Warren Zevon: Three Reissues

*Savage, satirical, smart-assed and sorely missed*Famous friends gave Zevon an important leg-up in the business. After a stint writing and recording radio jingles, and playing piano for The Everly Brothers before their acrimonious split in the early 70s, it was Warren's buddy Jackson Browne who secured him a deal with Asylum Records and produced his 1976 debut. Linda Ronstadt then covered three of his songs, so by the time of 1978's Excitable Boy he was well on the way to hot property status. But unlike most of his labelmates (Browne, Joni Mitchell, The Eagles), the boy from Chicago wallowed waist-deep in irony and caustic wit, approaching his craft like a political cartoonist. He revelled in tales of deranged killers (the title track, Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner), lampooned cold war espionage on Lawyers, Guns And Money, and went joyously bonkers on what was to become his signature tune, Werewolves Of London. Zevon's dark humour was his calling card, giving the impression of a post-watershed Randy Newman with a permanently sly grin. A third album, Bad Luck Streak At Dancing School, followed in 1980, but came at the tail-end of one his intermittent struggles with alcoholism and was, frankly, disappointing. The following year's live set, Stand In The Fire, acted as a form of therapy, Warren revisiting earlier material and proving his chops as a stage performer; Poor Poor Pitiful Me whoops the Los Angeles Roxy crowd into a frenzy, Hasten Down The Wind reveals his more contemplative side, while Frank And Jesse James, originally written for and about the Everlys, was rescued from obscurity to become a stirring anthem of warring souls bound together by blood. The Envoy, from 1982 and, like the live album, making a belated bow here on CD, was the proverbial return to form, and also displayed a newfound maturity. Zevon's first-person lyrics seemed less character-based and more autobiographical than the tunes from Excitable Boy, most notably Looking For The Next Best Thing and the Driftersesque pop pastiche Let Nothing Come Between You. This was a more vulnerable man at work, uncertain of his own future but yearning for a "normal" life. There were still signs of the cynic of old, not least on Ain't That Pretty At All, memorably covered by The Pixies on a tribute album shortly after the singer's 2003 death from cancer. It's perhaps surprising that it's taken so long for Zevon's work to be repackaged and reappraised (all three of these releases come with previoulsy unreleased bonus tracks), as his sardonic take on the world we live in would seem even more suited to the 21st century than it was when he first brought us this material. Musically, Zevon was rarely spectacularly original, but his words have more in common with the likes of PJ O'Rourke or Bill Hicks than they do with the West Coast 70s scene that spawned him. He bared his soul and offered biting social comment in equal measures, and there should always be a market for that.*A version of this review first appeared in the UK music magazine Record Collector*