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We have a great panel set up for you and I will start with introductions. So first we'll begin with Anne Holbrook. She is an English professor at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. She along with our next Panelist at the end um edited for the

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sake of the song essays on Townes Van Zandt published by UN T press last year. It's right there and also there's yay, there are those QR codes over there if you wanna get you one. And then at the end is Dan Beller mckenna. He is an

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associate professor in music, specifically music history at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, New New Hampshire. It should have been obvious because it was University of New Hampshire. So then um there is Todd Heron. He is the author of three collections of poems, Strange Land,

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No Other Gods and Crows, and Eden and novella. Do and a novella. Do Geese. See God in the studio album, Border Radio. He teaches literature and creative writing at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. And then we have Mickey White who was a longtime accompanist of

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Tons Bean from 1974 to 1989. He also performed in the Hammer Ridge Mountain Boys from the mid 19 seventies to early eighties. And they have been known from time to time to have a reunion show. Do you have one coming up, June 24th at I assume

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the Old Quarter in Galveston. Um And in 2021 he published his memoir, another Mickey Rein Nations of a Texas guitar slinger right there. So let's give a warm welcome to this panel and let's get things started. Hello? Oh, wow. Well, thanks for coming, everybody. Um I

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know lots of you have connections to Towns Vanzant and I'm not sure what they are or who you are, but thanks so much for coming. Um I'm Anne Norton Holbrook and the book was born with me. So I'm going to indulge myself and tell you the

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story. All right, I was born in 1958 now, you know, uh and I grew up listening to the Beatles and to rock and roll and to uh folk rock and Emmylou Harris and, you know, all the iterations that all of you listen to. And I didn't

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know anything about Towns Van Zan, like a lot of people except that he wrote Poncho and Lefty, which Emmylou Harris had recorded a song that I loved and I used to just like, think about it. It, it, it was like a movie in my head and

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I, I didn't think deeply about it. I just knew that I love that song. I knew he had written if I needed you, which she also sang. And then in 1997 I heard that he died and I thought Towns Van Zant, that's such a great name.

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I need to listen to Towns Van Zan. I know I do. Well, fast forward to about 2009 and I started to listen to more traditional country, um, kind of digging into singer songwriters in Texas. And, um I burned a CD, which you could do in those

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days I could itunes to me was a revelation. Wow, I can just for 99 cents get any song I want. And I created a Towns Van Zan CD and I started to listen to it in my Volvo as I drove back and forth from work. Right.

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And I found myself thinking about these songs like listening to them and, and just digging deeper and deeper into them. I think, I think the first one I really paid attention to was for the sake of the song. You know, why does she sing her sad

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songs from me? I'm not the one to tenderly bring her soft sympathy. I've just begun to see my way clear and it's plain that if I stop, I will fall. But, you know, maybe she just has to sing for the sake of the song. And who

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do I think that I am to decide that she's wrong. I thought that is so cool. Wow. And then Rake was the one that really got me. You know, it starts that bone and then the guitar comes in. That's how the documentary begins. Be here to

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love me, begins with that first sound. And, uh the story intrigued me. And then the more I thought about the lyrics and how compressed they were just how much got said in four lines. You know, I was taking my pride in the pleasures. I had known,

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uh, what a great line that is right. Um, and the notion that, um, uh, my laughter turned around and, you know, said to me, friend, we're holding a wedding. You know, I buried my face but it turned once again and, you know, day to the night

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where a bind and the whole metaphor of, you know, the, the hedonistic pleasures of his time becoming his laughter, which is then gonna force him to live through this hell. Uh, anyway, I'll, I'll stop talking about it because I'll go on and on. But, um, so

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Rake and then Highway kind and, um, so many songs. So I decided, ok, I think he's an existentialist. Hm. Interesting. I'm gonna write a paper because that's what professors do. Ok. I'm interested in this topic. I'm gonna write a paper. So I presented a paper in

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2012 at the American Literature Association in Lubbock, Texas. My first time ever to the State of Texas. Um, and I basically talked about his philosophies, about the way his imagery worked. And I compared him to Guy Clark and Jerry Jeff Walker and the ways in which

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he was different from them. Um Much more kind of abstract and objective in many ways anyway. Um So then another five years later, I had a sabbatical and I said, OK, I'm gonna write that paper up into an article and try to publish it and then

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I'll move on to something else. So I sat down in the library near my house and in my house and I put on my earphones and I started listening to the songs and taking notes. And within a month I had an entire legal pad full of

