A Deeper Blue

A Deeper Blue

The Life and Music

of Townes Van Zandt

A Deeper Blue

The Life and Music

of Townes Van Zandt

by Robert Earl Hardy

Number 1 in the North Texas

Lives of Musicians Series

University of North Texas Press

Denton, Texas

©2008 Robert Earl Hardy

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

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Permissions:

University of North Texas Press

P.O. Box 311336

Denton, TX 76203-1336

The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, z39.48.1984. Binding materials have been chosen for durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hardy, Robert Earl, 1957–

A deeper blue: the life and music of Townes Van Zandt / by Robert Earl Hardy.

p. cm.—(North Texas lives of musicians series ; no. 1) Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-57441-247-5 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. Van Zandt, Townes. 2. Country musicians—United States—

Biography. I. Title.

ML420.V248.H37 2008

782.421642092—dc22

[B]

2007044532

A Deeper Blue: The Life and Music of Townes Van Zandt
is Number 1 in the North Texas Lives of Musicians Series

Cover photo courtesy of Roy Tee

To my favorite Texan, my mother

Frances Mahala Hardy

(1924–2006)

And, with abiding love, to my wife

Marsha

And in fond memory of

Jim Calvin

Roxy Gordon

Johnny Guess

Mickey Newbury

Dale Soffar

Peggy Underwood

and

Townes Van Zandt

Contents

List of Photographs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii Introduction: High, Low, and In Between . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1. Many a River: The Van Zandts of Texas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2. No Lonesome Tune . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

3. Where I Lead Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

4. No Place to Fall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

5. Sanitarium Blues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

6. Waitin’ for the Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

7. For the Sake of the Song . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

8. Don’t You Take It Too Bad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

9. Highway Kind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

10. White Freightliner Blues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

11. Dollar Bill Blues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

12. Still Lookin’ for You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

13. No Deeper Blue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

14. Flyin’ Shoes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

15. The Blue March . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

Afterword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

Audio and Video Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

List of Photographs

(appearing after page 172)

1. Portrait of Townes Van Zandt

2. Townes performing, 1970s

3. Townes and Fran’s wedding

4. Guy, Susanna, and Townes

5. Pickin’ on the porch

6. Townes and Cindy

7. Townes with Mickey White

8. On the road

9. Amigos Ricardo and Blaze

10. Townes, Jeanene, and Will

11. Townes and the Calvins

12. Claudia Winterer

13. Townes and J.T.

14. Townes performing in Scotland

15. Backstage, Renfrew Ferry

16. Townes with Bo Whitt paintings

Acknowledgments

I
N 1999, I RETURNEDTOTexas for the first time in twenty-five years. My mother was celebrating her seventy-fifth birthday and the fiftieth anniversary of leaving her Galveston home and moving east. I was as happy as she was to see Galveston again, where I had spent many hours as a child, collecting shells on the beach, watching the shrimp boats come in, studying old maps and reading old books, and absorbing the quiet charm of my grandmother’s bungalow on Avenue S, with the shades drawn against the heat of the day. Galveston, Texas, is the true source of nourishment from which this book springs.

The second or third evening of our return visit to Galveston, while my mother stayed behind at the Galvez, I took my wife, Marsha, out to see the town. We wandered toward the Strand and stumbled into a little place called the Old Quarter Acoustic Café, where it was open-mic night. Along with three or four other patrons, we sat through a couple of average folk singers, then Rex Bell, the proprietor, sat down and played a few songs, including his own “Whiskey Maybe,” Blaze Foley’s “Oval Room,” and Townes Van Zandt’s “I’ll Be Here in the Morning.” As he played a few more Van Zandt songs, I remembered listening in wonder-ment to “Pancho and Lefty” on my local underground radio station’s early-seventies all-night broadcasts, and I recalled that I still had an old vinyl copy of
The Late, Great Townes Van Zandt
.

I was intrigued. We sat at the bar and talked with Rex until closing time, listening to stories about his days playing bass with Lightnin’ Hopkins and about his exploits with—and his love and respect for—Townes Van Zandt. At some point, somebody mentioned that Townes’ story would make a great book. That evening with Rex Bell was the Shiner Bock–fuelled occasion during which the seed for this book was planted.

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Acknowledgments

ix

Over the years since, many individuals have generously and enthusiastically given their time and energies to help the book grow. I especially acknowledge and thank my wife, Marsha, for providing me with the strongest, most unflagging support imaginable. The many hours we spent poring over tapes and transcripts together, talking with friends and colleagues, and discussing the details and patterns of Townes’ life and music, plus the hours she spent transcribing interviews, reading the manuscript, offering suggestions, helping compile sources and obtain permissions, and generally staying deeply involved—were hours essential to this book’s existence.

