{"id":20069,"date":"2024-03-21T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-21T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=20069"},"modified":"2024-03-20T18:06:11","modified_gmt":"2024-03-20T18:06:11","slug":"townes-van-zandt-live-at-the-old-quarter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2024\/03\/21\/townes-van-zandt-live-at-the-old-quarter\/","title":{"rendered":"TOWNES VAN ZANDT Live At The Old Quarter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Norman Warwick learns more about<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

TOWNES VAN ZANDT Live At The Old Quarter<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by reading writers such Matt Melis at sites like Paste On Line<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of us who saw Townes Van Zandt perform live felt short changed by his canon of albums. Often tinny and echoey and over-produced. His recorded songs didn\u00b4t stand up alongside of his deliveries of tracks like Tecumsah Valley, , If I Needed You, Loretta and the even more exquisite than most, Rex\u00b4s Blues. A cover on a posthumous tribute album was Snowin\u00b4 On Raton. In one of our half dozen interviews Townes spoke of how long he took to decide on an appropriate verb to fit into the line about \u00b4promises to you\u00b4. He apparently wondered whether to say bring, save, or keep. each word bringing a unique twist to the story.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That wasn\u00b4t the line that caught my interest, however. Instead I could never let go of an image in my head, even though I conceded it could be a line about life and death, or a line about new starts, it could have been about that ice-bridge in James Hilton\u00b4s novel, Lost Horizon.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certainly, in his time, Townes crossed many bridges, even they were rarely totally burned, many borders and many boundaries.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To me, he always seemed a man who wanted to please. He always gave me good, solid musical copy whenever I was privileged enough to interview him. He came across as a quiet and studious man, delivering all sorts of quotes in the course of a recorded chat. He was a very literary man, and his songs included may literary techniques such line narratives, reliable and unreliable narrators, scans, rhymes, metafiction and even Death Of Author.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My memories of him are of gigs at The Band On The Wall in Manchester, The Winning Post in York, (each, stellar performances) and at Wembley Country Music Festival (my first ever sighting of him).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are much more important to me than any of his recordings, though I do agree with a journalist I recently read reviewing a Townes\u00b4album<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Matt Melis stated in his recent  Paste On Line article, \u00b4for many years, the name Townes Van Zandt<\/a> acted like a secret password. Simply name-dropping the late Texas troubadour initiated one into a small posse of music nerds, outlaw country purists and admirers who may have even cried into their beer while listening to Van Zandt at a dive bar decades ago. That all changed with the rise of streaming platforms, the influence of music blogs and a concerted effort by labels such as Fat Possum Records to keep the cult songwriter\u2019s catalog in circulation. Suddenly, it became commonplace to find a \u201cTownes Van Zandt\u201d divider in record store bins or one of his LPs tucked inside a milk crate housing a dorm room vinyl collection. That\u2019s no small leap for an artist whose music could prove notoriously difficult to track down during much of his own lifetime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas\u00a0endures as one of several Townes Van Zandt records to have received renewed interest and reached new audiences in recent years. It\u2019s by no means the most accessible boot-dip into the deep trough that is Van Zandt\u2019s silo of songs. Recorded across a five-night stretch at the small Houston watering hole in July 1973, the sprawling double-live album collects 26 songs and spans more than 90 minutes with zero smoke breaks. As stripped-down as the shirtless photo of Van Zandt that adorns the album\u2019s front sleeve,\u00a0Live at the Old Quarter\u00a0remains the late songwriter\u2019s most intimate and revealing affair. It\u2019s a time capsule that preserves the mercurial artist scratching at the heights of his considerable powers; documents a rich tapestry and tradition of Texas music; and suggests a welcome alternative to the dominant narrative of Townes Van Zandt as primarily a tragic figure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Zandt\u2019s