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notes and I had only just begun really. And so about the same time, I was reading scholarship about country music and there was a great book that came out um called Walking The Line, country music Lyrics and American culture. And it was different articles about different

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uh country music lyricists. But of all the people they mentioned, only towns had two articles, there were two articles about towns and both of the writers mentioned how important a, a thinker, uh you know, an artist. He was in American culture. And I thought, you know,

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there's a book here, I can't write it. I, I've got too much material but I, I need other people to help me because I'm not a musicologist. So I turned to my friend Dan Beer mckenna who played in a band with me. Um, and in other

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bands and I said I need you to help me, you know, you're actual musicologist here. Um, and the joke I keep using over and over again as I said to him, you can be the eye candy. You know, I just, I just need some cred. So,

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so you don't have to do much. I just need you to help me. Well, of course, Dan ended up doing a lot of things. So, um, and II I started emailing everybody like I emailed, um, Robert Earl Hardy who wrote the biography published by the University

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of North Texas Press and said, do you want to contribute to the book? He said, well, you can use an article I wrote for another book. And by the way, let me introduce you to my editor at UN T Press, which then became our press. I

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wrote to Brian Atkinson who edited the book. Um, um I'll be here in the morning, which is a collection of singer songwriters talking about Towns. And he said, well, I don't want to contribute anything but you can use this old article that I wrote. Actually, he

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did edit it, um which is basically a rundown of Towns discography. And then we sent out a call for paper for other people who wanted to contribute and lo and behold, we had enough for a book. So, um with the reason So we're here because Nori

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contributed a chapter from Richard Dobson's Gulf Coast Boys because the transcripts, the tapes are here. Right. It's the journals. I'm sorry. Yeah, the journals are here. So she edited, um, a piece about the Hammer. Well, the Hemorrhage Mountain Boys traveling with towns. Right? And so Mickey

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Whites in there. Um, and so she contributed one and then I wrote to Mickey White to say, would, would you like to write something for the book? He said, well, actually, I'm writing my own book. Um But you know, good luck. And then I wrote to

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him again because I was trying to figure out some lyrics, right? And so he helped me. Oh no, I, what it is is I sent you a piece of my essay and you said that's good. But the lyrics are wrong and he helped me understand that

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Saint John, the gambler had different lyrics than I thought it did. So um we began to communicate and then Nori when we, the book came out and uh said, why don't you come and do a panel at Rice University? So here we are. And along the

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way, we've actually been performing town songs. We've been doing some of those in New Hampshire. So Todd Heron, who's a singer songwriter has been um singing lead. He's from Texas, knows a lot of people and Dan plays pedal steel guitar. Um We played in Deep Elm

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at a very cool place called the Deep M Art Company. We played in a backyard in Clarksville, in Austin. Right next to where towns' Trailer was in heartworm highways. Um, a backyard stage and Mickey came and jammed with us. It was fantastic. And then last night

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we played at the Continental Club. Uh, the old some, I can never remember the name of the lounge there. Um, which was terrific. Yeah. So, um, so that's why we're here. Um We're all here because we love Towns music. Um So I think I'm gonna stop

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and let some other people talk, then you wanna talk next. So, as the musicologist, of course, I'm gonna bring up details and the boring stuff. Um which is our, our goal, our, our role uh in on the panel. Um I should say that like an I

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was a latecomer to Towns Van Zant's music, um a, a casual admirer but didn't really know the repertoire uh until I joined a band with Ann uh and others, the other people in the band, they were all very familiar with the songbook. Uh that got me

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started and when Anne enlisted me in this project, uh I was happy to join in, but I realized I had to really think more about Townsend music and what I could write about. Um, the thing that my chapter in the book is focuses on his minor

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key songs and I think I was drawn to that because it seemed the large the unusually large number of minor key songs in his output was somehow emblematic of something about him. Uh As far as one can tell from a distance from reading about him, from

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the recollections of others. Uh And there, I should say that we're not going to walk through the whole book, but there are a few other chapters that overlap in terms of that theme of some of the uh some of his troubles and demons and uh how

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that relates to the music itself. Uh When I thought about what to do for this event, I, I think, and we were just talking about this beforehand. I think I became aware that there were some tapes uh of towns early radio performances here in Houston, uh

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from Peter Gardner who ran the, uh I think the adult activities of the Jewish, y if I'm remembering that correctly, uh and had several different uh radio programs or he would feature local talent. Uh And in 1965 and 66 this included Townes Van Zan as a

