Wanted Dead Or Alive Bowie MD

Wanted Dead Or Alive

Warren Zevon

Capitol Records, 1970

REVIEW BY: Christopher Thelen

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 07/08/2004

Not even six months after the death of Warren Zevon, it almostseems like it's sacrilege to say anything negative about the latesinger-songwriter. To dare call any of his work anything short of amasterpiece is akin to dancing an Irish jig on his grave.

Yet Zevon himself would have probably welcomed criticism of Wanted Dead Or Alive, his 1970 debut release (which wasremastered and re-issued in 2003). Yet for all the weaknesses onthis disc, there are moments of sheer magic which even Zevonhimself would have been hard-pressed to ignore.

Granted, if you go into this disc looking for songs along thelines of "Werewolves Of London" or "Mr. Bad Example," you're gonnawalk away shaking your head in displeasure. There's a reason whyZevon took about six years off before the release of his secondalbum -- namely, the need for growth in his songwriting.

So it's not terribly surprising that you find songs such as thetitle track and "Hitchhikin' Woman" which sound like they're worksin progress, but desperately needing another coat of paint or two.The surprisingly sparse instrumentation doesn't really help matterstoo much, either. And despite its ties to the film Midnight Cowboy, I just can't really get into the song "SheQuit Me". Maybe if I had been born in the '50s and was of the ageof reason in 1969 (rather than still being a glint in the milkman'seye), I'd be able to connect to this original version more.