Biography

Ask any Texan who the best American singer-songwriter of the rock era is and odds are the answer won't be Bob Dylan but Townes Van Zandt, a Fort Worth native who brought to country music an unprecedented poetic depth and a lyrical grace to rival literary greats. Registering only cult sales during his career, Van Zandt mastered darkly haunted but earthy imagery (epitomized in the desolate anthem "Waitin' Round to Die" from his 1968 debut) and projected a palpable but riveting anguish in even his most gentle songs (such as "If I Needed You"). His commercial highlight came via a bestselling Willie Nelson-Merle Haggard duet of his outlaw narrative "Pancho & Lefty," but his untimely death--resulting from a protracted struggle with addiction--on New Year's Day 1997 robbed the world of one of its greatest troubadours.

Top Tracks

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• (i Heard That) Lonesome Whistle

• A Song For

• At My Window

• Be Here To Love Me

• Black Crow Blues

• Black Widow Blues

• Blue Wind Blew

• Brand New Companion

• Brand New Companion/cocaine Blues

• Buckskin Stallion Blues

• Cocaine Blues

• Colorado Girl

• Coo Coo

• Cowboy Junkies Lament

• Dead Flowers

• Dirty Old Town

• Don't Let The Sunshine Fool Ya'

• Don't Take It Too Bad

• Flyin' Shoes

• Flying Shoes

• For The Sake Of Song

• For The Sake Of The Song

• For The Sake Of The Song [original Version]

• High, Low And In Between

• Hunger Child Blues

• If I Needed You

• Ira Hayes

• Kathleen

• Lungs

• Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold

• No Place To Fall

• None But The Rain

• Nothin'

• Only Him Or Me

• Our Mother The Mountain

• Pancho & Lefty

• Pancho And Lefty

• Poncho & Lefty

• Poncho And Lefty

• Rake

• Rex's Blues

• Short-haired Woman Blues

• Snowin' On Raton

• St. John The Gambler

• Tecumseh

• Tecumseh Valley

• Tecumseh Valley [original Version]

• The Catfish Song

• The Hole

• To Live Is To Fly

• To Live's To Fly

• Waiting Around To Die

• Waiting 'round To Die

• When He Offers His Hand

• When Your Dream Lovers Die

• White Freight Liner Blues

• Who Do You Love

• Why She's Acting This Way

• You Are Not Needed Now

Discography

• Click on the album to launch in Spotify

• A Private Concert

  Varese

  2005

• Live at Union Chapel, London, England

  Tomato

  2005

• Rear View Mirror, Vol. 2

  Varèse Sarabande / Varese

  2004

• In the Beginning...

  Music World Entertainment / Compadre Records

  2003

• A Gentle Evening with Townes Van Zandt

  Dualtone Music

  2002

• Live at McCabe's

  Return To Sender

  2001

• In Pain

  Normal

  2000

• Abnormal

  Normal

  1998

• The Highway Kind

  Normal / Normal Germany

  1997

• Rear View Mirror

  Sundown Records

  1997

• Pancho

  Edsel

  1996

• Rain on a Conga Drum: Live in Berlin

  MMS

  1995

• No Deeper Blue

  Sugar Hill

  1995

• Roadsongs

  Sugar Hill

  1994

• Live and Obscure

  Sugar Hill

  1989

• At My Window

  Sugar Hill

  1987

• Flyin' Shoes

  Rhino

  1978

• High, Low and in Between

  Tomato / Rhino/WEA

  1972

• The Late Great Townes Van Zandt

  Rhino

  1972

• Our Mother the Mountain

  MRI Associated Labels / Fat Possum

  1969

• Townes Van Zandt

  Rhino/WEA

  1969