Dad Get Me Out of This: The String Quartet Tribute to Warren Zevon

Vitamin String Quartet

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Dad Get Me Out of This: The String Quartet Tribute to Warren Zevon Review

by Mark Deming

Besides being the bloodthirsty black sheep of the Los Angeles Mellow Mafia, the late Warren Zevon was also a classically trained musician who tinkered with symphonies and wrote string quartet pieces to bridge several of the songs on his 1980 release Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School. All of which suggests that a collection of his songs arranged for a classical string ensemble might be a good idea, but The String Quartet Tribute to Warren Zevon: Daddy, Get Me Out of This sure isn't much of a testament to the man's music. The track listing leans toward Zevon's better known tunes, not all of which stand up well to the treatment, while leaving out songs that would likely have benefited more from a string arrangement, such as "Frank and Jesse James," "The Indifference of Heaven," or "They Moved the Moon." The arrangements are not especially imaginative, with the lead violin following the vocal melody from Zevon's recordings and the rest of the ensemble sawing away in a manner befitting the rhythm section on most of this album. And there's not even a real string quartet on these recordings; David Davidson holds down first-chair violin, while Todd Mark Rubenstein overdubs everything else, and the credit for an audio sampling library in the liner notes lends some weight to suspicions that you're hearing a synthesizer rather than real strings on several tracks (most notably "Detox Mansion"). If you're looking for a set of Zevon tunes you can play at dinner when your folks come to visit, The String Quartet Tribute to Warren Zevon: Daddy, Get Me Out of This will fill the bill, but beyond that, this disc does little to honor the man's musical legacy.

Track Listing

Title/Composer Performer Time Stream
1
Poor, Poor Pitiful Me
Warren Zevon
Vitamin String Quartet 03:19 SpotifyAmazon
2
Werewolves of London
LeRoy Marinell / Waddy Wachtel / Warren Zevon
Vitamin String Quartet 04:06 SpotifyAmazon
3
Detox Mansion
Jorge Calderón / Warren Zevon
Vitamin String Quartet 03:16 SpotifyAmazon
4
Excitable Boy
LeRoy Marinell / Warren Zevon
Vitamin String Quartet 02:32 SpotifyAmazon
5
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
Warren Zevon
Vitamin String Quartet 03:08 SpotifyAmazon
6
Hasten Down the Wind
Warren Zevon
Vitamin String Quartet 02:56 SpotifyAmazon
7
I Was in the House When the House Burned Down
Warren Zevon
Vitamin String Quartet 03:08 SpotifyAmazon
8
Keep Me in Your Heart
Jorge Calderón / Warren Zevon
Vitamin String Quartet 03:23 SpotifyAmazon
9
Lawyers, Guns and Money
Warren Zevon
Vitamin String Quartet 03:04 SpotifyAmazon
10
Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner
David Lindell / Warren Zevon
Vitamin String Quartet 03:50 SpotifyAmazon
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Dad Get Me Out of This: The String Quartet Tribute to Warren Zevon

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