Townes Van Zandt - In the Beginning...
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Artist: Townes Van ZandtEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2003-04-22
Music Label: Compadre Records
Soundtracks:
- Black Widow Blues
- Maryetta's Song
- Hunger Child Blues
- Gypsy Friday
- Waitin' For The Day
- Black Jack Mama
- When Your Dream Lover Dies
- Colorado Bound
- Big Country Blues
- Black Crow Blues
Free Music Notes for In the Beginning...
Free Music Review: Brilliant collection of TVZ's earliest studio work
Hit: 5 Stars
This collection of Van Zandt's first professional studio recordings provides a bittersweet opportunity to peer early into the artist's evolution. These 1966 demos, recorded two years before his official debut album, find Van Zandt in superb voice, flush with youthful clarity and strength, and devoid of the burnished ravages that time would eventually add. At the same time, his lyrics - at the age of 26 - are already laced with the fatalism and restlessness that would characterize his life's work.These ten previously unreleased tracks are a pristine look at the result of Van Zandt's mid-60s woodshedding in Houston's clubs, rife with his folk, blues and country influences. The segue from the Hank Williams' styled wail of "Waitin' For the Day" to the percussive blues of "Black Jack Mama" shows how early Van Zandt could masterfully handle a range of material and moods. Most of these tracks are recorded solo, with Van Zandt's flat-picked guitar providing truly impressive accompaniment. The few band tracks, such as the opener, are driven arrangements of guitar, harmonica, drums and bass - the sort of rumbling electric-folk made popular on the West Coast by Country Joe & The Fish.
This is a must-have for Van Zandt fans, and an interesting introduction for the uninitiated: chronologically faithful to Van Zandt's development, but out-of-time with respect to the public disclosure of his career. Recording quality is excellent throughout, providing a very intimate experience. The tapes, having disappeared for over 35 years, retained their original vitality, and are reproduced crisply on this CD. This is a masterful collection of songs from a songwriter, who, retrospect tells us, was only at the beginning of his brilliant arc.
In the Beginning... Poster
Ten exceptional tracks from the legendary singer/songwriter circa 1966, previously unreleased, unheard and unreal! Compadre Records. 2003.The haunting songs of the late Townes Van Zandt combined searing honesty and tender melancholy in equal parts. The tortured Texas troubadour contributed a series of classic compositions (such as "Pancho & Lefty" and "If I Needed You") to the modern country repertoire, but his live work often crossed over into folk blues, especially in his early days in Houston. The newly discovered In the Beginning, recorded in Nashville in 1966 two years before the release of his debut, makes his blues affinity obvious while showcasing the unusual emotional maturity of his first efforts. His youthful voice is pure and strong, but the lyrics, permeated with his signature streak of fatalistic acceptance, are already deep and dark, as songs such as "When Your Dream Lovers Die" and "Hunger Child Blues" amply illustrate. These stripped-down demos are lean and enlightened, and when Townes proclaims in "Black Widow Blues" that he's "got the blues sewn into my jacket sleeve" there's no reason to doubt him. In addition, his overlooked flat-picking guitar work, modeled after one of his musical heroes, Houston blues legend Lightnin' Hopkins, provides an additional attraction. --Michael Point
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