A Deeper Blue (43 page)

2. Ibid.

3. All quotes from Cindy Van Zandt Lindgram are from the author’s interview, January 11, 2002.

4. The Battle of Franklin is summed up on www.americancivilwar.com/

statepic/tn/tn036.html:

5. John Lomax III, author’s interview, April 21, 2001.

6.
Omaha Rainbow,
no. 15.

7. Hedgepeth, “Townes Van Zandt—Messages from the Outside.”

8. Ibid.

9. David Olney, interview by the author, February 7, 2001.

10. According to Gray (in a conversation with the author), Jennings fired him for refusing to wear the band uniform.

11. Selections from these live soundboard recordings were eventually released as
Rear View Mirror, Road Songs,
and
Rear View Mirror, Volume
Two.
These recordings constitute some of Townes’ best work.

12. Quotes from Danny Rowland are from the author’s interview, April 22, 2001, and from Rowland’s own liner notes to
Rear View Mirror,
Volume Two
(2004).

13. According to Cindy, while they lived at the cabin in Franklin, Townes taught her to play guitar. The first song he taught her was “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” the Fred Rose classic that was Willie Nelson’s big hit from
Red Headed Stranger.

14. Some of Townes’ comments on his songs are light-hearted, some more serious. For “If I Needed You,” Townes again claims that it’s the
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only song he’s ever “written while sleeping.” For “Lungs,” he writes,

“The darkness of disease and the fire of frustration. This song should be screamed, not sung.”

15. John Lomax,
For the Sake of the Song.

16. From
Omaha Rainbow,
no. 15, December 1977.

17.
Solo Sessions
, 1995.

18. The primary source for background on Chips Moman is Peter Gural-nick,
Sweet Soul Music
(Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1986).

19. Townes told this story many times as an introduction to playing the song.

20. Andy Langer, “Townes Without Pity: The Battle for Townes Van Zandt’s Legacy,”
Austin Chronicle
, June 14, 2002.

21. Quotes from J.T. from “The Tower Son,” John Nova Lomax,
Houston
Press
, October 17, 2002.

22. Hedgepeth, “Townes Van Zandt—Messages from the Outside.”

Chapter 12

1. All quotes from John Lomax III are from the author’s interview, April 21, 2001.

2. All quotes from Mickey White are from the author’s interview, August 12, 2001.

3. Mickey White, author’s interview. According to Danny Rowland, the Colonel was named after the famous Confederate Colonel John Singleton Mosby, known as the “Gray Ghost.”

4. All quotes from Cindy Van Zandt Lindgram are from the author’s interview, January 11, 2002.

5. All quotes from Peggy Underwood are from the author’s interview, January 9, 2002.

6. The Texas State Historical Association, “Foley, Blaze,”
The Handbook
of Texas Online,
www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/FF/

ffulm.html. Also, Lee Nichols, “A Walking Contradiction:
The Legend
of Blaze Foley,” Austin Chronicle
, December 28, 1999.

7. It became a standing joke around Austin that the letters “BFI” (which stands for Browning-Ferris Industries), which adorned the front of every trash dumpster in town, actually stood for “Blaze Foley Inside.”

8. Information on and quotes from Jeanene Munsell Van Zandt come from interviews by Ruth Sanders, who shared transcripts of her unpublished interviews from February 9, 2004, and May 9, 2004, and her notes.

9. The old friend quoted here is Peggy Underwood, from the author’s interview. She added the following in relation to this period: “He actually tried to get me to go back with him, and I said, no way, because I didn’t have the energy. I’d already done that. Plus I was already involved with another nut.”

10. All quotes from Fran Lohr are from the author’s interviews.

11. Emmylou Harris, as told in
Townes Van Zandt: Be Here to Love Me,
DVD, directed by Margaret Brown (Rake Films, 2005).

Endnotes

281

12.
Be Here to Love Me.

13. Dorothy Van Zandt was not literally on her “death bed”; she didn’t pass away until six months later.

14. Lustrica N. Amposta, M.D., Attending Physician’s Discharge/Fur-lough Note for John T. Van Zandt, Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Treatment Center, Brackenridge Hospital, Austin, Texas, July 30, 1983.

15.
Be Here to Love Me.

16. All quotes from Donna Spence are from the author’s interview, March 27, 2000.

17. Quotes from Jeanene Munsell Van Zandt come from interviews by Ruth Sanders, February 9, 2004, and May 9, 2004.

18. Townes Van Zandt, interview with Larry Monroe, KUT radio, December 1993.

19. Hospital records, Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Treatment Center, Brackenridge Hospital, July 26, 1983.