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new songwriter, as a Houston resident. Um I just checked online and saw the tapes were available and NORI helped me uh get a hold of the ones that included Towns performing. Um And I guess I wasn't totally surprised but happy to see that there were a

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number of songs he performed there that as far as I know, and I'm uh happy to be corrected and, and because I'm sure there are people here who have more connection to that, uh, to, certainly to Houston folk music, but also maybe to that, uh, collection

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of material. Uh, as far as I know, there are several that he never recorded anywhere else seemed to be early songs that, um, either didn't pass muster with him or he kept playing but did not record a few of them have come out on the various

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collections of music from that time that have been released on a streaming and CD in the last 10 or 15 years. Um I'm going to just highlight a few things that stood out to me from those and actually, uh I probably should have given you this

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to project. But uh i it's a, it, they are notes in progress. Uh Nothing resembling a full paper. Uh So I'm just gonna pull up my list here. I would have this all ready to go. But one of the things that happens when you're traveling for

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five days is you don't plug your computer in as you go from place to place. So my battery is at about 10%. So I'm, I'm maximizing battery power here. Uh But I did send these over to Nori earlier and I thought I might just discuss a

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little bit of what's in this repertoire and then uh listen to a couple of these and compare them to uh some of the songs of this period that he did record and some which are very famous. Um, there were four songs that were in a, uh,

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either a straight blues or a minor blues, uh, among these. And again, I'll read out the titles hopefully, or presumably I should say they won't mean anything to anyone because I don't think they were recorded elsewhere and I also think he composed them. They, it's possible

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some of these, even though I've tried hard to look up, uh, the titles that some of these might be pre-existing songs, I'm just not aware of. Uh, there's a song that he doesn't really give a title to, but it could either be called Minnesota Hotel or

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college. Actually, I didn't write down the various labels. He used Straight 12 bar blues in a, um, about the college in Hotel in Minneapolis. It's no longer there. I checked, um, but I did find the location, uh, a song called Suicide Train, uh, which is a

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minor blues waltz, a somewhat unusual type of piece, uh, a song that he himself calls today was a time, another minor blues, uh, ne and if you're familiar with a song that came out, uh, from the, in the beginning on the, in the beginning, see the

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big country blues. It's very similar in style to that. Uh, and then a straight blues romp called Send Me Some Money. Not the one recorded by Les Paul and, uh, um, Mary. Ok, for it. Thank you. Uh, a diff a different one. I went line by

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line through the lyrics and probably was inspired by that, but it's almost a throwaway, uh, blues number. Uh, there are a few others that, uh, that were again unique to these tapes as far as I know, um, which are much more in the mid sixties folk

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singer songwriter, vein, not blues and not minor. There goes my battery. Yeah, I have a, I have a few seconds to go with my computer. Um, but one of the things that interested me, particularly, uh, in what I wrote in my chapter in the book were

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the different ways that, uh, Townes Van sent used the minor key, uh, and the different, uh, sources for the, for the styles that he used. And I mentioned the blues, which we don't usually think of as minor. But, um, it has a, an interesting combination of

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major and minor tonality built into it, uh, especially in the sort of rural Mississippi Delta, East Texas blues, uh, that we think of with people like Robert Johnson or Blind Lemon Jefferson and Charlie Patton in that time. Um, less so the Tin Pan Alley Classic Blue

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style, um, where the voice will often be singing in a minor scale basically while the guitar plays major chords and we, we know it so well that it doesn't strike us as odd, but as a musicologist looking at it, if I wrote it down on paper,

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it would look very wrong. Uh, but it's part of the style, what's interesting in, in these recordings and I'll have NORI play a couple of clips in a moment and which shows up in a lot of, uh, town's early minor blues songs or minor songs, period.

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Um, is that there's a decision that has to be made in the minor when you get to the pivotal, the pivot chord, we might call it before you get back to your opening chord, whether that's a major or a minor chord. And again, um, that's, you

00:17:58.089 - 00:18:08.814

know, technical stuff. You can pass over those pages in the book when you get to them, maybe you choose to read it if it gets too nerdy. The copy editor did try to get rid of all of it. And I assured her that if I got

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rid of all of it, my music theory colleagues would come knocking at my door and say this is just wrong. So I had to keep some nerdy stuff in, uh but in this early period, he tended to do what we would normally hear, uh which is

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to choose the major pivot chord. Uh Because that's what the blues does. That's what most music does, whether it's a minor or major. Uh And that's pretty much what he does in these early ones and I'll just, um, choose, make sure it has a major. I,

