Veteran country rocker and Grammy-winning producer Shooter Jennings is celebrating the music of the late Warren Zevon on a new live album documenting a Zevon tribute performance he and his backing band gave last year at the Rebels & Renegades Music Festival in Monterey, California.
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Shooter Jennings and the Werewolves of Los Angeles Do Zevon will be released on November 3 on CD, as a vinyl LP and digitally. The CD features renditions of 13 Zevon tunes, including such classics as “Lawyers, Guns and Money,” “Excitable Boy,” “Poor Poor Pitiful Me,” and “Werewolves of London,” while the LP boasts 11 tracks.
[RELATED: Shooter Jennings to Honor Late Legend with a Night of Warren Zevon]
Jennings has debuted a live video on YouTube of him and the group performing “Excitable Boy” at the festival.
The album’s release date coincides with the 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, and the timing is no coincidence. After Zevon was nominated for honor, Jennings became a vocal advocate supporting his induction and he was upset when the late singer/songwriter was passed over this year, so he’s hoping releasing the tribute record will bring more attention to Zevon.
“I started finding these groups online that were trying to lobby for [Zevon] to get in,” Jennings told Rolling Stone in a recent interview. “Then Billy Joel wrote a letter to the Hall of Fame saying they should nominate him. So…the nomination happened, and I was like, ‘Oh my God!’ Then we’re out there trying to help pump up the cause and get people to vote, and … they don’t accept him. Willie Nelson gets in, and as much as Willie Nelson is a part of my family, I felt like that was cheating and that Warren should have been in.”
Also as part of his campaign, Jennings has scheduled a new Zevon tribute show with the Werewolves of Los Angeles band for November 1 in Brooklyn, New York.
The band also features multi-instrumentalist Brian Whelan, drummer Jamie Douglass, bassist Ted Russell Kamp, and guitarist John Schreffler.
Jennings, whose father is late outlaw country legend Waylon Jennings and whose mother is country singer Jessi Colter, is a prolific singer/songwriter in his own right, but in recent years he’s focused more on producing. He’s received three Grammys for his work with Brandi Carlile, and he’s also produced such artists as Duff McKagan, Tanya Tucker, and Marilyn Manson.
Shooter Jennings and the Werewolves of Los Angeles Do Zevon can be pre-ordered now.
Shooter Jennings and the Werewolves of Los Angeles Do Zevon Track List
- Lawyers, Guns and Money
- Excitable Boy
- Mama Couldn’t Be Persuaded
- Mohammed’s Radio
- I Was in the House When the House Burned Down
- My Shit’s Fucked Up
- Carmelita*
- Poor Poor Pitiful Me
- Dirty Life and Times
- Keep Me in Your Heart*
- Werewolves of London
- The French Inhaler
- Desperados Under the Eaves
*Does not appear on the LP.
