It’s Halloween. Welcome to an early edition of the Friday Cocktail Hour.
We’re in the middle of a Warren Zevon revival. He’s been gone since 2003 but he’s in this year’s Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame entering class. The cherry on the sundae was a tribute concert organized by Jordan Zevon and Jackson Browne in Los Angeles. I hope there was no need to send Lawyers, Guns, and Money.
It’s Halloween, so what better way to celebrate than WZ’s best known song, Werewolves Of London? It was written by Warren Zevon, LeRoy Marinelli, and Waddy Wachtel for the 1978 album Excitable Boy.
The featured image isn’t set in London and there’s neither a Chinese restaurant nor a Trader Vic’s in sight. What does that matter when you have Claude Rains and Lon Chaney Jr? Evelyn Ankers also attended.
The howling begins with the man himself.
Grateful Dead. Say no more.
The late, great David Lindley with a semi-ska version of the WZ classic.
New Orleanians dig Halloween. Better Than Ezra prove that point by rocking this week’s tune.
What would the Friday Cocktail Hour be without an instrumental version of the week’s tune? This time, let’s class up the joint with some long hair music by the Midnite String Quartet.
That’s it for this week. Let’s raise a glass to the Zevon revival. It’s what Jackson, Warren, and John Belushi would want. Never argue with them.
Your Friday Stumper: What ties these three songs together:
Werewolves of London – Warren Zevon
Bad Sneakers – Steely Dan
Escape – Rupert Holmes
Hint: It’s not something esoteric, like the same guy engineered all three songs.
Pina colada
Ding, ding, ding!
Doing this without Googling. Does it have something to do with the Yacht Rock series with Fred Armisen?
Nothing to do with Fred Armisen or Yacht Rock (Rupert Holmes is Yacht Rock?). The answer can be discerned from a listen to all three songs.
Rupert Holmes is mos def Yacht Rock. Another reader gave away the pina colada thing.