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I wrote these things down. Yes. Uh Maybe today was a time nori if you could play the beginning of that. And this is from uh the Gardener Sampler Box 38. I don't have the dates on this file and just to put in your ear, the difference

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if he had used a different pivot chord, uh one of his best known songs um is Waiting Around to Die. And like most of his songs that he did record from this period and a little bit later, they were in a minor key. Uh when he

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gets to that pivot, he keeps it as a minor chord and it's a very strong effect. And if you're familiar with that song and you want to really hear that effect. Listen to the, um the what the version that was used in Breaking Bad. There's a

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famous version by the Do Good Tanyas, the Be Good Tanyas, um which is a wonderful uh interpretation of the song. But when they get to that pivot chord, they do what he just did. There they go to a major chord and it has a very strong

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effect on the way the song sounds not better or worse, just changed and different. Um I think I'll just have one more clip just so we can hear him having a little bit more fun. Uh Several of the recordings were, he was accompanied in some, several

00:20:01.469 - 00:20:17.189

of these Gardener recordings, sometimes by Jerry Jeff Walker when they shared a, a spotlight show, uh but often by Gary White and I was trying to confirm with Nori uh that it's the same Gary White who later wrote long, long time, the Linda Ronstadt song. And

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as far as I can tell, is that correct? Ok. I should have asked Mickey when he came then. Um uh but he's on a lot of these recordings as are as is Guy Clark, um Jerry Jeff Walker. Uh and then a lot of figures who are

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probably more familiar to many of you than to me, but were very active young uh folk singers in Houston at the time, but maybe play a little of send me some money. It's, it's just a good blues romp and just to close and put in a

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little Houston context. It's really easy to hear the, his famous association with Lightnin Hopkins and his uh learning from Lightnin Hopkins style in a song like that. But uh come the previous song coming from a very different impulse in a different place. Uh And we, by

00:21:06.290 - 00:21:28.819

the time we get through the first few albums, I think you can start to, to hear some of that coalescing into a really individual style. And I think I'll hand it over down the line at this point to one of our other panelists. I like. Thanks.

00:21:28.829 - 00:21:44.079

Thanks Dan. Hi, everybody. I'm Todd Heron and I'm really happy to be here tonight in some small way, um associated with this distinguished panel um with the, the, the, the birthing the conception, the birthing and, and sending out of this book into the world, both of

00:21:44.089 - 00:21:59.469

these books into the world. Um As, and, and I wanna thank Nori for having us. Um I'm just kind of along for the ride. Um I don't have much to say about what's in the book except you all should read it. It's, it's a, it's a

00:21:59.479 - 00:22:14.140

wonderful testament. Um and a serious digging into the artistry of Towns fans and so many of the books that you read of um on Towns, they're, they're anecdotal, you know, everybody's interested in, in the chaos of the life um in all of the waste that, you

00:22:14.150 - 00:22:28.760

know, that was left in the wake, I mean, all the scandal and, but, but this book seriously tends to the art of the songs, the creativity and the things that outlast the life, right? Um The poet William Butler Yates used to talk about the bundle of

00:22:28.770 - 00:22:45.199

fragments that comes down to breakfast in the morning as opposed to the, the artist who is able to create something that outlasts the ephemeral self. Um And that is the achievement I think that Towns was able to achieve. Um That's the thing that interests me. Um

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I'm a songwriter, I'm also a poet. Um Mickey I think is going to talk about the intricacies of uh or the poetry of the song, right? The poetry of the, of the music. And of course, Townes was a songwriter that's something that we have to remember.

00:23:02.479 - 00:23:22.079

But poetry was also integrally important to towns. I mean, he, he and guy would sit around reading Dylan Thomas and saying to each other, you know, we want our songs to have that thickness, that sin a texture. Um that kind of poetry. Um Robert Frost was,

00:23:22.089 - 00:23:42.670

was imported to town Shakespeare was imported to towns. And so um what he was trying to do in his songs was to achieve in the lyrics, something that had um poetic durability and poetic resonance. Um It's when you think of the, the chaos of the life

00:23:42.680 - 00:23:59.109

of the Troubadour, and then you think of the kinds of songs that Townes wrote. And here, I'm primarily speaking of the lyrics, they're not the kind of lyrics that you might expect. It's not the kind of form that you might expect. Um If you think about

00:23:59.119 - 00:24:18.150

the kind of life towns lived, which was, you know, um transient um and deracinated big word for it, right? Just uprooted. Um You might expect his lyrics to resemble something like um the beat poets, right? Something like Ginsburg, something like Kerouac or even the prose of

