Saturday, December 15, 2007

The Late Great...


Townes Van Zandt that is. Singer/songwriter supreme, but outside of a small circle of ardent admirers he´s not exactly a household name, even though Steve Earle once proclaimed that ´Townes is the best songwriter in the world and I´ll stand on Bob Dylan´s coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that.´

Townes could be very funny, he could be heartbreakingly sad. He rambled, he drank and he always played his heart out. If you ever wondered if his life was really as tragic as you hear sometimes, here´s some good news. Finally there´s a biography of the man out: To Live´s To Fly by John Kruth. I intend to buy it as soon as the paperback version becomes available.

To keep you busy in the meantime here are two songs (both sad ones btw) by the maestro. Tecumseh Valley is off his second album My Mother The Mountain and it´s a song that literally gets me anytime. For The Sake Of The Song comes from from a great bootleg that was recorded on 9 November ´73 at the Whole Coffeehouse in Minneapolis.

Townes Van Zandt - Tecumseh Valley (live ´73) MP3
Townes Van Zandt - For The Sake Of The Song (live ´73) MP3

1 comment:

Unknown said...

hi - i've been enjoying your blog since seeing it listed on "keep the coffee.." last december. i was in the tiny group that saw townes in the UofM studentunion basement in november of '73. (i'm also a shangri-las and velvets fan so we have that weirdness in common.)we might be able to do some trades? if at all interested i'm witsend@newportnet.com -drop me a line. thanks - jim