The first of many Warren Zevon concerts I attended was delayed because the band’s equipment didn’t arrive on time at the University of Colorado’s Glenn Miller Ballroom, and the equipment of local Boulder band Firefall had to come to the rescue.
Despite the delay, Zevon delivered a wild, powerful Springsteen-like performance, including dancing on his baby grand piano. It wasn’t just Warren, though, who had me and my friends gushing about the ragged brilliance of the music during his 1978 Excitable Boy tour. We were also blown away by the sizzling runs and flamboyancy of lead guitarist Waddy Wachtel.
Forty-three years later, Wachtel is still guitar slinging, and his mission hasn’t changed: Knock the audience over with his magic fingers. He and rock veterans Danny Kortchmar, Lee Skar and Russ Kunkel — musicians who helped create the brilliant music of Zevon, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt and others — have joined with guitarist Steve Postell in a band called the Immediate Family. Though Wachtel, Kortchmar, Skar and Kunkel have played together in the studio for many years, it will be their first band together.
“The aims of the Immediate Family band are to write great songs, make awesome records, tour as much as possible and blow people away every night,” Wachtel says.
The band kicks off a 12-date West Coast and East Coast tour on Nov. 3 in San Juan Capistrano, Florida. Its new self-titled album contains a dozen original songs, including “Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead,” cowritten by Wachtel and Zevon. The album’s two bonus tracks are live versions of Zevon’s “Johnny Strikes Up the Band” and the hit Jackson Brown song “Somebody’s Baby,” cowritten by Kortchmar.
“Every song on that record is special to us,” Wachtel says. “’Can’t Stop Progress” has a nasty guitar/musical arrangement, and the lyric that Danny and Stanley Lynch wrote is very contemporary and important. I’m really glad the band wanted to do my song ‘Damage.’ It’s my attempt at writing a Burt Bacharach-type song, and I love the way it came out. ‘Thing of the Past’ is one of the most beautiful rock and roll ballads I’ve ever heard.”
Postell, who has performed in hit Broadway shows and played with Jennifer Warnes and Pure Prairie League, says he loves the Immediate Family’s songwriting process, because band members take advantage of each other’s talent.
“If I bring in an idea for a song or even a completed song, I know it will be re-arranged and often rewritten with other band members and end up not only as a better piece, but as an Immediate Family song,” he says. “For example, ‘House Will Fall’ was fully written and appeared on my solo Immergent Records album Time Still Knockin. It had sort of a country vibe, clearly not right for the Immediate Family. But the words were very prescient, so Waddy, Danny and I got together and reworked it until it fit our style.”
Kortchmar says he has played with Kunkel and Sklar for more than 50 years — and with Wachtel for about 45 years — but the music they make together stays fresh.
“This is what we live for, it’s our life,” he says. “Music is everything to us. I don’t think you have to try to keep it fresh — you just keep moving forward. I work on my guitar playing all the time, and I’m always looking for ideas for songs, writing songs or starting songs. That’s how you keep it fresh.”
Each member of the Immediate Family owns an impressive resume, but the music has usually involved a dynamic front person like Zevon, Browne, Taylor and Ronstadt. Kunkel resume includes drumming with Bob Dylan, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, George Harrison, Stevie Nicks, Simon & Garfunkel and the Bee Gees.
“That’s one part of this venture we love — there are now three front men in the band, Wachtel says. “We have a blast sharing the vocal duties, and we split them up as evenly as possible. It’s a thrill for us to be the front man.”
I ask Wachtel, who was a co-writer of Zevon’s hit song “Werewolves of London,” what it was like touring with the charismatic Zevon as the front man. He says a lot of vodka was involved, and he doesn’t remember the Boulder concert I attended, but he recalls many memorable moments onstage and in the studio.
“During the making of Excitable Boy, I insisted we needed to lose two of the songs that were on the record and replace them with better songs,” he says. “I told Warren I was going on the road for two weeks, and I hoped he’d have them when I got back. The night I got back, I called him, and he said, ‘Come on over. I got ‘em!’ He had written ‘Lawyers, Guns and Money’ and ‘Tenderness on the Block!’ We were in heaven, so happy. Very soon after, Warren, me, Kenny Edwards and Rick Marotta — the lads I had been with touring with Linda Ronstadt — went into the studio and cut both songs in one three-hour session. It was fantastic — two unbelievably great tracks.”
I ask Kortchmar how he views the artistry of Zevon and Browne.
“Well, you’re talking about two of the greatest songwriters I’ve ever encountered, and I’ve been lucky enough to play and work with a lot of different songwriters,” he responds. “Jackson is just incomparable. I met him when he was 19 or 20 before his first record deal. We used to jam together. He’d play me songs, I’d play him songs. We were pals before he made his first record, and I cannot speak more highly of anybody than Jackson. He is a brilliant, brilliant songwriter, heart and soul. And he means it! He means every word. He’s relentless in that area. He’s a guy who is a formidable talent and formidable songwriter. I loved every minute I spent with him.”
Kortchmar has plenty of praise left for Zevon.
“Warren was one of the smartest people I ever met — an incredibly bright guy, very well read, very well educated,” Kortchmar says. “I think he was mostly self-educated, and I feel the best, most intelligent people are self-educated to a large degree. And he was an incredible guy who was wonderful to hang out with. He was hilarious and sharp as a tack. I hung out with him while he was drinking and after he’d given up drinking. He didn’t really change that much. He was a really astute, sharp individual, and I miss him a lot. To me, his songwriting and singing just got better and better and better. His album Mutineer is an unheralded great, great album. But so is Mr. Bad Example. What can you say about Warren that hasn’t already been said? He was a wonderful guy, and I loved every minute with him.”