Also in the engine room were Anne Bailey, who provided thoughtful research on a number of difficult topics; Ruth Sanders, who was kind enough to share with me the fruits of her unpublished research, including her personal interviews with one of the principals; and Lisa Uhlman, who transcribed interviews and provided research assistance—I thank them all. I also acknowledge with thanks the support of Nick Evans and Jeff Horne of Heartland Publishing in England, the authors and publishers of
Songbuilder: The Life and Music of Guy Clark
, who offered sincere advice and encouragement and shared valuable contacts. Also sincere and heartfelt in the support that they consistently showed for this project are Doug and Susan Darrow of Houston, Texas. In our travels through Texas, Marsha and I enjoyed the hospitality of many friends, old and new, including Bianca DeLeon, who welcomed us into her home, showed us around Austin, and offered friendship and encouragement. In our travels through Tennessee and vicinity, again, many friends helped us on our way, particularly our dear Kentucky friends, Jimmy Gingles and Joan Morgan. Through Jimmy Gingles, we also got to know and love Jimmy McKinney, a great spirit to whose memory I offer a fond toast.

A number of individuals provided audio and video recordings of live performances (as documented in Audio and Video Sources), and I thank them all, especially Len Coop (whose Blue Sky Home Page Web site is the most comprehensive online source of information on Townes), and also Aleksandar Laza-revic, Marilyn Kay, Jess Codd, and Rodney Hamon. Also, Patrick
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A Deeper Blue: The Life and Music of Townes Van Zandt
Hurley has been a loyal correspondent and a valuable source of information and encouragement.

Songwriters have a special kind of affinity for Townes Van Zandt, and songwriters were often able to offer special insight to this inquiry. Foremost among them, closest to my heart, were Guy Clark, Susanna Clark, and Mickey Newbury. Their contributions to this book mean the world to me, and I thank them profoundly. David Olney and Eric Taylor—two of many contemporary songwriters influenced by Townes—were also invaluable sources of insight. In one memorable episode in researching this book, Taylor phoned one night and challenged me to a round of over-the-phone arm wrestling, explaining that he and Townes had engaged in this activity more than once. In addition, for her encouragement as well as her work in the field, I thank Kathleen Hudson of Schreiner University in Kerrville, Texas, founder and director of the Texas Heritage Music Foundation and author of
Telling Stories, Writing Songs: An Album of Texas Songwriters
. I also offer acknowledgment and thanks to the many contemporary journalists, writers, and photographers who took Townes as their subject during his lifetime and whose work informed my work.

Finally, I want to give special acknowledgment to the people who spent significant parts of their lives with Townes Van Zandt and—believing it was important that his story be told fully and truthfully—willingly, tenderly, and forthrightly shared their memories for the sake of posterity: Rex Bell, Vince Bell, Jim Calvin, Royann Calvin, John Carrick, Guy Clark, Susanna Clark, Jack Clement, Bianca DeLeon, Richard Dobson, Steve Earle, Joe Ely, Rex Foster, Marshall Froker, Jimmy Gingles, Joe Gracey, Jimmie Gray, Frank “Chito” Greer, Darryl Harris, Grace Jameson, Crow Johnson, Cindy Van Zandt Lindgram, Fran Lohr, John Lomax III, Bob Moore, Lyse Moore, Todd Musburger, Bob Myrick, Mickey Newbury, David Olney, Danny “Ruester” Rowland, Luke Sharpe, Dale Soffar, Donna Spence, Bob Sturtevant, Eric Taylor, Michael Timmins, Peggy Underwood, Bill Van Zandt, Jeanene Van Zandt, Will Van Zandt, Mickey White, Jeanette “Jet” Whitt, Earl Willis, Nick Wilson, Claudia Winterer, and all those whose off-the-record contributions informed this work.

Introduction

High, Low, and

In Between

T
OWNES VAN ZANDT WAS A songwriter and a traveling minstrel—a folk singer, no less—in an era when practicing these crafts had long since become anachronistic, evocative of a long-gone era in American life—of Jimmie Rodgers riding the rails of the great American West; Woody Guthrie tramping the highways from dustbowl Oklahoma to the migrant camps of California; Robert Johnson playing guitar with the devil at a Mississippi Delta crossroads; Hank Williams driving from roadhouse to roadhouse across the South, drinking and singing with the Drifting Cowboys—an archaic art form, a mythic mode of living. But like these other American originals, Townes Van Zandt was fully invested in his craft, and his craft was inextricable from his life, and this investment and integra-tion gave rise to great art, which is timeless.

As an artist, Van Zandt made no compromises; he lived out his destiny on the road, practicing his craft until he simply couldn’t
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A Deeper Blue: The Life and Music of Townes Van Zandt
anymore—the embodiment of the troubled troubadour. He was certainly a troubled man.

Townes Van Zandt was troubled throughout his life by alcoholism and manic-depressive illness, and he was constantly battling the demons associated with these conditions. He made attempts to settle down into family life, but it was always a struggle. He made attempts to pursue commercial success with his music, but mostly those attempts came up short. He had a spiritual bent that always trumped his material concerns—