Customer Reviews

Delta Momma Blues (Dig)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I own all of Townes Van Zandt's albums and would rank "Delta Momma Blues" as one of the best in his catalog of recorded work. In my opinion Townes' songs benefitted greatly from his fingerpicked guitar playing, which was all too often buried in overproduced mixes in his studio recordings. This was not the case with "Delta Momma Blues", which features Townes' guitar prominently. This album also contains some of his strongest songwriting collected on one release. I was only to find out years after first hearing this disc that the "Delta Momma" Townes refers to on the title track was his nickname for the DM in Robitussin DM, a tribute to his penchant for pounding bottles of the stuff to get high off of the codiene in the cough syrup. Not a great role model by any means, but that's TVZ! "Only Him or Me" is classic Townes, I don't think it gets articulated any better than lines like "You're gonna drown tomorrow if you cry too many tears for yesterday". "Tower Song" is also classic Townes, a song that he said he thought he wrote for someone else but later realized he could have written about himself. Songs like these speak volumes about the man and his talent for the written word. "Brand New Companion" is one of Townes' best original blues songs, he channels Lightnin' Hopkins with his own brand of laid back drive, and the harmonica part is excellent. "Where I Lead Me" is Townes' driving salute to life on the road, and totally rocks. The album closes with two of my favorite of TVZ's songs: "Rake", which upon first listen sounds autobiographical but after repeated listens sounds like some kind of vampire biography, and "Nothin", which was the song that first turned me on to Townes' music. I can't think of another song that displays the great guitar playing and lyrics of Townes better than the way "Nothin" does; he creates a mood of despair and melancholy on this one that is comparable only to the works of blues legends like Skip James and Robert Johnson. This album's mix of folk, blues, and country styles may explain why Townes didn't achieve mainstream success during the years he recorded this and his five other early albums, but listening to it now it doesn't sound like he's genre hopping, it just sounds like Townes. I would recommend this disc to any newcomer to his music. The liner notes make the good point that although Townes had a habit of re-recording songs from this period in later life, he rarely ever re-recorded the ones on this album, indicating that he really nailed them. I would have to agree.

The first time my father put this CD on, I was neither a folk music fan nor a country music fan. I had no confidence I would enjoy any of it.
By the end of "Delta Momma Blues" (the title track, not the whole disc), I was sitting up in my chair, leaning forward with high interest. When "Brand New Companion," "Where I Lead Me" and "Rake" were done, I was a true believer in Van Zandt's powerful talent to evoke emotion and in his talent overall as a musician.
Van Zandt's work also was such a great experience for me that I was willing to listen to a lot of music I wouldn't give the time of day to before. It opened up whole new musical genres for me, and let me discover the joys of the Indigo Girls, Michelle Shocked, Hank Williams and many others.
Perhaps Van Zandt wasn't "popular," but he is certainly one of the more gifted songwriters of the 20th century, IMHO. This disc is a great example of his work, and an essential CD for me.

If you don't know it by now, you should know that Townes van Zandt is one of America's best songwriters. To me, Delta Momma Blues is his overall best album. Though I also like For the Sake of the Song, and High, Low and In-Between, and several of his later albums, this one is the cream of the crop. In my upcoming mystery novel (A Nose for Murder) I couldn't resist putting a scene in the story where my main character is listening to The Tower Song on a listener-sponsored radio station in Blue HIll Maine. His girlfriend tries to turn it off and he tells her, "Leave it on, you'll get used to his voice." Later in the chapter she agrees that the rough sound of his voice makes the songs he sings that much prettier, sadder, and more beautiful. Yes, Townes van Zandt had a voice that wasn't polished or pretty, but there has never been an American songwriter outside of Woody Guthrie who could write songs that sounded as if they'd already existed for a hundred years. If I were stranded on a desert island with a CD player, this would be one of the ten records I'd like to have with me. It's that good.

Townes Van Zandt's simple melodies along with truley honest lyrics is what makes Him a true treasure amoungst Singer/Songwriters. Although His isn't well know, fans like myself can't imagine music without Him. With songs like 'Rake', 'FFV' and 'Tower Song', Van Zandt delivers a combination of love, pain and every emotion presented in numberous methods meant to invoke thoughts about one's own life. This record is bound to become an instant favorite in your collection.

this record is worth buying just for the song "rake" alone. makes loneliness sound sweet.

I think this may be Townes's best album. Heavy country blues element, haunting lyrics, and typical Townes themes: the sad, the silly, and the sublime.

Delta Momma and Brand New Companion are straight up country-blues tunes.

Either him or Me and the Change of Seasons are beautiful and bitter-sweet sad.

The Tower Song hits the nail on its existential head.

Townes is either the best singer-songwriter in the last 100 years or I am biased. I recommend you find out for yourself. . .

I lived in Bennington, Vt. in 1971 when I first heard Townes. I'd sit on the porch with the Green Mountains off to the left and Reggie's Bar over to the right, and drink beer and do acid and listen to Our Mother the Mountain. I've given up on the first two activities, but not the last. Townes has staying power.

One listen to Delta Momma Blues demonstrates that Mr Van Zandt is no typical American songwriter. No songwriter since, perhaps, Hank Williams, displayed such a deliberate knack for avoiding predictability, mawkishness or indifference in songwriting. Lines like Rake's "I used to wake and run with the moon" and "now the dark air's like fire on my skin/and even the moonlight is blinding" catapult Townes miles above any songwriter you may want to name, this includes Dylan, Springsteen and Guthrie. Any songwriter who gives Townes a listen comes to the same conclusion, such as Steve Earle or Lucinda Williams.

Delta Momma blues is unusually spare, and thankfully so. Whereas past albums such as Late Great TVZ cluttered masterpieces like Pancho and Lefty with unnecessary horn sections and other lush arrangements, DMB delivers a fistful of country folk ballads from "FFV" to the gorgeous "Come Tomorrow." None of them quite as compelling as other spare songs like "Highway Kind" or "Nothin'," but, ultimately, every bit as worth it.

Just when the album has you settled in for what you think will be a conclusion as comfortable and subdued as the first half of the album, it rips into a perfectly haggard and complacent blues number in "Brand New Companion," then enters the near hysteria of the raucous and instantly engaging classic, "Where I Lead Me." "Rake" is clearly a masterpiece of pathos and darkness, one of the most riveting set of verses Townes ever put to paper. "Nothin'" carries that pathos right to the album's last note, its harrowing, odd mixture of blues with a subtle, eastern tone recalling that of Steve Earle's CCKMP and lingering in the silence after the song's last syllable. If for only the last four tracks, this is an essential Townes Van Zandt album. if you're willing to give him your full attention for about 40 minutes, the mellow title track and Come Tomorrow are just as worthy of admiration as anything else on Delta Momma Blues.

A good mix of blues, folk, and country, but as the title suggests, it leans a little more to the blues than your usual Townes Van Zandt album. The songs range from nostalgic (FFV) to humorous (Turnstyled, Junkpiled). All in all, a nice listen.

Like perhaps no other songwriter, Townes can convince you how he's been junkpiled and turnstiled and railroaded, and you can hear it all in this album. And I think he probably loved you til he died. Along with Live from the Old Quarter, this is essential Townes for me.