MovieChat Forums > Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt (2005) Discussion > Whats The Best Townes Albums after the 1...

Whats The Best Townes Albums after the 1970s?

posted 16 years ago by reidronnie72
7 replies | jump to latest

Its nice to read the same sort of unexplainable admiration I feel for Townes and his songs from so may other people.

The question I am asking is a difficult one. I have all of Townes Poppy recordings from throughout the 70s (including Live at the Old Quarter). All those albums are truly great. However, I have bought a couple of later albums and have been disappointed to find that its mostly the same classic 70s songs re-recorded (not always as well) with one or two new songs thrown in. I know some of his songs are repeated on the 70s albums too but they are still recognisable as new albums and not compilations with a couple of new songs.

It appears that by the time the 70s ended Townes had mostly (but not totally) burned out as a songwriter. This sad fact does seem evident on some of the hardest to watch footage in the film (like where he doesn't know who wrote his own song). Are there any good later albums that feature mostly new material?

[–] thisonegoestoeleven2001 16 years ago

Pretty much everything Townes recorded was incredible, all the official albums anyway. The clip you mention from the film was merely just either Townes displaying some of his absurd humor or him nodding off drunk; a lot of people don't realize that he was in full control of his faculties up to the end. Drunk he may have been quite a bit, but his mental capacity was never diminished, nor was his capability for writing incredible songs. I'd recommend you check out some of his later recordings, especially his last two studio albums--"At My Window" and "No Deeper Blue," both masterpieces. Both are still in print, and while Townes is a little rough in voice, the writing is still superb.

[–] reidronnie72 16 years ago

Thanks for the tips. I now have the albums you mentioned and they are very good and most of the songs do not feasture on his 70s receordings.

I have looked again at the clip I mentioned and while I accept that he was more lucid than I had first thought I am still not too sure he was kidding. I would tend to go more for the nodding off drunk explanation. Thanks again.

[–] Loomis_Orange 16 years ago

Townes kept telling Jeanene that he had recorded a bunch of stuff but he didn't know where it was. Cowboy Jack Clement found it in his vaults years after Townes died. The album's called "In The Beginning" This is a great record!
Black Widow Blues
Maryetta's Blues
Hunger Child Blues
Gypsy Friday
Waitin' for the Day
Black Jack Mama
When Your Dream Lovers Die
Colorado Bound
Big Country Blues (the song Katie Bell was singin' along with her dad in "Be Here to Love Me"
Black Crow Blues

There's another one called "A Far Cry From Dead" This has "Sanitarium Blues" on it.
Towne's family gets the proceeds from this one and the other one mentioned above.

Beware of duplicates! Townes' business was in as bad a shape as he himself was. There are duplicate albums out there. Read the reviews on Amazon before purchasing any Townes recordings at all. I learned the hard way.

I really enjoy "Texas Rain"

Townes does "Waitin Around to Die" with Calvin Russell
"Pancho and Lefty" with Freddy Fender
"Kathleen" with the Cromatics (jeanene hated the cromatics)
"No Lonesome Tune" and "Marie" with Willie Nelson
"Two Girls" with Doug Sahm
"Blue Wind Blew" with Jerry Jef Walker
"Snowin' On Raton" with James Mcmurtry
"If I Needed You" with Emmylou Harris
"At My Window" with Kathy Mattea
and..Quicksilver Daydreams of Maria with Freddy Fender ... beautiful

Kevin Eggers and Co. released Acousic Blue. This had the last song that Townes ever recorded. "Nothin" ...Townes was angry.It shows in his playing and in his vocals. He was being forced to record and he hated this!
The last version of " Nothin'" was recorded at Flashpoint Studio in Austin, Tx. December 10 1996

[–] thisonegoestoeleven2001 15 years ago

Man, "In the Beginning" is one hell of a record! It shows that even early on, Townes was writing incredible tunes. To put it mildly: the man had a gift.
I thought I was in the minority with my love of "Texas Rain." It's a really great album that sounds like Townes is having fun--essentially it's Townes with friends. There's a really cool version of "Blue Wind Blew" with ol' Jerry Jeff, and a couple with Willie that are incredible, as well as what I consider to be the best version of "If I Needed You" (aside from the "Live at the Old Quarter" version) with Emmylou Harris. I'd recommend "Texas Rain" to anyone wanting proof that Townes' last few years weren't all dissapation and such. Supposedly, there are a lot more duets from those sessions. Hopefully, if they exist, they'll see the light of day someday. Even Garth Brooks, who cited Townes as a big influence early on, recorded a song with him, or was slated to.