residency at the Old Quarter features him alone on stage with only a guitar and a saddlebag of what would become several of his signature songs. It\u2019s a far cry from the painful overproduction that plagued many of the artist\u2019s earliest studio recordings. For instance, the original title-track cut of \u201cFor the Sake of the Song\u201d from 1968\u2019s debut echoes like Van Zandt singing into a tin can at the bottom of the Grand Canyon during a howling wind. On Old Quarter, however, we can hear all the nuances in Van Zandt\u2019s unconventional country voice\u2014the tenderness, confusion and resignation\u2014as he plucks gently and considers how to be there for a lover. Likewise, Van Zandt had already failed twice on studio albums to do justice to \u201cTecumseh Valley,\u201d his tragic tale of a coal miner\u2019s daughter. Here, he finally conjures both the heartbreaking tone and appropriate pacing that demand attention be paid to the plight of a fallen woman ignored by society. Both of these performances are definitive takes on essential songs in Van Zandt\u2019s oeuvre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, most of Van Zandt\u2019s material translates remarkably well to such an intimate setting.\u00a0Our Mother the Mountain\u2019s \u201cKathleen\u201d loses none of its bleakness or mystical nature in translation to the stage, the room\u2019s hushed quiet enveloping Van Zandt\u2019s foreboding voice much as the eerie accompaniment does on the studio recording. \u201cWaiting \u2018Round to Die\u201d finds its restless stride towards the nearest exit even with slowed playing and no percussion. Similarly, the wicked cardroom parable of \u201cMr. Mudd & Mr. Gold\u201d gains a head of steam purely off the strength of Van Zandt\u2019s mesmerizing phrasing. And the \u201cpoet tears\u201d of \u201cTower Song\u201d transform the Old Quarter from a cowboy bar to a poetry reading, as the songwriter gently reflects on life\u2019s contradicting and fleeting nature. It\u2019s a credit to Van Zandt\u2019s powers as a performer and experience on the road that all of this somehow goes down like a mug to be nursed across an evening rather than a row of random shots that leaves one worse for wear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not many live albums owe much to the actual venue and audience featured on the recording. That\u2019s not the case at all with Live at the Old Quarter. Credit Earl Willis, the album\u2019s producer and engineer, for a deft hand that preserves the feel of Van Zandt captivating a famously fickle audience across five sweltering, sold-out nights in Houston with a broken air conditioner. Decisions to leave in announcements about cigarette machines, Van Zandt\u2019s own banter, and the sounds of patrons (minus a few broken glasses) make for an unlikely artifact documenting not only the strange crossroads of hippy and cowboy culture found at the Old Quarter, but also the early \u201870s Texas music scene at-large.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI\u2019ve never heard it that quiet in here before,\u201d Van Zandt notes after opening with \u201cPancho & Lefty.\u201d At the time, Van Zandt only had a cult following as a performer and a half-dozen hard-to-find records. This was still nearly half a decade before Emmylou Harris would cover \u201cPancho & Lefty\u201d and a full 10 years prior to Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard sending his most famous song to the top of the country charts with a bullet. And yet, Van Zandt holds court like a favorite son back from a conquering world tour rather than a countless string of bar dates. He disarms the room with talking blues songs and bad jokes between sets, gets the crowd clapping along to hoedowns like \u201cWhite Freight Liner Blues,\u201d commands their focus during meandering blues meditations like \u201cBrand New Companion\u201d and earns a pin-drop hush during the numbers a bar room might have drowned out had Van Zandt not been spinning some sort of palpable magic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, Old Quarter also turns into a laconic storytellers session of sorts. Townes Van Zandt places himself squarely in the country and folk scene with an aw-shucks nod to Doc Watson\u2019s cover of \u201cIf I Needed You,\u201d retelling a dirty joke taught to him by Jerry Jeff Walker and covering Merle Travis\u2019 \u201cNine Pound Hammer.\u201d Other bits and pieces have become part of Van Zandt lore and liner note trivia. He confirms that bassist Rex \u201cWrecks\u201d Bell\u2014a former owner of the Old Quarter\u2014is the subject of \u201cRex\u2019s Blues\u201d and outs the famed \u201cLoop and Lil\u201d from \u201cIf I Needed You\u201d as parakeets. We also learn, among other things, that \u201cCocaine Blues\u201d was the first song he learned to finger-pick and \u201cKathleen\u201d was written in Austin on the same night he penned \u201cOur Mother the Mountain.