One of the oddest one-offs to come out of the ’80s music scene, this is a live-in-the-studio album by R.E.M. minus Michael Stipe (Bill Berry, Peter Buck, and Mike Mills) and fronted by Warren Zevon of “Werewolves of London” and “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner” fame. It was held for release for four years, and although it was apparently released with the cooperation of Zevon, et al., it is neither an REM-style album, nor a typical Warren Zevon album though it comes closer to his style than that of the R.E.M. group.
Muddy Waters once said that “the blues had a baby and they named it rock and roll.” This album reverses that process, in that these are rock and rollers who decided to make a blues album. Warren Zevon and R.E.M. playing the blues? Is this some sort of weird, not-terribly-well-done lark undertaken after drinking too much whiskey late one night in some sleazy bar? Quite the contrary — this is a true electric blues album. If it had been released by a legitimate blues label, I’m sure it would have made all sorts of Best of the Year lists, but the blues critics pretty much completely ignored it, as it was released on a vanity label operated by Reprise Records.
The focus here is largely on hard-hitting, hair-raising electric blues — straightforward playing with no fancy embellishments. Only super-tight musicians like these could function as an ad hoc blues band to back up Zevon on what is clearly his pet project. Both the selection of tunes and the rough-and-tumble delivery place the R.E.M. members as far as possible from their roots as an alternative rock band. They clearly spent some time learning to play the blues. The only place that their R.E.M. roots show is in the drummer’s (Bill Berry) style — unfortunately as boring as that of most rock drummers. The lack of originality on the drums is more than offset by Warren Zevon on the piano, sounding like Mac Rebennack on uppers — he’s almost too fast, but he never quite trips. (Strangely enough, I can find no proof that Mac Rebennack and Warren Zevon ever shared a recording studio gig — a true pity, as it would have been a wonderfully weird gig!)
But Zevon is in peak form here — his cynical sense of humor and rough, not-terribly-good baritone add a spark of personality to even the overly familiar Muddy Waters (“Mannish Boy”), Willie Dixon (“Wang Dang Doodle”), Robert Johnson (“Walkin’ Blues” and “Travelin’ Riverside Blues”) and Howlin’ Wolf material. He also has the necessary bona fides to play the blues (Zevon has lived fast and hard, and just hasn’t bothered to die young).
The oddest cover, though, is a strikingly edgy rendition of Prince’s “Raspberry Beret.” Yes, they covered a Prince song! And in the process they turned it into an intense blues number to be remembered — edgy, harsh, and ridden with sexual angst. This version of “Raspberry Beret” sounds like a blues version of the Springsteen song “I’m On Fire” (off his 1984 Born in the U.S.A. album). Warren hasn’t been this good since he recorded his 1978 album Excitable Boy.
(It’s worth noting that the Hindu Love Gods’ press kit says, “Who knows (if they’ll play live)? If they do, we won’t know about it ’til the morning after. According to one insider, predicting a Hindu Love Gods performance is akin to predicting the weather in Fond du Lac in mid-March.” But this album is a studio project that feels live.)
They finish the album out with an odd choice — Woody Guthrie’s “Vigilante Man.” It’s not that they do a bad job of covering it, but one does wonder, “Why this song?” I suspect it’s because Woody is such an icon among folk and rock artists that everyone from Bruce Springsteen to the Scottish group the Old Blind Dogs feels they must cover one or more of his songs.
If you like electric blues, hunt this CD out in your favorite used CD shop. And keep an eye out for the rumored Hindu Love Gods EP, which has two cuts on it that were not on this CD: an original song (“Narrator”) and an Easybeats cover (“Gonna Have A Good Time Tonight”).
(Giant Records, 1990)
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