[–] Loomis_Orange 15 years ago

I have to diagree with something you said in that earlier post on this thread. Townes was "away" a lot of the times. He forgot things. That scene in the film... he simply couldn't remember whether or not he had written "If I Needed You" right off. The guy had to explain that Yes, You wrote "If I needed You." It seemed like that was one of his really bad days and he probably showed up at that radio station because he was scheduled to do so. There are more scenes in Be Here To Love Me where he displays the same kind of obliviousness. One, caught as he paced back and forth in front of the mic and another as he simply just stood in his house slowly moving from one leg to the other. You can tell by looking at him that is was something more than just his "crooked humor" He was plain haunted and spooky at times. Those scenes couldn't have been all "Well, Townes is just drunk and nodding off today" either. He had some heavy duty damage done. Too many drugs, too many accidents, too much booze and too many stays in psyche wards. I've been to those places. I never had the insulin shock treatments but they have pills now that basically burn your memory out the same as the shock therapy does. I guess they see it as more humane to use pills instead of the old tongue depressor torture

Jeanene hated Texas Rain! I don't know why except that it might have just been her bein' a bitch! She was known for that! She'd make comments in public, right in front of Townes. She'd get mad at him and slam him with "I can't wait till you're dead! I'll make a lot more money off you dead than I am now!" And... she is. When Townes died he owned a boat with a hole in it, a motorcycle with flat tires andd an old truck that wouldnt even turn over. I know it's not easy living with a drunk but by damn, she treated him like sh!t! Guy Clark can't stand her! Guy was Townes best friend for years and years. After Townes died, Jeanene became the grieving widow altho she had thrown Townes out of the house, divorced him and was seeing some hotshot millionaire. After he passed... things all changed. She became like Priscilla Presley. Given, she did have his kids to raise... He only married her because she was pregnant and his mother, on her deathbed, made him promise to "Marry that girl" Forgive me if I sound a little peeved! Some women just can't be pleased.

[–] reidronnie72 14 years ago

I tend to agree with your assessment Shelby. Although I am a big fan of his music I think despite obviously more lucid moments Townes was a total wreck by the end. There are, as you point out, several examples of this in the film. How bad does your memory have to be if you can't remember whether you wrote one of your most famous and sucessful songs?

Although to be fair to his memory after reading the Hardy biography (I've got the Kruth one there but haven't read it yet) I wasn't aware that he actually managed the best part of a year sober a couple of years before his death. Its a shame that he couldn't stay clean because who knows we could have had some more great music (and I may not have regretted missing my chance to see him live). I also think that the scene where you say he slowly moves from one leg to another may actually be him dancing, albeit it drunkenly and not very well in a middle aged man at a wedding type of way.

Being Scottish I obviously don't have any direct contact or knowledge with or of the Van Zandt family but I can't say I am a fan of Jeanene either. Even hearing her supportive words for Townes in the film she struck me as insincere and that was before I read Hardy's biog (a biog she didn't support - I wonder why!). Although I think the Hardy biog trys to be fair it would seem he received more negative than positive reports on Jeanene. I was also shocked at her wrecklessness and the part that allegedly played in Townes death. Even if he was haranging her to get him out of hospital this is a guy who was so out of it that he ran (not literally) round for a week with a broken hip before being made to go to hospital, so you don't trust his judgement. Its not necessarily connected but I also notice how much more attractive (thinner, tanned, hair done etc) she appears than the photos from her first days with Townes. Its similar to how Sharon Osbourne looks nowadays compared to her early days with Ozzy. Although she at least appears to have been able to help Ozzy get it together, well sort of!

[–] Loomis_Orange 14 years ago

I enjoyed the Hardy book "No Deeper Blue" more than the one written by Kruth. It had more personal information in it and I found it easy to get through. Not choppy. It had a nice movement to it.
Jeanene is COLD! She gives you a look of warmth initially but the more you're with her the more quick tempered and chilly she becomes. She has a tendency to stare right through you. I don't know what drew Townes to her. She didn't go after him, he went after her. It seems the longer you know her the less you know of her... You always get the feeling the woman is sizing you up. She'll walk you through her house pointing at Townes' portraits and art pieces that people have lovingly made and she'll be making comments like he's nothing but a comodity to her. Just her main source of income. That's all he we ever was for her, I do believe. I don't like Jeanene. She lives in Smyrna Tennessee not far from where one of my rented apartments used to be.

Whither goest thou, America, In thy shiny car in the night? ~ Jack Kerouac