Warren Zevon - Live at the Record Plant, Record Plant, Sausalito, CA, 7-27-1978

Here's another concert from the excellent "Live at the Record Plant" radio show. This one stars singer-songwriter Warren Zevon. It's from 1978, one of the last concerts available from the show. 

Zevon's music career began in the mid-1960s. He had some success as a songwriter. For instance, he co-wrote "Outside Chance," which was a hit for the Turtles in 1966. But his own music career didn't get very far. He released a solo album in 1970, but it was ignored at the time. So his solo career only really got rolling in 1976, with his major label debut, the cleverly-titled "Warren Zevon." He followed that in 1978 with the album "Excitable Boy." Most of his "classic" songs come from these two albums. And "Excitable Boy" contained his sole big hit, "Werewolves of London." So 1978 is a good time for a live album.

The sound quality is excellent. The one issue I had was with the talking between the songs. The vocals of his banter was quite low. That was easily fixed, by boosting the volume of those tracks. But there also was a lot of reverb and hiss on his voice, making it hard to hear what he was saying. So I ran those tracks through Adobe's on-line vocal enhancer program. That cleared things up quite nicely.

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 talk (Warren Zevon)
02 Johnny Strikes Up the Band (Warren Zevon)
03 Tenderness on the Block (Warren Zevon)
04 talk (Warren Zevon)
05 Mohammed's Radio (Warren Zevon)
06 talk (Warren Zevon)
07 Excitable Boy (Warren Zevon)
08 Werewolves of London (Warren Zevon)
09 Accidentally like a Martyr (Warren Zevon)
10 talk (Warren Zevon)
11 Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner (Warren Zevon)
12 Poor, Poor Pitiful Me (Warren Zevon)
13 talk (Warren Zevon)
14 Lawyers, Guns and Money (Warren Zevon)
15 I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (Warren Zevon)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RY38FKSa

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/7PzJzfGwob9xr8Y/file

The cover image is from a concert at the Riviera Theater, in Chicago, Illinois, on May 13, 1978. The original was in color, but the colors were bad, with everything way oversaturated with red. Rather than try to tweak it, I colorized it from scratch, using the Kolorize program.

Warren Zevon - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 2000-2002

Back in 2022, I posted a Warren Zevon BBC concert from 1988. I'm pretty sure that's the only concert Zevon did for the BBC, judging by the many times they've rebroadcast it. However, I found some studio sessions to make up a Volume 2.

The bulk of this album is made up of a studio session Zevon did in 2000, hosted by BBC DJ Andy Kershaw. That makes up the first 12 tracks here. There were extensive interviews between Zevon and Kershaw, but I don't think those have much replay value, so I cut most of them out. I only kept some banter by Zevon that was directly related to the song he would play next.

After the Kershaw session, there are two songs performed on the BBC TV show "Later... with Jools Holland" in 2002. The banter prior to the first one, "Werewolves of London," is actually from the Kershaw session. Zevon talked some about that song, but didn't actually play it. So it fit nicely leading into the "Later..." session. It also helped that both sessions were done acoustic, making them sound like they were one larger session.

The album was still a little short, so I decided to add a non-BBC session at the end. Zevon wasn't on TV that much, but he did perform a three songs on the "Late Show with David Letterman" TV show in 2002, so I added those in. Unlike the rest, they were done with a full band. I removed the applause from the ends of the songs for TV shows that had applause, using the MVSEP program.

In 2002, Zevon was diagnosed with cancer, and told he didn't have long to live. He died in September 2003. He may not have known about his illness in 2000 when the Kershaw session happened, but death seemed to be on his mind. There was some banter about it, and it related to some of the songs he was writing at the time, like "Don't Let Us Get Sick." But he definitely knew about the diagnosis in 2002 when he did the Letterman show. 

Rather unusually, there's an entire Wikipedia entry about his appearance on that episode of the show. It makes for interesting reading:

Warren Zevon on the Late Show with David Letterman in 2002 - Wikipedia

Note that since I found this material for a "Volume 2," I added "Volume 1" to the title of the 1988 BBC concert that I'd previously posted. I also improved the cover art. You can get the updated version here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/11/warren-zevon-bbc-in-concert-hammersmith.html

This album is 41 minutes long.

