In 1981,
Warren Zevon told a reporter from Rolling Stone about the strange genesis of his first album: "In 1969, [producer]
Kim Fowley called me up one day and asked very simply, 'Are you prepared to wear black leather and chains, f---- a lot of teenage girls and get rich?' I said yes."
Zevon had been bouncing around the margins of the L.A. rock scene for several years as a songwriter and would-be pop star when
Fowley (at that point best known as the man who wrote, sang, and produced "Alley Oop" by
the Hollywood Argyles) offered him a record deal. While
Zevon doubtless welcomed the opportunity (and the advance), that's not to say that
Fowley was the right collaborator for him or that
Zevon had an album's worth of good songs ready at the time.
Wanted Dead or Alive is an odd, poorly focused, and frankly meandering set of tunes that sounds like blues-tinged folk-rock without suggesting the fire or caustic wit that would be
Zevon's hallmarks when he broke through in the '70s.
Zevon has said that
Fowley politely bowed out of the sessions for
Wanted Dead or Alive when it became obvious he wasn't teen idol material, but while the music generally doesn't have the gimmicky Hollywood sound that usually brands
Fowley's work, it doesn't really sound like
Warren Zevon, either. There are a few tunes that faintly anticipate the more interesting and intelligent work that was to come from
Zevon, most notably the lovelorn "Tule's Blues," the Western tale "A Bullet for Ramona," and the bitter breakup number "She Quit Me," but for the most part
Wanted Dead or Alive is a mildly embarrassing skeleton in
Warren Zevon's closet, and only dedicated completists need concern themselves with it. ~ Mark Deming