Van Zandt

Pancho & Lefty
$0.99

Rear View Mirror
$8.99
I have the TVZ album "For The Sake Of A Song" on vinyl that I bought new back in the day. I've been playing some of my old albums lately and was really happy to hear his music again; so I thought I'd see if I could find some other stuff by him. Well, this collection is great! As another reviewer said, some may consider it rough, but I love it. I've played this album over and over and love it. I may purchase another CD by him that I sampled on Amazon; "A Far Cry From Dead".

The fiddle in the back-up group on this release is super; kinda like Dylan's last good release (Desire).

To summarize; this is a great album that I would recommend to anyone that is into this type of music.

Live at the Old Quarter
$16.99
I will freely admit that I came to a love of Townes Van Zandt's music fairly late, and that he should have been on my radar long before I came to advocate his music with my current passion. After all, I had been impressed with Emmylou Harris' cover of Pancho & Lefty almost as soon as it appeared on her breakthrough album, Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town, and that was a long, long time ago. But like many lovers of Van Zandt's poetry - and he is one of the few songwriters I will definitely refer to as a poet - he just didn't come to my attention as a performer or a songwriter until his life was over, and for that, I owe him a great amends.

Despite the fact that his legend has grown since his untimely death on New Year's Day in 1997, Townes Van Zandt remains a woefully underappreciated talent. Between his first album (For the Sake of The Song, 1968), recorded at the age of 24, and his death at age 52, Van Zandt's output grew to an astonishing number of releases - at least 39 albums, according to some sources, if you include compilations - yet he still remains largely unknown to the general public, and a large segment of his output, especially his later recordings, continues to be out-of-print and unavailable. In looking over the track listing on many of his albums, one will note that he seemed to record some of his earlier songs over and over, but I now realize that this can be attributed to the fact that he just couldn't seem to keep many of his early releases in print, and he probably revisited many of his best pieces out of a fear that they might be lost forever. This is not to be construed as a bad sign - I have long been of the opinion that obscurity, coupled with a prolific but largely ignored body of work, is usually a sign of unbridled genius in many a recording artist, and often a source of deep musical satisfaction for those lucky enough to find them.

In fact, relative obscurity has come to be a defining commonality in many of my favorite singers or singer/songwriters through the years - from Billie Holiday - whose fame languished in the shadows until shortly after her death - to my favorite vocalist, Tracy Nelson, who still seems to be appreciated only by a select few. Not to worry; Tracy is alive and well and still working, and I am confident that she, like Van Zandt, will eventually get her due, if no for other reason than, like him, her talents are frequently trumpeted by her musical peers. As for me, I can be rather dense at times, and it took me a long time to realize that there really is such a thing as a "singer's singer" or in Van Zandt's case, a "songwriter's songwriter". Of course, such trite accolades, however true, should be used sparingly, if they are to have any real meaning at all, but twelve years after his death, Townes Van Zandt is definitely worthy of such a title. Long championed by Country and Folk mega-talents, the name of Townes Van Zandt continues to be whispered reverently by a plethora of his peers, despite a woefully overproduced atmosphere in many of his early recordings. Still, I should have known long ago that he had the chops to be mentioned with the best of them, when Tracy Nelson herself once mentioned to me that she was an admirer of his work. What goes around come around, as they say, and I am constantly amazed that the people I most respect in music always seem to share a deep admiration for each other's work.

I was lucky enough to become acquainted with Van Zandt's early songs through the now-rare boxed set, Texas Troubadour, which contained his first seven studio albums complete and intact, together with eight of the songs included in Live at the Old Quarter. But while those eight songs - each of which were not previously recorded on early studio albums - merely rounded out the Troubadour boxed set, in its entirety, Live at the Old Quarter is a far more appealing and artistically pure rendering of Townes Van Zandt at his finest. In fact, I believe that the 26 songs featured on the live album Live at the Old Quarter represent Van Zandt at his absolute zenith. Recorded with only the stark accompaniment of his guitar and the appreciative applause of a small, tight audience, Live at the Old Quarter arguably represents Townes Van Zandt's finest moments before a microphone - at least those that I've heard so far, although, again I must admit, I am still working on acquiring as much his work as I can get my hands on.