01 talk (Warren Zevon)
02 I Was in the House When the House Burned Down (Warren Zevon)
03 For My Next Trick I'll Need a Volunteer
 (Warren Zevon)
04 talk (Warren Zevon)
05 Don't Let Us Get Sick (Warren Zevon)
06 talk (Warren Zevon)
07 Excitable Boy (Warren Zevon)
08 talk (Warren Zevon)
09 Seminole Bingo (Warren Zevon)
10 talk (Warren Zevon)
11 Lawyers, Guns and Money (Warren Zevon)
12 talk (Warren Zevon)
13 Werewolves of London (Warren Zevon)
14 My Shit's Fucked Up (Warren Zevon)
15 Mutineer (Warren Zevon)
16 Genius (Warren Zevon)
17 Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner (Warren Zevon)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/URbPhK1Q

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/rWtueyK7e1EEBDm/file

The cover photo comes from a concert at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City, March 16, 2000.

Warren Zevon - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 1-25-1988

As part of my big BBC project, I went looking to see what American singer-songwriter Warren Zevon did for the BBC, if anything. It seems the only concert he did was this one from 1988. 

Yes, Zevon was a singer-songwriter (he died in 2003), but this is an upbeat and rocking concert with a full band. He played most of his best known songs, including his one big hit, "Werewolves of London." So this is a good introduction to his career in general, I think. The BBC has replayed it many times.

This concert is unreleased and seems to be pretty rare even as a bootleg. In the version I found, the applause at the ends of songs faded out and then faded back in with the next songs. But I found I could stitch them back together and get rid of the fades, and nothing was missing. 

In terms of sound quality, it's just as good as you'd expect from the BBC.

This album is 56 minutes long. 

UPDATE: On March 9, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is the same, but I changed the album title after finding material for a Volume 2. I also improved the cover art.

01 Lawyers, Guns and Money (Warren Zevon)
02 Detox Mansion (Warren Zevon)
03 Boom Boom Mancini (Warren Zevon)
04 talk (Warren Zevon)
05 Johnny Strikes Up the Band (Warren Zevon)
06 Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner (Warren Zevon)
07 talk (Warren Zevon)
08 Reconsider Me (Warren Zevon)
09 Excitable Boy (Warren Zevon)
10 Sentimental Hygiene (Warren Zevon)
11 Accidentally like a Martyr (Warren Zevon)
12 Werewolves of London (Warren Zevon)
13 Play It All Night Long (Warren Zevon)
14 Ain't That Pretty at All (Warren Zevon)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/tBVhBUbR

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/PNrKU1MZUmNZvYc/file

The cover photo is from a concert in Gent, Belgium, in February 1988. It looks almost like a sepia tinted photo, but that's actually full color. I guess he just had colored lighting on him at the time. In March 2025, I improved the image with the help of the Krea AI program. It made the coloring a little better.

Jackson Browne - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: Old Grey Whistle Test, BBC Television Theatre, London, Britain, 12-7-1976

In the early and mid-1970s, Jackson Browne's popularity had been slowly but steadily growing. He wasn't well known in Europe though, since he'd never toured there. But in 1976, he did his first European tour, to promote his latest album, "The Pretender." This isn't from a BBC radio show, it's from the BBC TV show "The Old Grey Whistle Test," so that was a big promotional boost for him. This recording is rather short due to limits on TV time, but I presume he brought his A-game to make the best out of it.

One slightly odd aspect of this show is that singer-songwriter Warren Zevon was the supporting act for Browne's European tour, and he was generously given a spot in this show. He sang his song "Mohammed's Radio," with Browne helping on backing vocals.

This sound quality is the usual BBC high quality. But there was on problem. The last song, "The Pretender," faded out about three and a half minutes into it, and it's a seven-minute-long song. I assume that's because Browne had a certain allotted amount of TV time to perform and he went over it. So I found a different version of the song also with high quality, from 1976 (taken from a concert in Amsterdam), and I patched that in to finish the song off. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in its title.

This concert is 48 minutes long.

01 talk (Jackson Browne)
02 Something Fine (Jackson Browne)
03 talk (Jackson Browne)
04 For Everyman (Jackson Browne)
05 talk (Jackson Browne)
06 Fountain of Sorrow (Jackson Browne)
07 talk (Jackson Browne)
08 The Only Child (Jackson Browne)
09 talk (Jackson Browne)
10 For a Dancer (Jackson Browne)
11 talk (Jackson Browne)
12 Mohammed's Radio (Warren Zevon & Jackson Browne)
13 talk (Jackson Browne)
14 The Pretender [Edit] (Jackson Browne)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17362727/JACKSNBRWN1976BBSessonsVlum2OldGryWhitleTst__12-7-1976_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/VrEx3BSw

The cover photo is from an unknown concert in 1976.