Session Musician All-Stars

The Immediate Family was formed in 2018 by four of the best, and best-known, session musicians from the ’70s: guitarists and a drummer who played behind Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Carole King, various Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Phil Collins, on and on. I knew the names Waddy Wachtel, Danny Kortchmar and Russ Kunkel, although I couldn’t have recognized a one; and the liner notes said that bass player Leland Sklar, an unfamiliar name, had played on roughly 2,600 albums. Rounding out the group was a relative youngster, Tom Petty look-alike Steve Postell. Age, however, does not seem to have diminished their rock’n’roll chops, which were on full display in two  45-minute sets at the Lobero last night (4/2/19).

One unusual feature of the group was the absence of a keyboard or, for that matter, any instrument beyond one set of drums and four guitars. The guitar playing, especially by Wachtel, was masterful, and every song had a great rock’n’roll beat, you can’t lose it. Wachtel, Kortchmar and Postell were all quite competent singers; it always impresses me that a great instrumentalist can also sing so well. I’m also impressed when I find out that a beautiful woman is  a great actress – there’s no reason the two should go together – but here there was no trifecta of leading man looks. I even wondered if Wachtel’s strange looks had kept him from a solo career of his own.

The band kicked off the show with Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns and Money” – a song that Jackson Browne interestingly covered at his show last summer – which introduced their set of half originals, half covers, although they pointed out that they were actually “covering” songs they themselves had written. Unfortunately, although I longed to hear familiar tunes, the songs Kortchmar had penned for Don Henley were not my favorites: Dirty Laundry, All She Wants to Do Is Dance, New York Minute and something from the Perfect Beast. Ditto a James Taylor number, Machine Gun Kelly. My two favorite numbers were original compositions: High-Maintenance Girlfriend and Not That Kind of Guy.

Still, it was great to see old-timers doing what they love: rocking. I wonder and worry, once again, will this music die when our generation is gone?