Customer Reviews

In Pain

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I heard of Townes Van Zandt from his recording and song writing for Cowboy Junkies. Didn't realize how great this man sounded until I got a few of his solo CDs. In Pain is full of folky-blues sound from an man great home grown guitar sound and a rasp of a voice.

This raspy voice does not grate at the ears but shapes stories sad and sometimes pessimestic. Yet after hearing them I feel up lifted. For the songs are filled with the desires of man and women and the pleasure and pain that they bring.

The guitar sound reminds me of Robert Johnson in its masterful yet primative tone and his voice remind me of a quite version of Elmore James with his great emotional sway.

To LIVE IS TO FLY is one of the happiest songs and greatest love songs ever written.

All you early Stones fan who loved their first blues sound, You have to HEAR Townes's version of YOU GOTTA MOVE .

This is a real tresure for a music lover who is looking to expand a music collection.

This record of Van Zandt is simply one of the best ones he ever did. I was lucky enough to see him perform in germany during 1998, one of his very last shows. It was just him and his guitar, and it still sends chills down my bones ... and this record is just like you could have seen him live on stage. In his very old days.

This album made me feel the emotions, as if I was there at the time of the recording. Spooky and great, well worth the investment.

An obvious companion to Van Zandt's other superb Live acoustic album, "Abnormal," "In Pain" delivers haunting acoustic ballads that sound as if wrenched from a deep burrow of pain in Van Zandt's heart, such as "Nothin'," and "Stopping Off Place," a suitable anecdote to Alexander "Skip" Spence's ghostly "Cripple Creek." This album's rendition of "Highway Kind" is simply Van Zandt's best ever, proving it a required listen for any aspiring songwriter with a soul. However, this album rises above "Abnormal's" solemn motif with brilliantly raucous performances of "Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold" and "White Freight Liner," a track that pulls tears from my eyes every time I listen to the nearly 50 year old Vand Zandt successfully strive for the high notes he hit on the studio version of 20 years prior. No one can be sure, but the extraordinary power of these performances sounds as if Van Zandt knew he was walking his last miles; his heartbreaking death shocked the songwriting world just months later. Simply put, "In Pain" joins "Abnormal" as an astoundingly stirring recording of the last days of the greatest troubadour who ever graced this earth. Hopefully, the record label that brought them to us, Normal Records, will continue digging up recordings of that now legendary acoustic tour.