Wow - Townes Van Zandt

Knoxville-Horn

Knoxville-Horn

1,000+ Posts
Ok, I'm one of the younger crowd AND my parents were kind of Broadway/Classical music/ hippies. So, I had never heard of Townes Van Zandt until I recently came across his music while trying to find a song from Friday Night Lights.

Listening to his music really, really puts me back on our family farm outside of Comanche, TX. My grandfather - whom I spent a lot of time with at a younger age - was an old-school, Willie Nelson, Marty Robbins-type cowboy. He used to drag me all over Hill Country as he was a linesman for the phone company.

We spent time in Llano, Wimberley, Marble Falls, etc... Maybe I'm just nostalgic this morning, but I'm really being taken back.

Thank you TVZ. Great stuff... I miss my grandfather and I miss Texas.
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Townes is indeed the bomb. Check out a couple of DVDs - Hearworn Highways and Be Here to Love Me. There is also a biography - To Live is to Fly. All great places to learn more about TVZ.
 
was lucky enough to have seen him many many times. sometimes he would fall asleep on his barstool drunk or all hopped up on something. mickey white would take over and play some of his songs. u always knew u were in for a bad night when townes did this land is ur land. always a sign he was messed up.

anyway. i bartended at the cactus for several yrs. saw many a good show too. kerrville, emmajoes, etc. when he was on, he was on. have an autographed album too. one thing that always surprised me about him was no matter how messed up he was, he would always remember a request, and always played it too.

funny guy, nice guy, but a tormented guy.
 
welcome to the club -- be sure to take your time with the TVZ catalog, be sure to enjoy Steve Earle, Guy Clark and others. Some of the best songwriters ever. One of my favorite introduction CDs is Together at the Bluebird wtih those three. I still listen to it all the time.
 
High, Low and In Between and The Late Great Townes Van Zandt are reissued together on an extended cd. Great stuff. Have you seen the documentary about him? Very sad.
 
Haven't seen the documentary but I've read some about his life. I read something about how he went through shock therapy which erased much of his long-term memory.
 
Last bit of one of my all-time favorite songs:

The poets tell how Pancho fell
Lefty's livin' in a cheap hotel
The desert's quiet and Cleveland's cold
So the story ends we're told
Pancho needs your prayers it's true,
But save a few for Lefty too
He just did what he had to do
Now he's growing old

A few gray federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him go so wrong
Out of kindness I suppose
 
Blkshoes, That is some great info. Thanks for posting it. It is a shame he couldn't shake his demons, although I imagine watching him go through that is one reason people like Steve Earle were able to finally get their **** together. I also wonder if they didn't have these demons, who they be able to do what they do?

Can you imagine sitting in Guy Clark's living room with Steve Earle, Townes, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, and whoever else happened in?

TVZ, Gram Parsons and tons of others are just that...tormented and tortured souls. I always thought that Ryan Adams was on the same path until Emmylou Harris got her hands on him during that Gram Parsons tribute album. He seems to straighten up somewhat after that....though still an *******, and not necessarily a nice guy, he did clean up ....a bit anyway. I really thought he would be dead by now.
 
I didn't run in the same circles as Ryan Adams when he lived in Austin, but those who did said he was a giant alcoholic. I don't know if that was pre-Emmy or post-Emmy, but I hope (for his sake) it was "pre".
 
i got a huge compliment from Janice Williams (use to do the afternoon show on KVET). she told me my song reminded her of Townes.

had a few drops of pee from the excitement.
 
badexcuse,
I actually just got Heartworn Highways in the mail yesterday and watched it last night....GREAT stuff.

I came across it after wasting time on youtube the other day and coming across this:The Link
 
JJazz, I'm pretty sure that was pre-Emmylou. I think she saw a lot of Gram Parsons in Ryan so she kind of took him under her wing for a little bit. However, she seemed to disassociate herself with him after that. She is very strong-willed and I imagine she doesn't suffer drunken ******** very well.

I saw her one time several years ago where she described herself as "a bit of a curmudgeon".
 
I strongly second the reccomendation of his Live at the Old Quarter cd. Its hard to find in stores, but If you search it out you should be able to online. anyway, its an amazing album.
 
So does anyone here go back far enough to remember Townes in Houston in the middle 60's? He went by the name "John Townes Van Zandt" in those days, and was a regular at a coffee house called Sand Mountain. I think it was on Westheimer. Guy Clark and Jerry Jeff Walker were also pretty regular there in those days. The first song I ever learned to fingerpick was Cocaine Blues, learned from watching Townes play.
 
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