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Boston - Without a Doubt!
I did not know that they were not!
Posted on 02/01/2023 4:51:08 PM PST by JennysCool
Edited on 02/01/2023 5:37:20 PM PST by Jim Robinson. [history]
Send your lawyers, guns, money, and letters of recommendation. Warren Zevon has received his first nomination for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a much-belated honor that places him in a potential induction class with the likes of Willie Nelson, Cyndi Lauper, and the White Stripes. (The man has been eligible since 1994. To borrow one of his quotes: That s***’s fd up.)
While many of Zevon’s musical peers have advocated for his Rock Hall induction through the years, perhaps most prominently Jackson Browne, the Los Angeles Times reports that a major wave of support this year came from none other than Billy Joel, who wrote a screed to the nominating committee in favor of his fellow piano man. “I just wanted to put in my two cents of supporting Warren Zevon to be included,” he explained. “If anyone deserves to be, he does. He was a real original, and I don’t know if that’s appreciated enough. The first minute I saw him, I was knocked out. He was like the crazy brother I never had. He was fearless, and it stuck with me. I never thought he got the attention he deserved.”
Oh, did he? Now, that (Poor-Poor-Pitiful-Me)is a good song and Linda was just the voice it required to become a classic...
sorta like a Waring Blender.
Many, many great albums. Warren was no one-hit wonder.
I went home with a waitress
The way I always do
How was I to know
She was with the Russians, too.
Roland searched the continent for the man who’d done him in
He found him in Mombassa in a barroom drinking gin
Roland aimed his Thompson gun - he didn’t say a word
But he blew Van Owen’s body from there to Johannesburg
After ten long years they let him out of the home
(Excitable boy they all said)
And he dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones
(Excitable boy they all said)
Well I’m sitting here playing solitare
With my pearl-handled deck
The county won’t give me no more methadone
And they cut off your welfare check
“lawyers, guns and money”
“roland the headless thompson gunner”
“Excitable boy”
All good stuff.
I saw them do that once in NY - the smattering of people in the audience doing the “ahoooohh” was hilarious.
My favorite of Warren’s, “Desperadoes Under the Eaves”:
I was sitting in the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel
I was staring in my empty coffee cup
I was thinking that the gypsy wasn’t lyin’
All the salty margaritas in Los Angeles
I’m gonna drink ‘em up
And if California slides into the ocean
Like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill
Don’t the sun look angry through the trees
Don’t the trees look like crucified thieves
Don’t you feel like Desperados under the eaves
Heaven help the one who leaves
Still waking up in the mornings with shaking hands
And I’m trying to find a girl who understands me
But except in dreams you’re never really free
Don’t the sun look angry at me
I was sitting in the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel
I was listening to the air conditioner hum
It went mmm...
Look away
(Look away down Gower Avenue, look away)
With the “Look away” ending to the tune of “Dixieland,” with Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys providing the harmonies. Sublime.
Thanks, Jim.
Werewolves of London ping
Too many stories about the Summer of ‘79, one of the greatest personal and professional periods of my life.
BOSTON’s not in? That’s just plain wrong.
Neither are:
Peter Frampton
Emerson, Lake and Palmer
Jethro Tull
Who?
And who the heck is “the likes of…the White Stripes”?
Is this like the Ramones and Smiths? Acts on the fringe that hipsters on the fringe talk up but most people don’t like? “Album-oriented rock”?
Agreed, but I recall a RollingStone article that summed up the problem with the two follow-ups after “Excitable Boy”: that Warren had invented a new song structure for pop that had finally ran the last tire treads over The Eagles, but New Wave from the UK (think Elvis Costello) had contemporaneously stolen all that “Crush-70s-AOR” energy/paradigm shift. “Lawyers, Guns, and Money” is just farging brilliant.
Graf?
Unless you’re Connie Francis.
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Boston - Without a Doubt!
I did not know that they were not!
Yep. A giant circle jerk.
Which is not an editorial comment on Warren Zevon's work.
It’s great artists like Warren and Stevie Ray Vaughan that passed long before their time. I’m happy to revel in their music, I sit and wonder what Clapton and Duane Allman could have produced had they had a few more years together.
I never knew it.
Just listened on YouTube. Thanks.
I saw Warren Zevon in San Diego around 1987. X was the opening band.
Never heard of that Ronstadt piece. #31 on the weekly chart is a real stretch to call “BIG hit”. I know her mostly for rip-offs of Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison - BTW, true legends.
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