Varese Records
Somewhere between quiet country-folk
song and hard driving blues, lies the lyrics and melodies
of Van Zandt. His songs are filled with the kind of
haunting truth and beauty that comes straight from his
soul and which stay in yours forever.
On New Year's day 1997, what had been a self-mocking
album title, The Late Great Townes Van Zandt,
came true. A lifetime of hard living caught up to this
legendary songwriter whose body weakened by alcohol had a
heart attack while in for surgery for a broken hip.
Born in 1944, a son of an oil executive led, Van Zandt
and his family moved around a lot: Montana, Colorado,
Minnesota, Illinois, among other places. Van Zandt spent
a couple years in a military academy and a bit more time
in college in Colorado before dropping out to become a
folksinger. The wanderlust never left him and he soon
became notorious for travelling and touring throughout
the United States.
Movng to Houston, he got his first paying gigs on the
folk music circuit in the mid-'60s where he met Mickey
Newbury, a songwriter who helped set Van Zandt up with a
recording session. His debut album, For The Sake
of the Song, was released in 1968 and the
following five years proved to be his most prolific as
Poppy records released, Our
Mother the Mountain, Townes Van Zandt,
Delta Mama Blues,
High, Low and
In-Between, and The Late, Great Townes Van Zandt.
These albums, with singles such as For the
Sake of the Song, Tecumseh Valley and Pancho
and Lefty established Townes as a legendary figure
among European and American songwriters. In 1987, Van Zandt returned to recording after a
decade long hiatus with his eighth studio album,
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At My Window,
which came out on his new label, Sugar Hill. By this
time, his voice had dropped to a lower register, but his
newer mature and weathered voice was as pure and
expressive as ever. Two years later, Sugar Hill released Live and Obscure
(recorded in a Nashville club in 1985), and two more live
albums (Rain on a Conga
Drum and Rear
View Mirror) appeared on European labels
in the early '90s. In 1990, Van Zandt toured with the
Cowboy Junkies, and he wrote a song for them, Cowboy
Junkies Lament, which appeared on the group's Black Eyed Man
album (along with a song the Junkies wrote for him, Townes
Blues).
Despite his warm, dusty-sweet voice, as a singer Van
Zandt never had anything resembling a hit in his nearly
30-year recording career; he had a hard enough time
simply keeping his records in print. Nonetheless, he was
widely respected and admired as one of the greatest
country and folk artists of his generation. The long list
of singers who've covered his songs includes Merle
Haggard and Willie Nelson (who had a number one country
hit with "Pancho and Lefty" in 1983), Emmylou
Harris, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Nanci Griffith, Hoyt Axton,
Bobby Bare, the Tindersticks, and the Cowboy Junkies.
The Townes Van Zandt Anthology 1968-1979
is a 2 disc package with 40 digitally remastered tracks
which represent the genius of this songwriter. Each track
was hand picked to try to achieve an impossible task, to
tell the tale of a travlling man. Some songs are
nightmares, some are jokes, while others are classics,
but each are truly made to resemble Van Zandt's character
including those rare songs written by others (Hank
Williams, L. Williams, E.McDaniel and Guy Clark). The
only possible complaint could be in the songs that are
missing rather than those included; rarities, bootlegs
and songs from later in the legend's career would have
made for a more complete example of his work.
By Aly Hirji, CanEHdian.com
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