*Happy Birthday Townes -Once Again, Townes Van Zandt- From The Vaults- “In The Beginning”

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Townes Van Zandt performing "Tecumseh Valley".

CD Review

In The Beginning, Townes Van Zandt, Compadre Records, 2003

This main points in this review have been used in reviews of other Townes Van Zandt material.

Whatever my personal musical preferences there is no question that the country music work of, for example, the likes of George Jones, Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette in earlier times or Garth Brooks and Faith Hill a little later or today Keith Urban and Taylor Swift (I am cheating on these last two since I do not know their work and had to ask someone about them) "speak" to vast audiences out in the heartland. They just, for a number of reasons that need not be gone into here, do not "speak" to me. However, in the interest of "full disclosure" I must admit today that I had a "country music moment" about thirty years ago. That was the time of the "outlaws" of the country music scene. You know Waylon (Jennings) and Willie (Nelson). Also Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and Jerry Jeff Walker. Country Outlaws, get it? Guys and gals (think of Jesse Colter)who broke from the Nashville/ Grand Old Opry mold by drinking hard, smoking plenty of dope and generally raising the kind of hell that the pious guardians of the Country Music Hall Of Fame would have had heart attacks over (at least in public). Oh, and did I say they wrote lyrics that spoke of love and longing, trouble with their "old ladies" (or "old men"), and struggling to get through the day. Just an ordinary day's work in the music world but with their own outlandish twists on it.

All of the above is an extremely round about way to introduce the "max daddy" of my 'country music moment', Townes Van Zandt. For those who the name does not ring a bell perhaps his most famous work does, the much-covered "Pancho And Lefty". In some ways his personal biography exemplified the then "new outlaw" (assuming that Hank Williams and his gang were the original ones). Chronic childhood problems, including a stint in a mental hospital, drugs, drink, and some rather "politically incorrect" sexual attitudes. Nothing really new here, except out of this mix came some of the most haunting lyrics of longing, loneliness, depression, sadness and despair. And that is the "milder" stuff. Not exactly the stuff of Nashville. That is the point. The late Townes Van Zandt "spoke" to me (he died in 1997) in a way that Nashville never could. And, in the end, the other outlaws couldn't either. That, my friends, is the saga of my country moment. Listen up to any of the CDs listed below for the reason why Townes did.

Townes Van Zandt was, due to personal circumstances and the nature of the music industry, honored more highly among his fellow musicians than as an outright star of "outlaw" country music back in the day. That influence was felt through the sincerest form of flattery in the music industry- someone well known covering your song. Many of Townes' pieces, especially since his untimely death in 1997, have been covered by others, most famously Willie Nelson's cover of "Pancho and Lefty". However, Townes, whom I had seen a number of times in person in the late 1970's, was no mean performer of his own darkly compelling songs.

This compilation, “In The Beginning”, gives both the novice a Van Zandt primer and the aficionado a fine array of his core early works in one place. This material, as the extensive liner notes reveal, was material that Townes performed very early in his career and had mislaid to be released only in 2003 several years after his death. Pay particular attention to some of the lyrics that are harbingers of later work like “Tecumseh Valley” and “Don’t You Take It Too Bad”. For those who thought that Townes merely evolved into his dark lyrics this one will disabuse you of that notion. He was always dark. Stick outs here are: “Black Widow Blues”, Black Jack Mama”, “Colorado Bound”, and “Black Crow Blues”. Blues is the dues, okay.