00:24:18.160 - 00:24:38.469

William Burroughs. But what you get are lyrics quatrains lines, rhyming phrases that are meticulously and fastidiously crafted and was just quoting from the first verse of the, the, the song that gives its, it gives the book its its name for the sake of the song. And

00:24:38.479 - 00:24:53.310

I'll just remind you of how they go, I'm just gonna say them in the way that Ann said them um which emphasize the um the lyrics just as a form of thought or the form of emotion, right? You're just trying to get something off your chest

00:24:53.650 - 00:25:11.189

and they begin with a, a question. First word of that song is why. So it begins in uncertainty. Um And confusion. Why does she sing her sad songs for me? I'm not the one to tenderly bring her soft sympathy. I've just begun to see my way

00:25:11.199 - 00:25:28.380

clear. You gonna play it? It's even better if you play it. Let's listen to the first verse, listen to the form. We lost the final line of that first, but that's OK. All right. Maybe she just has to sing for the sake of the song. And

00:25:28.390 - 00:25:40.270

who do I think that I am to decide that she's wrong? Just um, think of all the words in that first verse that have to do with uncertainty and, and trying to figure out what's up and where you're going. Why does she sing? You know, is

00:25:40.280 - 00:25:54.170

how it starts. Um, few lines down is what does she want me to do? Um And then a few lines down is I, I suppose that it's true. And then as we get into the final couplet there, it's maybe she just has to sing for the

00:25:54.180 - 00:26:10.270

sake of the song. And another question and who do I think that I So the whole thing is issuing out of this condition of uncertainty and, and it could just be sort of a prose paragraph, um, the detailing, you know, um, um that condition, but the

00:26:10.280 - 00:26:25.609

way I like to think of this song's achievement is you have that, um he's trying to figure out something in a relationship, right? And the relationship, it feels like a, a turgid body of water that he's trying to cross, you know, a swollen stream and the

00:26:25.619 - 00:26:38.050

way he's gonna get across it, um He, he can't leap over it. He's got to forge his way through it. But if he goes straight into it, it, it's gonna sweep him away. And so he's got to figure out what are the, the stepping stones that

00:26:38.060 - 00:26:54.839

he can find to move his way across and the way that he's going to get there are through rhyming phrases and it's not just rhyme at the end of the line, which is easy enough. It is this really intricately crafted system of internal rhyme. So just

00:26:54.849 - 00:27:12.140

listen to it. Why does she sing her sad songs for me? I'm not the one that's the first line to tenderly bring her soft sympathy. I've just begun. You've got three rhymes going in those two lines. There just begun in jamming into the next line, which

00:27:12.150 - 00:27:26.849

is another condition of uncertainty. It's like you come to the end of something and overflows. I've just begun to see my way clear and it's plain. If I stop, I will fall, I can lay down a tear for her pain, just a tear. And that's all.

00:27:26.859 - 00:27:43.930

Now, one thing that's happening here is when you're using rhyme, you're working in a severely limited system of sound and sense. If I, if I, if I throw down the word boat and I need a rhyme for that, there are only a few different possibilities that

00:27:43.939 - 00:28:01.130

my sense can proceed into. I'm, I'm gonna go either for what? Mote or throat or, you know, and my sense has to follow my rhyme. And so he's, he's, he's, he's moving the, the, the, the line of his thinking through this very tightly limited system of

00:28:01.140 - 00:28:14.589

sound in order to get himself expressed right to get the expression out. Let me just continue through that 1st 1st to see my way clear in its plane. If I stop, I will fall, I can lay down a tear for her pain, just a tear. And

00:28:14.599 - 00:28:36.540

that's all. What does she want me to do? She says that she knows the moments are rare, I suppose that it's true. And then off, she goes suppose and then off she goes to say, I don't care though. She knows triangle that I do. OK. And

00:28:36.550 - 00:28:54.030

there we've come to, we've come to a part in the first verse where three sections have just happened. There have been three separate distinct melodic shapes that correspond to a new sound of rhyme. All right. And then you come to the, to the final couplet and

00:28:54.040 - 00:29:09.469

I'm using that because it, it, it resembles a sonnet. And you get this, maybe she just has to sing for the sake of a song. And who do? I think that I am to decide that she's wrong. That's a perfect Shakespearean couplet. It's in Iambic. Well,

00:29:09.479 - 00:29:32.050

it's in pentameter. Right? And it brings that first verse to its conclusive close where the whole thing has been meandering through uncertainty. It locks it right in. So the one thing that I find endured enduringly admirable about towns is the way he's able to give durable

