Entertainment For Lively Minds
The Book Addiction Continues
An innocent trumble through town in my lunch hour and I stumbled into Blackwells on Charing Cross Road.
I had no intention of buying anything. My Kindle app is backed up and my non virtual shelves heave with unread tomes too.
There's a bargain bin, better have a look.
Twenty minutes later I leave Blackwells weighed down with:
A Deeper Blue - Townes Van Zandt bio
Still On The Road - part 2 of Heylin's deconstruction of Dylan's work
You Can't Always Get What You Want - life on the road with the Stones and the Dead by Sam Cutler
Independence Days - Alex Ogg's history of indie record labels
There's Something Happening Here - Furay's account of Buffalo Springfield
Hot Burritos - Chris Hillmans account of the Flying Burrito Brothers
Jazz Generations - autobiography of Buddy Collette
Total? Well since you ask - £20
I am starting with Townes, I know very little of his work so can you recommend a suitable soundtrack as I read?
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Our Mother the Mountain
is my favourite Townes albubum.
Mine
too.
"Live
at the Old Quarter" is charming
If you can get over his voice/singing style..
....you'll be fine. Me, I love unusual voices if they tell a good tale.
Since you're reading the bio, some early stuff might be best. You can hear most of the songs farther down the line when he's played them for years and they've grown a bit.
A Gentle Evening with Townes Van Zandt and there's a 2 CD anthology that's good.
Pancho and Lefty, Tecumseh Valley, Mr Mudd and Mr Gold are story songs.
Waiting Around To Die, Lungs etc...well, you can guess.
White Freightliner Blues is one of my favourite songs. The Ballad Of Ira Hayes is a rare cover and Talking Thunderbird Blues is hilarious.
Townes sings the blues. Someone once asked him why he sang such sad songs. He replied "They're not sad, they're hopeless". His singing style adds to a lot of the sadness in his work but there's a lot of humour in there too. There are a few live albums and he often tells stories and jokes between the songs.
I love
David Byrne, Tom Waits, the guy from Clap Your Hands say Yeah, Neil Young, Ol' Dirty Bastard and Andre 3000.
Looking forward to Mr Van Zandt
I'd heartily recommend
..the "Be Hear to Love Me" DVD about TVZ if you're a fan. I have the John Kruth biog "To Live's To Fly" which was very good, so interested to hear what the 'Deeper Blue book is like. There's a great 4 CD set of his on Charly called "Texas Troubadour" which is an absolute steal.
jimmy
You have *exquisite* taste. I'd have picked up any of those. OT, my fave Townes album is Flyin' Shoes