20. Larry Monroe, “Blaze Foley,” first printed in the
Austin Weekly
in February 1989. Also, www.larrymonroe.com/writings/writings01.html, 1999.

Chapter 13

1. All quotes from Mickey White are from the author’s interview.

2. Mickey White says of the first gig of that tour, at Twelfth and Porter in Nashville (which was recorded and became the album
Live and
Obscure
), “I had booked that gig, then ‘Little H’ got a hold of it. This is when he kind of stepped back in,” with “Little H” referring to Harold Eggers. White, however, credits Eggers with publicizing the show well.

3. The quote is from Robert K. Oermann’s liner notes to
Live and Obscure
on Sugar Hill Records.

4.
Live and Obscure
was actually the first recorded but second released of Townes’ albums on Sugar Hill, the second recorded, first released being
At My Window
.

5. Harold Eggers, “Twenty Years With Townes Van Zandt,” www.townes-vanzandt20yearshfe.com/timeline/.

6. Jack Clement, author’s interview.

7. Danny Rowland, author’s interview.

8. Larry Monroe,“Blaze Foley,” first printed in the
Austin Weekly
in February, 1989, www.larrymonroe.com/writings/writings01.html.

9. Peggy Underwood, author’s interview.

10. All quotes from Lyse Moore are from the author’s interview, April 23, 2001.

11. Bob Moore, author’s interview, February 13, 2001.

12. Robert Palmer, “A Hard Road, Seldom Taken,”
New York Times
, June 7, 1987.

13. All these years later, his friends and fans still question the jury’s ver-dict that acquitted Carey January of Foley’s murder by reason of self-defense. “Derelict in Duct Tape Shoes: Fifteen Years After His Death, Blaze Foley’s Legacy Is Secure” by Michael Corcoran,
Austin American-282

A Deeper Blue: The Life and Music of Townes Van Zandt
Statesman
Staff, January 31, 2004, http://insurgentcountry.net/blaze-foley-15.htm.

14. Ibid.

15. Niles Fuller, from “Have Your Say—Albums: Blaze Foley, Oval Room,”

BBC Folk and Country Review
, www.bbc.co.uk/music/release/x5f9/.

16. Susanna Clark, author’s interview.

17. Andy Langer, “Townes Without Pity.”

18. This would have been the show at the Great American Music Hall the previous November. Guy Clark confirms Townes’ version of the writing of this song in the film
Be Here to Love Me
(2005).

19. A dozen tracks were released in 2001 as
Texas Rain: The Texas Hill
Country Recordings
on Kevin Eggers’ resurrected Tomato label.

20. Neil Strauss, “The Pop Life” (column),
New York Times
, November 24, 1994.

21. Michael Timmins, author’s interview, January 18, 2000.

22. Townes Van Zandt, interview with Larry Monroe, KUT radio, December 1993.

23. Michael Timmins’ comments in the author’s interview suggest that Townes was “cheating” somewhat, at least during the later part of the span. Bob Moore, in his interview with the author, states with authority that Townes was sober for eleven months after his release from the Huntsville treatment center.

24. Keith Glass, personal correspondence with the author, 2002.

25. The author knows of no other live recordings of this song.

26. Michael Hall,
Texas Monthly
, “The Great, Late Townes Van Zandt,”

March 1998.

Chapter 14

1. The author was privileged to view the wrapping paper during Danny Rowland’s interview, April 22, 2001.

2. Bob Moore also observed his poor physical state: “I was selling vin-tage denim … and he would tell me he needed a certain size of pants, and it was tough to find them because he had a 34-inch inseam, and it hit the point that he got down to below a 30-inch waist.”

3. The sources of comments and observations on Townes’ live performances here and elsewhere are in the recordings listed in Audio and Video Sources.

4. Reviews of shows from this period indicate the depths to which a performance could sink. This one is from 1994: This was a tough show for me because it became pretty clear that at this stage in Townes’ career, sobriety is a physical problem.… It’s likely that Townes will see better days. Until then, be forewarned.

[email protected] (J Paschel), “Review: Townes Van Zandt in Seattle,” Article 36249 from Newsgroups: rec.music.

folk, May 23, 1994.

