Warren Zevon - Disc of the day

Warren Zevon
Warren Zevon

(Asylum, 1976)

“Don’t it make you wanna rock ‘n’ roll all night long…?”

Warren Zevon, the bespectacled, piano-bashing cynic of LA’s late-’70s Gomorrah, is often labelled a musician’s musician. Glance at the prestigious list of superstars who lined up to appear on this, his major-label debut, and it’s easy to see why. Carl Wilson, Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Glenn Frey and Phil Everly were just a few of those who saw how Zevon’s raggedly voiced country-rock rambles and mellifluous piano ballads managed to vividly evoke the black heart of cocaine-fuelled L.A. – although, being the ‘politely beserk’ type, Zevon always managed to find mischievous humour in the doom and gloom. “With these phonies in this Hollywood bar,” he sings during the extraordinary French Inhaler, before wickedly clarifying: “These friends of mine in this Hollywood bar”. Or what about Poor Poor Pitiful Me’s girl who “was a credit to her gender” but “put me through some changes Lord/Sort of like a Waring blender”? Quite why Warren Zevon was left out of last year’s reissue package remains a baffling mystery.

Ross Bennett

Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 6:00 AM GMT 16/01/2008

Further Listening

Jackson Browne – Late For The Sky (Asylum, 1974)

Linda Ronstadt – Living In The USA (Elektra, 1978)

Warren Zevon – Excitable Boy (Asylum, 1978)

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Click here for House Rules

Totally right! A masterpiece, but surely the stand-out track is Desperados Under The Eaves, especially the motel air-conditioner that appears to be humming Look Away Dixieland.
The ideal companion read is the terrifying Zevon biography, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead.

Posted by Dave from the grave at 10:17 AM GMT 16/01/2008 Report Abuse

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If my memory serves me well the late lamented ZigZag magazine reiview ent along these lines -

The songs Great
The singing Great
The band Great

etc etc

The catelogue number is blahblah
Buy it

They don't write em up like that these days

Posted by Oh Boy 1952 at 5:30 PM GMT 17/01/2008 Report Abuse

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