Townes Van Zandt - Live at The Old Quarter, Houston, Texas
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CD Details
Artist: Townes Van ZandtEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
CD Release Date: 2008-06-24
Music Label: Fat Possum/TVZ Records
Soundtracks:
- Announcement
- Pancho & Lefty
- Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold
- Don't You Take it Too Bad
- Two Girls
- Fraternity Blues
- If I Needed You
- Brand New Companion
- White Freightliner Blues
- To Live Is To Fly
- She Came and She Touched Me
- Talking Thunderbird Blues
- Rex's Blues
- Nine Pound Hammer
- For The Sake of The Song
- Chauffeur's Blues
- No Place To Fall
- Loretta
- Kathleen
- Why She's Acting This Way
- Cocaine Blues
- Who Do You Love
- Tower Song
- Waiting Around To Die
- Tecumseh Valley
- Lungs
- Only Him or Me
Music reviews of Live at The Old Quarter, Houston, Texas
Music Review: A Legacy Assured
Rating: 5 Stars
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.
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