‘The soul of L.A.’: 20 years after his death, the stars are aligning for Warren Zevon

Shooter Jennings knew “Carmelita.” He knew “Lawyers, Guns and Money.” And of course he knew “Werewolves of London,” Warren Zevon’s 1978 rock hit about a “hairy-handed gent” on the prowl for “a big dish of beef chow mein.” “It’s kind of the low-hanging fruit” of Zevon’s catalog, Jennings says of “Werewolves,” which after scraping the top 20 of Billboard’s Hot 100 went on to reach new audiences in the late 2000s when Kid Rock borrowed its strutting groove for his song “All Summer Long.” But until three or four years ago, Jennings — the Los Angeles-based musician and Grammy-winning producer whose father is the late outlaw-country pioneer Waylon Jennings — had never dug deeply into Zevon’s work. “‘Accidentally Like a Martyr’ — God knows where you can go from there.” Warren Zevon, left, makes a final appearance on the “Late Show With David Letterman” on Oct. 30, 2002. By the mid-’70s, having put in a few years as the Everly Brothers’ musical director, he was ensconced in the L.A. soft-rock scene dominated by Fleetwood Mac — Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham were his roommates for a spell — and Jackson Browne, who produced “Warren Zevon”; the LP featured cameos by Nicks, Buckingham, Bonnie Raitt, the Eagles’ Glenn Frey and Don Henley and the Beach Boys’ Carl Wilson, who provided the elaborate vocal harmonies in “Desperados Under the Eaves.” Ronstadt went on to cover four of the album’s tunes, including “Carmelita” and “Poor Poor Pitiful Me,” which she made into a Top 40 radio hit. Listening to Warren Zevon, says Jennings, revealed “the most blatantly honest songwriting I’d ever encountered.” Jennings, who co-produced Brandi Carlile’s last two studio LPs — including “In These Silent Days,” which is nominated for album of the year at Sunday’s Grammy Awards — debuted his Zevon tribute at October’s Rebels & Renegades music festival in Monterey.