More real Country Music . . . . . . . .now this is what I mean. The legendary tragic figure of Townes Van Zandt is an American poet of great note and of whom Steve Earle (another favourite) said
"Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world, and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that."
Pretty sure Bob felt much the same!
Townes Van Zandt died 24 years ago, on January 1, 1997 and this fine album dates from ten years earlier when he was settled with his third wife and their newborn son Will. You can hear his voice changing and it is not a perfect album by any means but the songwriting alone redeems it. His alcoholism presumably interrupted here while living the good life with wife and child but in ten years time he was dead from the effects of alcoholism and drug abuse. He was 52
Still the haunting sorrow of his voice, cracking at times, wavering on occasion seeps through these tales from Americana as only Van Zandt could express. Earle himself no stranger to the difficulties of substance abuse, misuse and otherwise at least he seems to have rescued himself from a similar fate. Now these album are both still commercially available (certainly here in the UK and while the solo album is down low in numbers Amazon claims they have more on order as opposed to approaching being out of print. 'Poet' the tribute seems to be readily available so if anyone wants me to take these down please just ask. I would encourage you to buy both and have provided links to UK Amazon to do just that. Both are well worth having.
Townes Van Zandt - 'At My Window' 1987 - Zero G Sounds
What happens when a great poet dies is folks gather and celebrate their work and some folks admire the choice of contributors and others find fault in the selection. I defy you to make that judgemnt here as 'Poet' a tribute from all the greats of new country music join forces to sing the works of the great writer singer songster. Containing 16 cuts by a stellar cast that includes everyone from Willie Nelson and Nanci Griffith to Lucinda Williams and John Prine with lots of folks in between.
Hi Andy - this album is a hidden treasure, one of my favourite bargain bin purchases ever (& I've made a few!) - Nanci Griffith's version of Tower Song is gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteThanks for dropping by Phil. Good to hear from you. It's a great album isn't it? The version from Nanci's own covers albums include Tecumseh Valley too as featured here, which I love as much as Tower Song (I think that Other Voices Other Rooms is where I came across Townes originally?! but I could be wrong) great writer.
ReplyDeleteThe bargain bin looms large in both our collections I think and you could look at at my webpage and think I was well off given the amount of singles and albums I say I bought 'when they came out' but it was days of scouring bargain bins and especially the singles where there was a fad in record shops (remember those?) of selling off ex-jukebox singles for pennies that I spent hours searching through.
Glad you still check in every now and again its appreciated. Email me when you have a sec and lets try to meet up for coffee?!