00:29:32.060 - 00:29:50.560

shape, credible, shape, shape that, that outlasts him right. Outlasts the chaos of the, the to, to, um, the thought and to emotion and I think now I'm gonna turn it over to Mickey and, and you can talk more about how you see the songs themselves doing

00:29:50.569 - 00:30:10.920

that sort of thing. Thank you. The arts. Could you all hear that? Hello? Uh, and it was such a pleasure to hear these guys, you know, I, I read the book and sent it to me and, uh, she asked me to write a little blurb, uh,

00:30:11.239 - 00:30:27.780

that went on the cover and the, the thing that struck me is that, you know, they're all musicians. I mean, you know, they, they've immersed themselves into these songs playing and, and they have this deep appreciation of, you know, just aesthetically about hey, you know, what

00:30:27.869 - 00:30:45.050

a great songwriter this guy. So, you know, there's legacy that is left and when you juxtapose that with, uh just outstanding scholarship, which you guys have seen already, uh It's a really cool and special thing. So I do encourage you guys, you know, to, to get

00:30:45.060 - 00:31:02.420

the book and read the essays. Uh, lots of different, um, you know, takes, um, you know, I think one of the controversies of, of around Towns is his albums, his studio albums and there's an essay about the, you know, the overproduction. Uh I might comment on

00:31:02.430 - 00:31:17.650

that as we kind of as we go along. But uh you know, his legacy and his piece on Towns dealing with gender and bo both male and female. It's just really, really insightful. I think you guys are really get a lot out of it. Um But

00:31:17.660 - 00:31:37.390

I'm the guitar player, right? So I'm gonna talk about Towns guitar playing and it goes underappreciated, I think and anybody who, who's sawing play, you know, knows that, you know, it was a feature of what he did and what he wanted to do. And I'm gonna

00:31:37.400 - 00:31:53.540

suggest to you that his guitar playing was also an inspiration for uh some of the lyrical stuff that he starts exploring that, you know, that he has what he's doing for the sake of the song, you know, the interlude that's gonna make you pause and think

00:31:53.550 - 00:32:09.790

about it. Is this delicate little lick that he does. Right. And it's critically important to the song I would suggest, um, there's a story about, you know, the Towns told me, uh, when they were recording that and of course, you know, the, they were trying to,

00:32:09.800 - 00:32:23.550

on this particular album, they were trying to make it real clean and everything and they did, I think it was a brilliant accomplishment. Um, you know, how lean and essential it is to his music. Um But one of the players, you know, said, you know, well,

00:32:23.989 - 00:32:44.930

we need a lead break, right? And uh Jack Clement said, well, what about that one? You know, pointing, you know, pointing out Townsend's sleep, it's already there. So I'm gonna grab my guitar and kind of just toss around some things for uh food for thought. And,

00:32:44.939 - 00:33:01.040

um as Todd pointed out, we, you know, we know that, uh he was real dedicated to his craft, you know, we tend to think of towns as being, you know, this guy that's just totally, you know, inspired from somewhere else and everything and it all goes

00:33:01.050 - 00:33:19.939

overlooked how studied and studious. He was about poetry, you know, I mean, he understood how it worked and he incorporated it into his stunt. Um, oh, he, he compared himself to Van Gogh quite a bit and, uh, you know, Van Gogh, you know, you know, they

00:33:19.949 - 00:33:36.310

reached their pinnacle and their popularity after they died and all that kind of stuff. But um, I always thought it was interesting that Van Gogh, uh, was a pioneer in paints and different, you know. Excuse me, I, I don't know exactly temper and all that kind

00:33:36.319 - 00:33:54.959

of stuff, but he was very, very knowledgeable about how paints worked and he understood the technology of it and things like that. He was very, very studious uh artist and I think that, uh, as a comparison with towns. So, um, what I'm gonna do is, um,

00:33:54.969 - 00:34:13.849

let me kinda do this. I, I might wander around a little bit but I'll kinda start with the, the main stuff that I wanted to go over with you guys. Um, and that is, um, you know, chances, uh, attempt to developed this guitar player and we've

00:34:13.858 - 00:34:39.260

already heard, you know, on the, the, uh piece that we played from, from the garden tapes that and he's already kind of experimenting around with licks, you know, life and light and guitar licks and he's gonna develop that quite a bit. And, um, but he's gonna,

00:34:39.270 - 00:34:51.840

he, he wants to do other stuff. All right. And I'm gonna do kind of the opening looks on some songs that I, I know you guys are gonna recognize them and, you know, I'm gonna suggest, um, you know, it is a bit of a chicken and

00:34:51.850 - 00:35:05.979

egg thing, but I'll, I'll go to my grave thinking some of these songs that I'm fixing to, you know, play little pieces of, uh, that the Genesis was the guitar. He would, uh, I do know that, you know, he fiddle around, you know, he didn't sleep.