Kortchmar played on Zevon’s Excitable Boy and The Envoy and has played on or produced albums by numerous artists, including James Taylor, Carole King, the Fugs, Harry Nilsson and the Spin Doctors. I challenge him to identify the three favorite albums he played on. “
Oh boy, that’s a tough one, because I played on a lot of great stuff,” he responds. “One would definitely be the Immediate Family’s new album. The other two would be Don Henley’s album Building the Perfect Beast, which I co-wrote and co-produced, and Billy Joel’s River of Dreams, which I produced and played on.”
Kortchmar says he also loved co-producing Neil Young’s Landing on Water. “I think it’s a fantastic album but never got any respect,” he adds.
When I ask Wachtel to name his three favorite albums, he says it’s “impossible” but then gives it a try. “AC/DC’s Powerage is an incredible record,” he says, “but then there’s Exile on Main Street, Let It Bleed, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s (Lonely Hearts Club Band), Pet Sounds, so many Beach Boys albums, every Beatles album, Otis Blue (Otis Redding Sings Soul), the Temptations, the Miracles, (Music from) Big Pink and so many others by the Band.”
Postell’s favorite album is a tie between the two Beatles records, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Revolver. After them, he points to Joni Mitchell’s Hejira, “a singular work of art unlike any other music ever recorded.” And then he adds Jimi Hendrix’s Axis: Bold as Love, “which opened my mind to the tonal, textural possibilities of recording, playing and songwriting.”
I ask Wachtel, Kortchmar and Postell to name the best concerts they attended. Wachtel cites one “a million years ago” when Elton John opened for Leon Russell at the Long Beach Arena in Long Beach, California.
“I was a huge Leon fan, and three young English guys first came onstage,” Wachtel says. “They started playing, and, within a few moments. I was speechless. It sounded like 100 people coming out of that trio. Elton, Dee (Murray) and Nigel (Olsson) were so tight, and the songs and Elton’s voice were perfect. It was astounding. After Leon came onstage and played two songs, I said, ‘Let’s get outta here. This is bullshit after what we just saw.’ I wasn’t even an Elton fan before that show. He was and always is fantastic!”
Wachtel points to another magical night of music.
“The Beach Boys played a couple of years ago at Royal Albert Hall in London, and my friend John Cowsill invited me, because he knew I was a huge fan of their records,” Wachtel says. “I went with Leland Sklar, and the Beach Boys were Mike Love, Bruce Johnston and a small band. It was one of the most amazing and surprising nights I’ve ever spent in an audience. There were about 60 songs in the show, and I’d say 50 of them were favorites. They sounded incredible, and the set list was not to be believed. It was a night of pure musical joy.”
The concert that most influenced Wachtel’s musicianship was in New York before he moved from the East Coast to Los Angeles decades ago.
“My brother and I saw the Band at Madison Square Garden,” he recalls. “It was a night I will never forget. Every song was fantastic, and the way they functioned as a band gave me so much insight about how a band should work onstage.”
Frank Zappa and his Mothers of Invention were also influential during a residency at New York’s Garrick Theater in 1967. They played two shows per night, six nights each week, for six months.
“I must have gone at least three nights a week for months,” Wachtel recalls. “It was a musical lesson every night. Frank was basically rehearsing the band during the week with very few folks in the audience. They let in hard-core fans at no charge. It was a musical dream come true, listening and learning every night. It was beyond magic!”
Kortchmar ecstatically remembers three shows in New York.
“Start with, James Brown at the Apollo Theater in the ‘60s,” he responds. “Unbelievable! What can you say? He came out, and there’s nothing like it. It was extraordinary, absolutely brilliant, unforgettable.”
Kortchmar will never forget the Beatles at Carnegie Hall. “I think this was just before they did the Ed Sullivan Show, and they were amazing!” he exclaims. “Carnegie Hall didn’t have a PA system for music —just an announcement PA. But you could still hear how absolutely great they were. Of course, the fans were screaming, but I was close enough to the stage so I could hear them and how absolutely bad-ass they were.”
Kortchmar says the third-best concert he attended was the John Coltrane Quartet at the Half Note Club.
“It was the original legendary quartet with Elvin Jones, Jimmy Garrison and McCoy Tyner,” Kortchmar says. “It was unbelievable — the target of musical ideas in soul and intensity.”
Kortchmar says many great guitar players have influenced him, including seeing John McLaughlin in Los Angeles.
“In the early ‘70s, David Crosby and I went to see the Mahavishnu Orchestra at the Whisky a Go Go, and I was really impressed,” he says. “John McLaughlin is one of the absolute greatest who ever lived, and I was heavily influenced by that show. When I went home, I started practicing and practicing and practicing and practicing. Just listening to him was an inspiration and made me want to work much harder than I had been working on the guitar.”
Postell says that citing the best concert he has seen is an “unanswerable question” because he attended so many concerts during his life.
“It could be sitting in the front row of a Keith Jarrett solo piano concert — a few feet away from that level of genius,” he says. “But I’m going to go way back to 1969 at the Filmore East in New York City — back before anyone cared that we were only 13 years old. The bill was the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, followed by Santana and then B.B. King. Elvin Bishop was Butterfield’s guitarist, and Leon Russell played piano with B.B.
“Not only was no one checking IDs back then, but there were no unions kicking people out at midnight,” Postell adds. “After B.B.’s monstrous set, he was joined onstage by Paul Butterfield, Elvin Bishop and Carlos Santana. By the time they finished playing, the sun was coming up. Those were the days!”