Session Work
In 1972, he was hired by Warren Zevon to play guitar on The Everly Brothers Stories We Could Tell album and join them in a subsequent tour.
By 1973, he was being approached by various artists and producers to play on their albums, and hooked up with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, playing on their first album Buckingham Nicks (simply featured as 'Waddy'), and touring with the band. Later, when Nicks and Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac, he played rhythm guitar on their 1975 eponymous album on a few tracks.
In 1980, he wrote, recorded and sang lead vocals on an album for producer Peter Asher with members of Linda Ronstadt's band, including musicians Don Grolnick, Dan Dugmore, and Rick Marotta. Both the group and the album were titled Ronin. Released on the Mercury label, the record never charted. The release party at the Golden Bear nightclub in Huntington Beach was attended by many top names from the California Sound period including Jackson Browne, Andrew Gold, John David Souther and Peter Asher himself. Watchel and Ronin were joined onstage by several others in what was considered a barn burner of an encore for its day.
He has appeared on hundreds of albums over the years, and has been a mainstay of the Los Angeles music scene. Among the artists and bands he has worked with are The Everly Brothers, Jackson Browne, Kim Carnes, Rosanne Cash, The Church, The Cowsills, Bob Dylan, Silver Condor, Gilby Clarke, Melissa Etheridge, Bryan Ferry, Bernard Fowler, Andrew Gold, Don Henley, Carole King, Miranda Lambert, The Motels, Maria Muldaur, Randy Newman, Steve Perry, Iggy Pop, Bonnie Raitt, Keith Richards, Linda Ronstadt, Adam Sandler, Bob Seger, Carly Simon, The Rolling Stones, James Taylor, Tom Waits, Warren Zevon and Laura Allan.
Production credits include albums by Keith Richards, Jackson Browne, Bryan Ferry, The Church, Sand Rubies, George Thorogood and the Destroyers and Warren Zevon. Wachtel co-wrote several songs with Zevon including "Werewolves of London," for which he wrote the opening verse (which was voted by BBC Radio 2 listeners as the greatest ever in 2004). He also co-wrote the Warren Zevon song "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead." He performed and co-produced the first two Zevon albums, considered his classics, and was a major contributor to the Warren Zevon sound. He is much quoted throughout the new book on Zevon's life, written by Crystal Zevon, entitled I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. Zevon complimented Wachtel on a radio interview with Redbeard in the Studio, when he said that introducing anyone to Wachtel was a wonderful thing to do, and that he'd met a lot of musical connections through him.
Read more about this topic: Waddy Wachtel
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