Townes Van Zandt

Townes Van Zandt | Format: MP3 Download

Product Details

• Original Release Date: May 15, 2007
• Label: Fat Possum Records
• Copyright: 2008 Fat Possum Records
• Total Length: 34:52
• Genres: Folk/Contemporary Folk
• ASIN: B001J25NEQ
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #59,094 Paid in MP3 Albums (See Top 100 Paid in MP3 Albums)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Essential Townes, October 5, 2008

By 

Mactavish - See all my reviews

This review is from: Townes Van Zandt (Dig) (Audio CD)

I'm amazed this hasn't been reviewed yet! Let me be clear, the 6 or 7 classic songs on here deserve five stars, but all TVZ albums have a few weak, or weird songs, and his choice of covers was sometimes suspect.
That being said, If you don't want to just own his "greatest hits" collection (very incomplete), then you need to buy all of his late '60's & early '70's albums. "For the Sake of the Song" has a beautiful guitar intro and a cyclical feel. I don't know how many versions he recorded of "Waiting Around To Die." I assume this is the first, and his vocal is the best of versions I've heard, but the violin/fiddle is a little distracting. "Colorado Girl" is one of the many understated heartbreaking ballads that he could conjure up out of the air. A classic. "Lungs" is a dense folk-western sounding song with lots of riffin' going on. The lyrics are great. "Fare Thee Well, Miss Carousel" is one of my all time favorites. It could have been on a Bob Dylan album circa 1965-66, or a Gene Clark album circa 1966-67. Yes, it's that freaking amazing! The chorus tempo abruptly changes and it positively rocks, both of which are rare for Townes, while the lyrics are surreal & '60's sounding.
"None But The Rain" is another beautiful ballad with some subtle strings supporting it. Like the other songwriters I mentioned, TVZ's voice was much more evocative, and had more range, early on in his "career".
If you're a fan, why don't you own this?

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of Townes' Best, December 7, 2009

By 

Old T.B. (Cheyenne, Wy USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Townes Van Zandt (Dig) (Audio CD)

This is Townes Van Zandt's third official release. I consider it his second best album, right behind Our Mother the Mountain. The instrumentation is sparse, and the songs are extremely good. The definitive versions of Townes' classic songs "For the Sake of the Song," and "Waitin' Around to Die," each recorded several times by Townes, are on here. (By the way, Townes said that "Waitin' Around to Die" was the first song he wrote. Pretty amazing first song!

Of some of the other tracks, "Lungs" is an amazing song, as are "None but the Rain" and "(Quicksilver Daydreams of) Maria." "Fare Thee Well, Miss Carousel" has Dylanesque wordplay, but the feeling is pure Townes. Some of the other songs are not as strong, in my opinion, but there's no filler at all on this album. Fans of alt-country and just plain astounding songwriting need this album; I highly recommend it.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Townes Coming into his Own, July 7, 2009

By 

T. Hermes (Spring Hill, TN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Townes Van Zandt (Dig) (Audio CD)

If my biographical memory serves, this is the third album Townes recorded, after the largely ignored debut album "For the Sake of the Song" and the masterpiece second album "Our Mother the Mountain."

This album finds a more mature writer and singer as he debuts such classics as the seamless "Don't You Take it Too Bad" and the poetically lovely "Quicksilver Daydreams of Maria". He did rerecord a few songs that had appeared on his overproduced first album and they receive much better treatment here.

A full 7 of the 10 songs here are classic TVZ songs. The two mentioned above, as well as "Lungs", "Waitin' Around To Die", "Colorado Girl", "I'll Be here in the Morning"and "For the Sake of the Song". The latter, it has been joked, seems to end up on every subsequent album release.

A first time listener would do well to start here though it is a must for any fan of TVZ.