‘70s Rock Stars Gather to Help a Friend

If you had seen a bill of Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, David Lindley, David Crosby and Graham Nash 15 or 20 years ago, you could have bet that there was some far-reaching cause involved--the No Nukes campaign or Central American struggles, typically. But not on Sunday at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

This one was personal.

Those five artists topped Sunday’s benefit to help defray medical costs of Yvonne Calderon, the wife of their fellow musician Jorge Calderon, who needs a liver and kidney transplant because of a hereditary condition. The global ideals of the past may have faded, but as with the same ‘70s California rock community’s recent memorial concerts for singer Nicolette Larson and another benefit for the Calderons last year, this gesture of acting very locally at once gives the ideals a human touch and reinforces the highly personal qualities of these artists’ best music.

Browne in particular has rediscovered those core strengths in recent years. His renewal was abundantly clear Sunday, when he formed his headlining set nearly entirely of recent material without loss of emotional connection. Such newer songs as “Alive in the World” poetically echo his earlier “Fountain of Sorrow” and “The Pretender,” drawing a solid line between the probings of someone just this side of 20 to those of someone now approaching 50.

Zevon was always something of Browne’s evil twin--the crusty Hemingway to his friend’s contemplative Thoreau. He didn’t disappoint on that level, reviving such harsh adventures as “Lawyers, Guns and Money” and “Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me” with guitarist Waddy Wachtel leading the hardest-rocking moments of the evening. But Zevon, too, got sentimental when he was joined by Crosby on an acoustic prayer featuring the lines, “Don’t let us get sick, don’t let us get old, don’t let us get stupid . . . let us be together tonight.”

Crosby and Nash offered a brief set of their meditative harmonizing, while gospel-soul singer Terry Evans, veteran singer Jennifer Warnes and the ever-eccentric strings master Lindley added their own personal touches.