Lenny Zakatek – Zakatek
You may not know the name, but you do know the voice, at least if you’re of a certain age. Lenny Zakatek lent his distinctive, raw vocals to numerous Alan Parsons Project hits in the 1970s, including “I Wouldn’t Want To Be Like You” and “Games People Play”; for Zakatek’s debut solo album, Parsons was on hand to produce, to return the favor. The result is fairly typical late 1970s fare, showcasing a wider range of material than one might expect from Zakatek if one’s only prior exposure was his Project guest shots.
For one thing, Parsons and cohort Eric Woolfson would “cast” new material with certain vocalists in mind, and Zakatek used to wind up with bluesy, throat-thrasing numbers. For his own album, on which he’s singing everything for a change, Zakatek gets a chance to show off some more soulful chops – he’s not screaming every song at you.
With Parsons in the control booth, some of the songs get turned into epics, with female backup singers and orchestral backing aplenty. Only two songs are strong reminders of his roaring vocal work for Parsons’ group, “Doin’ It Right” and the extremely memorable “It’s A Dancer.”
Sadly, this album has faded into obscurity, without even a CD release, then or now. The influences and styles prevalent in 1979 keep it from being mistaken for anything you’d describe as “timeless”; more than a few of the songs are disco-lite. I’d be extremely surprised to see this 
album show up on anything other than the original vinyl. A pity, since it’s an album that offers a glimpse into the other side of one of the more distinctive voices dominating the radio in the 1970s. Given how popular his songs for Parsons were, it’s honestly a bit of a surprise that Lenny Zakatek’s solo debut didn’t make a slightly bigger splash.
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- Do It Right (3:55)
- One Is A Lonely Number (4:30)
- Was It Easy (3:20)
- Keep A Little Sunshine (3:54)
- Memories (3:45)
- Viens (4:30)
- We Will Never Find (5:10)
- It’s A Dancer (4:45)
Couldn’t We Try (4:30)
Released by: A&M
Release date: 1979
Total running time: 38:29
It wasn’t a concept album, although it just as well could’ve been. 11 songs about the dark, seedy underbelly of Los Angeles and its inhabitants make up this eponymous album by Warren Zevon, his first release for a major label (although he released his first album, 1969’s Wanted Dead Or Alive prior to this). Not only does the album recall California lyrically, but the sidemen and guest vocalists read like a who’s who of the music scene in that area: Jackson Browne, Lindsey Buckingham, Don Henley and Glenn Frey, Bonnie Raitt and Carl Wilson just to name a few.
Although not well received upon release (it barely scratched the Top 200), Warren Zevon has since become known as one of Zevon’s finest outings as a songwriter. All the songs here are tightly written with nary a clunker or throwaway, containing copious amounts of Zevon’s trademark wit and humor. It remains catchy without being “radio-friendly”, and set the stage for his career as one of the best songwriters of his day. This album should not be missed.
One can be forgiven for sometimes thinking that the post-Beatles British invasion bands were a dime a dozen, but every once in a while one emerged which kept itself afloat on the power of its own prodigious talents. Some, like The Move, spread their wings immediately and mixed deft Fab Four homages with experimenation in other styles. The Zombies, however, stayed a bit closer to home, sticking fast to the beat group parameters and even borrowing some of the Beatles’ trademark maneuvers, such as covering old blues tunes (including “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me”, a Smokey Robinson classic which had already been appropriated by the Beatles). But it’s sometimes easy to overlook that the Zombies had their own dynamic duo in the form of Rod Argent (later of Argent) and Colin Blunstone (who, among other solo and session work, has done guest lead vocals for the Alan Parsons Project). While some of the Zombies’ material sometimes washes into the background of Beatles imitators, there are some bright gems which singled them out for praise.