\u201d Little could Van Zandt have predicted that these scattered crumbs would be remembered at all after those hot Houston nights let alone be devoured by fans half a century later as his legend continues to grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s difficult not to think of Townes Van Zandt as a tragic figure. From the manic depression and cruel shock treatments that wiped out much of his long-term memory, to the demons of addiction that haunted him throughout adulthood, his life played out much like a sad country song. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Refreshingly,\u00a0Live at the Old Quarter\u00a0offers a chance to remember Van Zandt as a young travelling musician hoping to keep \u201cfree and clean,\u201d as prescribed in \u201cPancho & Lefty,\u201d rather than mourn him as a rundown desperado who \u201cwears his skin like iron\u201d with \u201cbreath as hard as kerosene.\u201d Not yet 30 at the time of the Old Quarter shows, Van Zandt, presumably sober, dials up such youthful exuberance, a goofy sense of humor and respectful humility for what turns out to be a masterclass in showmanship. There\u2019s no inkling in the air that his bright star would soon begin to tarnish like a pair of old spurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be four years after its recording before Live at the Old Quarter would see a physical release. During those interim years, Van Zandt\u2019s output would slow to a trickle as his addictions took hold, and plans for a new studio album were abandoned as his manager and producer had a falling out over unpaid bills. One of the unintended blessings, then, of Old Quarter is that listeners get to hear Van Zandt perform his next (and arguably last) batch of great songs several years before they\u2019d officially land on 1978\u2019s Flyin\u2019 Shoes. Staples like \u201cNo Place to Fall,\u201d \u201cLoretta,\u201d \u201cRex\u2019s Blues\u201d and a cover of Bo Diddley\u2019s \u201cWho Do You Love\u201d all appear here, preserved in Van Zandt\u2019s delicate voice before it thickened and turned into a much different animal. Though the abandoned 1973 studio versions of these songs would get released 20 years later as The Nashville Sessions, those recordings don\u2019t hold a cigarette to their stripped-down and burgeoning Old Quarter counterparts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas begins with a PSA about cigarette machines and wraps with Van Zandt humbly leaving the stage to applause. In between, we witness a rare talent spellbinding a rowdy barroom with subtle, often delicate, songs that speak to life\u2019s highs and lows as Time both nudges us along and gains on us. \u201cI won\u2019t be forgetting you, and you won\u2019t be forgetting me, I know,\u201d Van Zandt promises on set closer \u201cOnly Him or Me.\u201d This lyric feels less prescient and more like a grave understatement half a century later, as new generations continue to discover and lean on Van Zandt\u2019s indelible songs of gratefulness and resignation. And Live at the Old Quarter preserves Townes Van Zandt just as we should remember him\u00b4. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

acknowledgements<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The primary sources for this piece was written for Paste On Line by Matt Melis. other cointributors have been attributed in our text wherever possible. Matt Melis is a Pittsburgh native who has spent the last two decades writing about music, film, life, and where the three cross paths. When not writing about the arts, he writes fiction and spends time in Chicago with his fianc\u00e9e, puppy and cat. He\u2019s currently working on a book about one of his favourite albums<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Images employed have been taken from on line sites only where  categorised as  images free to use.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a more comprehensive detail of our attribution policy see our for reference only post on 7th<\/sup> April 2023  entitled Aspirations And Attributions.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

t\u2019s difficult not to think of Townes Van Zandt as a tragic figure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,13,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture-and-tradition","category-literary","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20069"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20103,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20069\/revisions\/20103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}