L.A. Music: Waddy!

While listening to some of my music downloads the other night,  I got the idea of showcasing some of my favorite songs and artists every Friday.  To make it a little more fun and challenging, I'm narrowing my focus down to just music that comes out my hometown, the L.A./Southern California region.  (Maybe sometimes I'll inch up the coast to NorCal, but that might feel like cheating.)

For my very first installment, I'm talking about Waddy Wachtel.  Earlier this week (maybe the same night I got the urge to listen to music) my family was sitting around the dinner table watching Palladia, a music channel that features lots of concert footage.  There was my girl Stevie Nicks, singing "Landslide," and there playing lead guitar was a familiar-looking dude with crazy long, blond curly hair.  "WADDY!"  I yelled.

Who?!, asked my family  "That's Waddy Wachtel," I said, getting all fired up as I do when I'm talking about music dear to my heart.

So, if you're like my husband and kids, and have no idea who the hell Waddy might be, let's get schooled:

Waddy Wachtel is a guitarist, a session musician and back-up singer who played with just about every major artist coming out of the L.A. scene in the early to mid 1970s:  J.D. Souther, Jackson Browne, Karla Bonoff, Warren Zevon, Buckingham-Nicks (first band of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks),  and Linda Ronstadt.  To name just a few.   The reason I know Waddy's name is that I spent hours and hours of my girlhood listening to many of those same artists, but none more than Linda Ronstadt (who deserves and will surely get her own separate post in my series).  And when I wasn't warbling along to every song, I was busy reading the liner notes of the albums (because yes, I'm that old).  And listed as a session player, over and over, on album after album, was Waddy.

I love this pic: Waddy to the left of Linda, J.D. Souther on her right.
Photo from here.

According to his Wikipedia site, Waddy (sorry, have to call him by his first name), has toured as member of Keith Richard's band, the X-Pensive Winos, and is currently the lead guitarist and musical director for Stevie Nicks (which explains the Palladia segment).   And God bless Wikipedia for also cluing me into this awesome fact:  Waddy was one of the band members filmed playing as the boat capsizes in the Poseiden Adventure. 

We can't just talk about music without playing some.  So here's a brief YouTube clip of Waddy playing and singing with Linda Ronstandt, on her cover of Warren Zevon's "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me."  This clip is from the kinda awful, kinda awesome late-70s movie FM.  (I think FM also requires a separate post.)  (It stars Martin Mull, which should explain a lot.)

Enjoy. And have a rockin' Friday.