00:35:05.989 - 00:35:19.159

Right. So, he would stay up late at night and when he was traveling alone on the college circuit, um, you know, he would do a lot of, uh, you know, just kind of fiddling around on his guitar. And I think that that's where a lot of

00:35:19.169 - 00:35:35.040

those things came from. Was it the, the line first or the lick first? Uh, I think on some of these that I'm going to do, I, I would argue that it's the link. So, um, when I first met him, um, it was in the fall of

00:35:35.050 - 00:36:02.679

1970 we know that, you know, most of, uh, songs like, don't take it to death. I mean, that's how that song starts. Not, not exactly, but pretty much, you know, that's the intro and, uh, you know, that's good to set up where the song goes. So,

00:36:02.689 - 00:36:30.520

um, you know, the minor key things, let me see a miner, a miner. He's fiddling around with. Um, our mother of the mountain was in modern to the court. They're the, the few that get it right are waiting around to die. I was so proud of

00:36:30.530 - 00:36:46.750

you guys. It was a very, very qualified use that, uh, the e that's the way they hear it. And every time I hear it it's like, it's not, you know, fingernails on a blackboard, it's not the way it was written. So, uh, you know, he was

00:36:46.760 - 00:37:03.179

writing, he, you know, he wrote in G a Bitter a little bit an evi um, but he realized he, he, he wanted to extend up the neck and, um, I was friends with, we were living in truck silo, uh which is about as the crow flies

00:37:03.189 - 00:37:21.330

about a mile from here. Uh Darryl Harris lived in the upstairs apartment and towns with his new girlfriend, Leslie were staying up there when he would come to town. And I had a, uh, the downstairs apartment with Rex Bell and, um, I was just kind of

00:37:21.340 - 00:37:33.879

learning how to play guitar. Leslie would come down in the morning, you know, towns would finally fall asleep, you know, like at eight sleep for an hour, you know, so she come down and have coffee with me. She told me something that I, I was just

00:37:33.889 - 00:37:50.649

kind of learning how to get this stuff down and she told me that Townes told her that it, he looked at his fingers one time and, and said, you know, I just can't get him to do what I want him to do. Right. And, uh, this

00:37:50.659 - 00:38:09.679

was right at the time when he was entering what I'll call the def the defense. All right. So, um, there was a song that came out called Fire and Rain. Hi, uh, James Taylor and his wick was all the rage of the finger picking fingers. Right

00:38:13.550 - 00:38:29.610

yesterday morning. Did you know you were gone? This is deposition. That's happened. It's five pres up the deck. Right. And the very first song I heard Towns play. Um, well, the first one that kind of struck me, uh, the first time I heard it, uh, you

00:38:29.620 - 00:38:58.300

are not needed down up here. All right. So he's using that position. And another thing that struck me that night, um, was his use of power. So he started to do that on any of his growing stuff, right? He's starting to kind of experiment and roll

00:38:58.310 - 00:39:18.739

around with these things, right? So, uh that was the first one. And, um then, you know, he would go out on the road and he would always come back with a new batch of songs, right? And one of those when he came back was um one

00:39:18.750 - 00:39:36.989

that he wrote mainly with Leslie in mind. Um But, uh when, you know, back when he would do the, the uh college circuit, he, he played his college gigs, right? And they were only like an hour apart, you know, and girls would follow him around uh

00:39:37.000 - 00:40:08.600

to these different gigs and one of them, uh her name was BJ. She ended up being a, a fairly, you know, respectable folk singer. But so you can clearly see that l uh that's coming in and right

00:40:08.610 - 00:40:51.169

on the heels of that, um He wrote um this one. So he's going up the neck, he's kind of experimenting with these things, right? So that, of course, is to move this to why he wrote. Um I recognize that one, I'm standing hit back down. That

00:40:51.179 - 00:41:42.750

ain't right from uh let's see, uh There was, these were all written kind of right together. Um See if I can replicate this, that's uh which you don't need me, makes me crazy. But um and another one up there was uh, so at my window, right?

