Live: Jonathan Wilson with Jackson Browne @ Troubadour, 2.05.11

[imagebrowser id=7]

Jackson Browne / all photos by David Greenwald

I’ll confess, I arrived at the Troubadour on Saturday night looking forward to the headlining Autumn Defense and thinking little of Jonathan Wilson except for a twinge of regret over him not being Jonathan Richman. His band, almost too large for the Troubadour stage to hold, made a case for itself with a soft-focus, jammy take on Gram Parsons’ cosmic American music — a take that got considerably more interesting once Jackson Browne was called to the stage.

Browne joined on guitar and vocals for Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns and Money,” and a second song I didn’t recognize; I was too busy marveling at the man’s still-perfect coif. I’ve been meaning to recommend the Laurel Canyon BBC documentary that Aquarium Drunkard blogged about a few months back — regardless of your knowledge of the period, the footage of Buffalo Springfield-era Neil Young or a young Mr. Browne is well worth the two hours. With that on my mind, seeing him take the stage felt so important that my girlfriend had to remind me to leave the balcony and take photos. So I did.