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Patti Lupone

At Les Mouches

Ghostlight



"I wanted people to know I was a brown-haired, brown-eyed comedienne, and not a blonde fascist tap dancer," writes Patti Lupone by way of explaining how she decided to perform a cabaret act every Saturday at midnight for 27 weeks in 1980 after bringing down the house in "Evita."

The current "Gypsy" star pulled out all the stops for her devoted Les Mouches audiences, and this collection of digitally restored performances is a wonderful way to relive that fabulous pre-
AIDS era.



In addition to a few songs from "Evita," including of course "Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina," Lupone sang an eclectic assortment of tunes. A brassy belter, Lupone comes off as a sophisticated cosmopolitan on 
this nicely curated collection of standards ("Love For Sale"), campy dance tunes ("Heaven Is a Disco"), rockers ("Because the Night"), hoochie-coochie jazz ("I’ve Got Those Feeling Too Good Today Blues"), 
and psychedelic folk songs (a particularly wistful "Mr. Tambourine Man"). But you can also hear Lupone’s reputation as the "people’s diva" emerging in her nervous laughter, shout-outs to visiting celebs, and awkward-yet-endearing patter between songs.


Warren Zevon


Warren Zevon


Asylum/Rhino



The late rocker Warren Zevon colorfully chronicled the Los Angeles rock demimonde he inhabited on his 1976 breakthrough album, reissued here with an extra CD’s worth of solo piano demos and alternate takes.



Originally produced by Jackson Browne, with musical assistance from pals in the Eagles, the candidly autobiographical "Warren Zevon" opens with "Frank and Jesse James," a song for and about his former employers, Phil and Don Everly. "Mama Couldn’t Be Persuaded" memorializes his parents’ unlikely marriage, "The French Inhaler" sticks it to his unfaithful ex-wife, and the concluding "Desperados Under the Eaves" recalls a particularly low point in his career.



Zevon couldn’t blame anyone but himself for any subsequent career mishaps once Linda Ronstadt covered four of his songs. Not least, she named her hit album after Zevon’s "Hasten Down the Wind." And if the bleak-yet-bouncy "Warren Zevon" sounds a little dated today, it’s primarily because the singer’s raw, naive voice doesn’t meet the current, exaggerated vocal standards.