5. Will Van Zandt remembers with fondness touring with his father:

“Some of my first memories are real good stuff…. I remember Yellow-Endnotes

283

stone and seeing the buffalo and stuff like that. And he would stop at every historical monument and tell me the whole story. I think that’s probably why I’m into world history now … he drilled that into me.”

Will Van Zandt, interview by Ruth Sanders, May 9, 2004.

6. Mickey White, author’s interview.

7. Quoted in “Talkin’ Townes” by Mark Brend,
Record Collector Magazine
(UK), February 2002. It is not clear what band she is referring to that

“Townes fired.”

8. Ibid.

9. The fourteen songs comprised the contents of the “Townes Van Zandt Songs” catalog, which was the publishing arrangement under which the most recent songs were published, including some not yet recorded. Titles fifteen and sixteen in that catalog are particularly interesting: “Houston, They Made a Fool of Me (50% held by Remo Circo)” and “When They Wing (50% held by Remo Circo).” Remo Circo is a Tennessee politician.

10. Hall, “The Great, Late Townes Van Zandt.”

11. Townes Van Zandt, interview with Larry Monroe, KUT radio, December 1993.

12. Ibid.

13. Will Van Zandt, Ruth Sanders interview.

14. Royann Calvin provides this account based on her later conversations with Townes on the subject, as recounted in her interview with the author, June 26 and June 27, 2001.

15. Jimmy Gingles, author’s interview, February 9, 2001.

16. Bob Moore, author’s interview.

17. Townes made this statement during a live performance on the TV

program
Texas Connection
(1993).

18. Jim Calvin, Royann Calvin, Susanna Clark, Jimmy Gingles, Bob Moore, Lyse Moore, and others, author’s interviews.

19. Royann Calvin, author’s interview.

20. The divorce decree was signed on April 1 but not fully processed and officially delivered until May 2, 1994.

21. Susanna Clark, from the author’s interview, March 28, 2002.

22. “Townes last moments—report from Jeanene,” Aug. 2 1997, http://

ippc2.orst.edu/coopl/tvznotice4.html.)

23. This speculative opinion was offered on background only.

24. The DVD version of the film
Heartworn Highways
features an out-take of Guy and Susanna hosting an inebriated Christmas-time

“song pull” with Rodney Crowell, Richard Dobson, Steve Earle, and others.

25. Townes Van Zandt, interview with Larry Monroe, KUT radio, December 1993. In the interview, Townes says he’ll be leaving for Ireland to make the record on January 3, then recording in mid-January. In fact, he did not embark to make the record until that May.

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A Deeper Blue: The Life and Music of Townes Van Zandt
26. From “Talk Townes,” an article by Patrick Brennan, February 1995.

It is not revealed which song Townes said he wrote with Shane MacGowan in mind.

27. Shane MacGowan discusses “piss artists” and many other topics in
A
Drink with Shane MacGowan
(New York: Grove Press, 2001).

28. Patrick Brennan, “Talk Townes.”

29. Jeanene Van Zandt, from the liner notes to Jonnell Mosser’s 1996

album of Townes covers,
Around Townes
.

30. Townes had a large collection of Bo Whitt’s paintings; Jeanene has some in Smyrna, as do Rex Bell and Jet Whitt in Galveston.

31. The album is
Daddies Sing Good Night: A Fathers’ Collection of Sleepy-time Songs,
released in 1994.

32. Neil Strauss, “The Pop Life.”

33. Ibid.

34. From “An Interview with Townes Van Zandt,” by Aretha Sills,
Cups
magazine, August 1994.

35. A recording of parts of this show—minus Emmylou Harris—was released in 2001 as
Steve Earle, Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark Together at
the Bluebird Café
on American Originals Records.

36. Quotes from Interview with J.T. Van Zandt, Son of the Late Great Townes Van Zandt, Lone Star Music, 2001, www.lonestarmusic.com.

37. Bayorischer Rundfunk radio interview, November 20, 1995.

38. Quotes from the author’s correspondence with Claudia Winterer, January 2002.

39. Townes Van Zandt, interview with Larry Monroe, KUT radio, December 1993. Susanna Clark said that Townes’ phone bill one month was $2,300 (Susanna Clark, author’s interview).

40. Bayorischer Rundfunk radio interview.

Chapter 15

1. Quoted in Hall, “The Great, Late Townes Van Zandt.”

2. Claudia Winterer, correspondence.