00:41:42.760 - 00:41:56.830

And they were all, you know, towns is trying to get up here, you know what I mean? And dee afforded a pretty good opportunity, uh, for him to do that because it did have an open strength. It's not as low as day where you can anchor

00:41:56.840 - 00:42:13.169

it. Uh, but it's slow enough. Right. So, um, I would think that he was working so hard, uh, you know, on trying to get these things, um, that, you know, his fiddling around with his guitar and everything would kind of lead to, you know, beginning to

00:42:13.179 - 00:42:27.250

come up with a line and, and, uh, you know, what he would do usually is, uh, and II, I did witness this a few times because he'd come up with the, you know, maybe the, you know, the guitar break and, uh, the first verse and then

00:42:27.260 - 00:42:41.199

he would put his guitar away and he, all of a sudden, you know, we'd be sitting around drinking or, you know, hanging out shooting the breeze and he'd go find a piece of paper and he'd sit down and sit down. It would take him about two

00:42:41.209 - 00:42:54.360

or three minutes. He would write out the whole rest of the song. It's pretty cool to see. I saw him. Do they do that with the App I Window and the steak song. But once again, all that guitar stuff was in there. So, um, here's a

00:42:54.370 - 00:43:22.209

couple of other words, um, there was a, you know, that we're not in the defects. Uh, Doc Watson put out a song, uh, put out an album on Poppy and he did the, uh, the Todd Paxton song. Well, it ain't much of, of a departure. You

00:43:22.219 - 00:43:54.070

go from that to in the exact same positions. So he said that, um, you know, he dreamed that he was a songwriter, writing a song. I would suggest to you that he dreamed that lick first. Um, there's a couple of others, um, lungs. Um, we know

00:43:54.080 - 00:44:27.070

that, you know, he was doing these lightning songs. It's not much of a departure to go for that straight Latin Hopkins. Um, except he uses the minor instead of the major. Um, she came and she touched me. That's another one that I was really impressed with.

00:44:27.129 - 00:44:54.790

Um, I would say the Genesis at this time, I will go to my grave once again thinking that he, you know, he was sitting up late one night fiddling around brushing on his guitar came up with that lick and wrote the song. Um and, you know,

00:44:54.800 - 00:45:12.570

they've become really critical, you know, like uh to the songs in, integral, in integral to uh the songs and how the, you know, the lyrics to play out. So once again, it's kind of chicken and the egg, which came first. But I would say in a

00:45:12.580 - 00:45:38.590

lot of cases uh that his guitar playing uh was the foundation for, you know, that was the launching pad, you know, uh for his brilliant lyrical stuff. So I'll turn it back to you guys. So I'm going to put a microphone over here in case anybody

00:45:38.600 - 00:46:03.510

wants to ask a question of the panelists don't be shy. Hey, we gotta take her. Um Thank you all so much. This has been absolutely fabulous. Um I'm gonna ask a question about a specific song because I don't know if I'm gonna be in the company

00:46:03.520 - 00:46:17.169

of a group of experts like this ever again. And there's a song of Towns is that I've always wondered about and that's the Silver Ships of Andar, um, which is a song that I heard for the first time, two or three years ago. And I would

00:46:17.179 - 00:46:30.479

swear that Jrr Tolkien wrote that song and then I looked it up uh a few months back, uh and discovered that Townes wrote the lyrics to that song. And I was just curious about whether he read Tolkien, whether he was a, a reader of high fantasy,

00:46:30.489 - 00:46:44.810

sort of bubbled up to that song, which is you ever read the Rhyme of The Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge? Yeah, that's, that's what comes to mind. Like, I don't, I know only one Tolkien book but it's very much that same story. Um, anybody have

00:46:44.820 - 00:46:56.850

an answer to that, uh, talking. I think that he might have even been on record somewhere saying that, you know, he wanted to write a poem and, you know, it, it's Homeric, it's extraordinary, you know, and it took me a while to figure, wait a minute,

00:46:56.860 - 00:47:10.530

you know, they're talking about it. It must be Vikings, not, you know, the meter, but that was the first impression that I had. But I, I think that he did cite that being an inspiration. Is that your favorite town? Uh It's one of my very favorites.

00:47:10.699 - 00:47:24.929

I bought a double LP of the live at the old order. Yes. And it changed my life. II, I couldn't pick a single one. It's just extraordinary. You are in the right place. It's wonderful. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Well, if there aren't any

00:47:24.939 - 00:47:38.860

other brave souls, um I want to thank the panel for coming out here and thank all of you for coming and celebrating towns for the day. And yes, thank you so much. Thank you.