The album notes mistakenly announce that all songs lyrics and music on Live at the Old Quarter were written by Van Zandt, but a few were not, notably Merle Travis' Nine Pound Hammer, Cocaine Blues and Chauffer's Blues, a song that has popped up in the repertoire of blues singers from Memphis Minnie to, well, Tracy Nelson. But besides these covers, some of Van Zandt's greatest compositions are included in Live at the Old Quarter, including the celebrated Pancho & Lefty and If I Needed You, two tunes raised to immortality as a result of covers by other singers. Live at the Old Quarter also offers sparsely arranged and heartfelt versions of Waiting `Round To Die, Tecumseh Valley, Tower Song, For the Sake of the Song, Don't You Take It Too Hard, Lungs, Kathleen and No Place to Fall, among others. All in all, the album easily contains a dozen more poetic gems than can be found on the best single releases of almost any other country or folk artist of the last fifty years. The more I listen to Townes Van Zandt, and I can - and do, sometimes - listen to Townes Van Zandt for months on end, the more I am convinced he just may be the best songwriter of the 20th Century.

In fact, Steve Earle once remarked that Townes Van Zandt was, "the best songwriter in the whole world and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that", to which Van Zandt famously replied, "I've met Bob Dylan's bodyguards and if Steve Earle thinks he can stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table, he's sadly mistaken". He needn't have bothered. At this point, Van Zandt's reputation has been validated and his legacy assured, not only by the fellow musicians who love his work, but by the wonderful music he has left behind in releases such as Live at the Old Quarter.

Highly recommended.

High, Low And In Between
$9.49
The main points of this review have been used to review other Townes Van Zandt CDs.

Readers of this space are by now very aware that I am in search of and working my way through various types of American roots music. In shorthand, running through what others have termed "The American Songbook". Thus I have spent no little time going through the work of seemingly every musician who rates space in the august place. From blues giants, folk legends, classic rock `n' roll artists down through the second and third layers of those milieus out in the backwoods and small, hideaway music spots that dot the American musical landscape. I have also given a nod to more R&B, rockabilly and popular song artists then one reasonably need to know about. I have, however, other than the absolutely obligatory passing nods to the likes of Hank Williams and Patsy Cline spent very ink on more traditional Country music, what used to be called the Nashville sound. What gives?

Whatever my personal musical preferences there is no question that the country music work of, for example, the likes of George Jones, Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette in earlier times or Garth Brooks and Faith Hill a little later or today Keith Urban and Taylor Swift (I am cheating on these last two since I do not know their work and had to ask someone about them) "speak" to vast audiences out in the heartland. They just, for a number of reasons that need not be gone into here, do not "speak" to me. However, in the interest of "full disclosure" I must admit today that I had a "country music moment" about thirty years ago. That was the time of the "outlaws" of the country music scene. You know, Waylon (Jennings) and Willie (Nelson). Also Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and Jerry Jeff Walker. Country Outlaws, get it? Guys and gals ( think of Jesse Colter)who broke from the Nashville/ Grand Old Opry mold by drinking hard, smoking plenty of dope and generally raising the kind of hell that the pious guardians of the Country Music Hall Of Fame would have had heart attacks over (at least in public). Oh, and did I say they wrote lyrics that spoke of love and longing, trouble with their "old ladies" (or "old men"), and struggling to get through the day. Just an ordinary day's work in the music world but with their own outlandish twists on it.

All of the above is an extremely round about way to introduce the "max daddy" of my 'country music moment', Townes Van Zandt. For those who the name does not ring a bell perhaps his most famous work does, the much-covered "Pancho And Lefty". In some ways his personal biography exemplified the then "new outlaw" (assuming that Hank Williams and his gang were the original ones). Chronic childhood problems, including a stint in a mental hospital, drugs, drink, and some rather "politically incorrect" sexual attitudes. Nothing really new here, except out of this mix came some of the most haunting lyrics of longing, loneliness, depression, sadness and despair. And that is the "milder" stuff. Not exactly the stuff of Nashville. That is the point. The late Townes Van Zandt "spoke" to me (he died in 1997) in a way that Nashville never could. And, in the end, the other outlaws couldn't either. That, my friends, is the saga of my country moment. Listen up to any of the CDs reviewed here for the reason why Townes did.

Townes Van Zandt was, due to personal circumstances and the nature of the music industry, honored more highly among his fellow musicians than as an outright star of "outlaw" country music back in the day. That influence was felt through the sincerest form of flattery in the music industry- someone well known covering your song. Many of Townes' pieces, especially since his untimely death in 1997, have been covered by others, most famously Willie Nelson's cover of "Pancho and Lefty". However, Townes, whom I had seen a number of times in person in the late 1970's, was no mean performer of his own darkly compelling songs. "Greensboro Woman", "To Live Is To Fly" and the mournful "If I Needed You" stick out here.