Warren Zevon - Accidentally On Purpose

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Great music, adequate performance, dodgy sound

This is a recording of a broadcast concert from 1978, with a set list consisting of the magnificent Excitable Boy album, plus a few extras.  I love Warren Zevon's music and Excitable Boy remains one of my favourite albums of the 70s, but I have my reservations about this disc.

If you're looking at this page you won't need a long critique fro  me of Zevon's music.  Suffice it to say that it is often brilliant, and that this was probably his best period, with tuneful, witty and insightful songs, often brilliantly performed.  Anyone who can write lines like:

"You'd better stay away from him,

he'll rip your lungs out, Jim –

Huh! I'd like to meet his tailor…"

gets my vote, and on the same album are the angry and hilarious Lawyers, Guns and Money, the truly lovely Tenderness On The Block and loads of other great songs.  At his peak Zevon was a genuinely great, original songwriter and performer, and we get some of his best work here.

However…the performances aren't that brilliant, to be honest.  They're fine in their way, but Zevon sounds a bit weak-voiced to me, and there's a slight sense of slogging through the set.  I'm glad to have a recording of him performing, but to me there's nothing here which improves on or throws different light on the originals.

Part of this may be the sound quality, which isn't good.  It's muddy and poorly balanced, with very dominant bass and sometimes guitar but indistinct vocals which are much too far back in the mix.  It's even difficult (sometimes impossible) to hear what Zevon is saying when he speaks to the audience.  Any performance would struggle to sound good in these circumstances, and it's a shame.

So – one for the fans only, I'd say.  I'm pleased to have this and pleased to have heard it, but I can't see me playing it very often.  I'll be sticking to my dearly loved, scratchy old vinyl copy of Excitable Boy, I think and I can only give this a very qualified recommendation.

[This has nothing to do with this album, but I cannot resist saying that in 1980 I went to meet some friends for a Chinese meal in central London one evening and genuinely found myself walking through the streets of Soho in the rain, looking for a place called Lee Ho Fook's.  It is a memory which still makes me smile – and when I got there, of course, I didn't even look at the menu before ordering.]