Steve Earle

by j. poet • May 14, 2009

Steve Earle
Townes
(New West, 2009)

"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." Steve Earle did say that, back in 1995, a few years before Van Zandt died, and it's still true. Van Zandt was part of the crazed Texas alt-country, folk-poet crew of the early '70s that included Guy Clark, Jerry Jeff Walker, Mickey Newbury, and other wild-ass characters. Van Zandt may have been the best songwriter among them, but his style defied easy categorization, making him impossible to market. He was a folkie, poet, country singer, mystic, ne'er do well, bluesman, beatnik, dreamer, manic depressive, troublemaker, and clown with an IQ that was beyond genius. He wrote unforgettable minor-key melodies that carried lyrics of indescribable sadness and grief, but his antisocial tendencies and poor business sense kept him out of the spotlight for most of his life. Many of his best records went out of print as soon as they were released, even classics like Flyin' Shoes (recently reissued by Fat Possum) and High, Low and in Between/The Late Great Townes Van Zandt, which you can still find as a twofer on EMI's Acoustic Highway subdivision. Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard cut one of Van Zandt's best tunes, "Pancho and Lefty", on their album of the same name. It was a #1 country hit in 1983, but it still didn't pull Van Zandt out of his self-destructive cycle. He was only 52 when he drank himself to death on January 1, 1997. By the way, Van Zandt replied to Earle's famous quote by saying, "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."

The best way to hear Townes Van Zandt is to pick up one of his albums. That being said, Earle does an excellent job of introducing people to the work of his fallen friend on Townes. Earle steers clear of two obvious pitfalls: He avoids most of Van Zandt's "hits" to concentrate on his lesser-known tunes, and he doesn't try to duplicate Van Zandt's arrangements or singing. He puts his own stamp on the material and lets the songs speak for themselves. He starts off with Van Zandt's only real hit, "Pancho and Lefty", giving the song a stark, minimal reading with only acoustic guitar and bass with a bit of banjo on the outro. Van Zandt never made any bluegrass records, but his tunes had a lonesome quality perfectly fitted to the genre, so "White Freightliner Blues", "Delta Momma Blues", and "Don't Take It Too Bad" sound great in their old-time bluegrass getups, with "Don't Take It Too Bad" sounding particularly melancholy. Love songs, all with a touch of desperate longing at their core, include "No Place to Fall" and "(Quicksilver Daydreams of) Maria", minor-key laments so distressing that they're hard to listen to. Van Zandt also wrote faux folk songs, like "Rake" and "Marie", that sound as bleak as a traditional Appalachian murder ballad. "Loretta", an actual love song, gets remade as a rockin' sea shanty to emphasize its Celtic feel. Allison Moorer's backing vocals add a touch of gospel to the arrangement.

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