s garage-style rock band. Formed in 1980, the Boston, Massachusetts, United States-based band gained success in 1986 with their songs "Don't Run Wild" and "I Still Want You" and appearing in a widely seen te ...

, a solo artist, and the biographer of

Tom Petty Thomas Earl Petty (October 20, 1950October 2, 2017) was an American musician who was the lead vocalist and guitarist of the rock band Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, formed in 1976. He previously led the band Mudcrutch, was a member of the lat ...

. A Ph.D. in Visual and Cultural Studies, Zanes is the former vice president of education and public programs for the

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF), sometimes simply referred to as the Rock Hall, is a museum and hall of fame located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States, on the shore of Lake Erie. The museum documents the history of rock music and ...

and executive director of Steven Van Zandt's Rock and Roll Forever Foundation. Zanes has taught at several American universities, including

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Reser ...

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The University of Roc ...

, and

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

, where he has been teaching since 2015.

Music

Zanes joined his brother Dan's band, The Del Fuegos, at age seventeen. The band signed to Slash Records that same year, releasing three albums with Slash/Warner Bros. before the younger Zanes left the band. The Del Fuegos toured with X, ZZ Top, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, INXS, and others during the time Warren was in the band. Zanes returned to making music as he was writing his Ph.D. dissertation at The University of Rochester, signed by

The Dust Brothers The Dust Brothers are a pair of songwriters and producers consisting of E.Z. Mike ( Michael Simpson) and King Gizmo ( John King). They are famous for the sample-based music they produced in the 1980s and 1990s, and specifically for their work o ...

to their then-label, Ideal Records. That solo debut, ''Memory Girls'', was eventually released by Nashville's Dualtone, the label that would release his next four solo projects, ''People That I'm Wrong For'', ''I Want To Move Out in the Daylight'', ''The Biggest Bankrupt City in the World'', and ''The Collected Warren Zanes''. Zanes joined poet Paul Muldoon's Rogue Oliphant in 2019 and has co-written several songs with Muldoon.

Writing and Film

Zanes's 2003 book ''Dusty Springfield's Dusty in Memphis'' about

Dusty Springfield Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien (16 April 1939 – 2 March 1999), known professionally as Dusty Springfield, was an English singer. With her distinctive mezzo-soprano sound, she was a popular singer of blue-eyed soul, Pop music, p ...

's 1969 album ''

Dusty in Memphis ''Dusty in Memphis'' is the fifth studio album by English singer Dusty Springfield. Initial sessions were recorded at American Sound Studio in Memphis, while Springfield's final vocals and the album's orchestral parts were recorded at Atlantic ...

'' was published by Bloomsbury as the first volume in their series of books on classic albums.

read the book on ''Dusty in Memphis'' twice and invited Zanes to dinner; as Petty told NPR's Terry Gross, the book inspired him to write the song "Down South" from his 2006 album ''

Highway Companion ''Highway Companion'' is the third and final solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Tom Petty. It was released on July 25, 2006, and charted at No. 4 on the ''Billboard'' 200 album chart. The album was produced by former Traveling Wilbury ...

''. Zanes interviewed

Terry Gilliam Terrence Vance Gilliam (; born 22 November 1940) is an American-born British filmmaker, comedian, animator, actor and former member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam has directed 13 feature films, including ''Time Bandits'' (1981), ''B ...

Eric Idle Eric Idle (born 29 March 1943) is an English actor, comedian, musician and writer. Idle was a member of the British surreal comedy group Monty Python and the parody rock band The Rutles, and is the writer of the music and lyrics for the Broadwa ...

Jeff Lynne Jeffrey Lynne (born 30 December 1947) is an English musician, singer-songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the co-founder of the rock music, rock band Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), which was formed in 1970. As a songwriter, h ...

George Martin Sir George Henry Martin (3 January 1926 – 8 March 2016) was an English record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, and musician. He was commonly referred to as the "Fifth Beatle" because of his extensive involvement in each of the B ...

Klaus Voormann Klaus Otto Wilhelm Voormann (born 29 April 1938) is a German artist, musician, and record producer. Voormann was the bassist for Manfred Mann from 1966 to 1969, and performed as a session musician on a host of recordings, including "You're So V ...

and others for

Martin Scorsese Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominatio ...

's 2011 documentary on

George Harrison George Harrison (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English musician and singer-songwriter who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Sometimes called "the quiet Beatle", Harrison embraced Indian c ...

, '' George Harrison: Living in the Material World''. Zanes acted as consulting producer for director Morgan Neville's Oscar-winning ''Twenty Feet from Stardom'', received a Grammy nomination as a producer of the PBS series ''Soundbreaking'', and served as writer for director Thom Zimny's ''The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash''. Zanes's ''New York Times'' bestselling biography of Petty, ''Petty: The Biography'', was published in 2015. He has also edited a collection of essays on Jimmie Rodgers, collaborated with Garth Brooks on two volumes of the artist's ongoing series, and written for ''Rolling Stone'', ''The Los Angeles Times'', ''The Oxford American'', and more.

Bibliography

* ''Petty: The Biography'' (Henry Holt & Company, 2015) * ''Revolutions in Sound: Warner Bros. Records, the First Fifty Years'' (Chronicle Books, 2009) * ''Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream'' (Chronicle Books, 2007) * ''Dusty Springfield's Dusty in Memphis'' (Bloomsbury, 2003)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zanes, Warren Living people American biographers American rock guitarists American music critics 1965 births