Waiting Around To Die

townes van zandt

Sometimes I don't know where
This dirty road is taking me
Sometimes I can't even see the reason why
I guess I keep a-gamblin'
Lots of booze and lots of ramblin'
It's easier than just waitin' around to die


One time, friends, I had a ma
I even had a pa
He beat her with a belt once 'cause she cried
She told him to take care of me
Headed down to tennessee
It's easier than just waitin' around to die


I came of age and I found a girl
In a tuscaloosa bar
She cleaned me out and hit in on the sly
I tried to kill the pain, bought some wine
And hopped a train
Seemed easier than just waitin' around to die


A friend said he knew
Where some easy money was
We robbed a man, and brother did we fly
The posse caught up with me
And drug me back to muskogee
It's two long years I've been waitin' around to die


Now I'm out of prison
I got me a friend at last
He don't drink or steal or cheat or lie
His name's codine
He's the nicest thing I've seen
Together we're gonna wait around and die
Together we're gonna wait around and die

***Just An Old Country Boy- Bob Dylan’s “Nashville Skyline”

Click On Title To Link To Bob Dylan And Johnny Cash Doing Dylan’s “Girl From The North Country”

CD Review

Nashville Skyline, Bob Dylan, Columbia Records, 1969

In trying to get a handle on reviewing the long musical career of Bob Dylan I have worked under the general outline that his early work constituted one segment, his various ‘bootleg’ and ‘basement’ materials a second and the later post -1990s stuff a third. The album under review, “Nashville Skyline” falls under that first category. The work of this period is reviewed here under the sign of the following paragraph:

“In a review of Bob Dylan’s “The Freewheeling Bob Dylan” elsewhere in this space I noted:

In reviewing Bob Dylan’s 1965 classic album “Bringing All Back Home” (you know, the one where he went electric) I mentioned that it seemed hard to believe now that both as to the performer as well as to what was being attempted that anyone would take umbrage at a performer using an electric guitar to tell a folk story (or any story for that matter). I further pointed out that it is not necessary to go into all the details of what or what did not happen with Pete Seeger at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 to know that one should be glad, glad as hell, that Bob Dylan continued to listen to his own drummer and carry on a career based on electronic music.”

That said, originally I was not “glad as hell” when I first heard “Nashville Skyline”. I had no problem with Dylan protest songs like “Blowing In The Wind”. (In fact, those were the songs that first drew me to his work.) Nor did his turn to the electric guitar and to more personal, inward songs like “Desolation Row”. However, at the time of this album, I thought he had sold out to Nashville. Well, we are all wiser now and so that initial scorn has turned into at least partial delight.

A couple of things have contributed to that re-evaluation. First, seeing Dylan as part of the New York folk milieu of the early 1960’s hid the fact that he was raised in rural Hibbing, Minnesota (and influenced by the country sounds he picked up there in his youth). So while the Grand Ole Opry would be “square” to an urbanite like me it was the bill of fare for Dylan and others out there in the hinterlands. Secondly, it took me a long while to realize that Bob Dylan was deeply immersed and interested in knowing about and understanding the so-called American Songbook. If that is one’s frame of reference then country music has to be part of one’s musical repertoire. What really made the me shift though was hearing a ‘basement’ tape recording of Dylan in his hide out days in the mid-1960s (along with The Band) doing a hard to hear but incredible version of the country classic “I Forgot To Remember To Forget”. A lot of country artists cut their teeth on recording this one; virtually all have to take a back seat to Dylan on it. Including Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis. Who would have thought?

Needless to say the duo with Johnny Cash on Dylan’s “Girl from the North Country” stands up against the test of time. As do “Lay Lady Lay” and “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You”. The others you can judge for yourselves.

*******

Girl of the North Country Lyrics

Girl From the North Country

If you're travelin' in the north country fair,
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline,
Remember me to one who lives there.
For she once was a true love of mine.

If you go when the snowflakes storm,
When the rivers freeze and summer ends,
Please see she has a coat so warm,
To keep her from the howlin' winds.

Please see if her hair hangs long,
If it rolls and flows all down her breast.
Please see for me if her hair's hanging long,
For that's the way I remember her best.

I'm a-wonderin' if she remembers me at all.
Many times I've often prayed
In the darkness of my night,
In the brightness of my day.

So if you're travelin' the north country fair,
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline,
Remember me to one who lives there.
For she once was a true love of mine.