Warren Zevon humor to wed geopolitical subtexts to hard-boiled narratives. Tracks from this album received heavy FM airplay, and the single release "Werewolves of London", which featured Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, was a relatively lighthearted version of Zevon's signature macabre outlook and a No. 21 success. The critic Dave Marsh, in "The Rolling Stone Record Guide" (1979), called Zevon "one of the toughest rockers ever to come out of Southern California". "Rolling Stone" record reviews editor Paul Nelson called the album one of the most significant releases of the 1970s and placed him alongside Neil Young, Jackson Browne, and Bruce Springsteen
Warren Zevon Lindley. Zevon toured the United States (with the Odds), Europe, Australia and New Zealand during this period. Owing to his reduced circumstances, his performances were often true solo efforts with minimal accompaniment on piano and guitar; the live album "Learning to Flinch" (1993) documents such a tour. The disc received some airplay on college radio and was considered Zevon's version of the MTV series "Unplugged". Zevon often played in Colorado to allow for an opportunity to visit with his longtime friend Hunter S. Thompson. A lifelong fan of hardboiled fiction, Zevon was friendly with several well-known writers, who also collaborated