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Goin' To Townes: A CBG Tribute - Townes Van Zandt tribute album READY FOR DOWNLOAD!

Hey, y'all! Your patience has been rewarded! The Townes Van Zandt CBG tribute album, called Goin' To Townes: A Cigar Box Guitar Tribute, which started as a mere idea here on CBN almost 4 months ago, is finally available for Download!

A double album's worth of Townes' songs interpreted by CBN Members from all over the world, including me here in Saudi Arabia, Thorsten Hinrichsen in Austria, Vinylhed in the UK, and people all over the US. Truly, a global effort! And all for free!

Download the album here:

http://downloads.cbgitty.com/cbnalbums/TownesVanZandt/Goin%27_To_To...

The zip file above has been updated to include Track 4, Dead Flowers, by Turkeychicken. Thanks to Dan Sleep for putting Track 4 in the updated zip file link above. If you are missing track 4 from the initial download file, please just download the zip file again. Sorry for the confusion.

I'd like to thank Ben Gitty for allowing us to host the album on the C.B. Gitty site, and for the opportunity to use CBN as a meeting place and idea exchange while we compiled the album.. I'd like to personally thank Dan SLeep for numerous e-mails back and forth, while we attempted to get the file from my computer in Saudi Arabia to the Gitty server, and then for him testing and birddogging the file for the last week or more. Thanks to John Maw in the UK for testing the download to make sure that it finally works.

I'd like to also thank Vinylhed (Hedley Brown), Uncle John (Bolton), turtlehead, SUGIMUGI (Thorsten Hinrichsen), RTZ, Jamie MacBLues, Russell Carlin, Cris Portillo, Jr., Ryan Sisco and the Crowne Towne Trio, Jimi Z, Ben Kepler, Letha Allen, Silent Jim, Lindo Cortez, Turkeychicken (Terry Chapel), and Jason Dean Anderson for contributing songs to this project, as well as the two Internet pickup bands put together for this project: The Profane Heaters (me, Vinylhed, his gf Louise, RTZ, Thorsten, Uncle John, turtlehead), and Uncle Ben's Perverted Rice (me, turtlehead, Thorsten, Vinylhed, and RTZ). This project benefited greatly from the dedicated mixing skills of Thorsten, Vinylhed and turtlehead. The album artwork was done by your's truly. Also included are lyrics to all of the songs in a Word document, in the order in which they appear on the track list, except Tecumseh Valley. This song appears twice, as Silent Jim and Letha Allen rendered two very different, but equally compelling, versions of the same song.

All songs were run through MP3Gain to equalize and normalize track volumes as much as possible, ue to the different recording hardware and software used by the various contributors. All tracks are in MP3 format, and have been tested on numerous computers, with both iTunes and Windows Media Player, on both Macs, iPads, and Windows PCs. Also, this album will be made available very soon for free download from MyTexasMusic.com, hosted by Lucky and Jinelle Boyd, who are thrilled to have this tribute album to promote Townes' music to new legions of fans. Lucky is a singer-songwriter himself, and knew Townes.

This has truly been a labor of love for me and my collaborators on this project. We had virtually no disagreements, respected one another's song choices and highly varied takes on them, and showed how the Internet can be used to fully collaborate on a project of this magnitude. I am proud to stand on my coffee table in my cowboy boots, and say that, while Townes Van Zandt may have been the greatest songwriter ever, the people who contributed to this project in ways large and small are certainly the best bunch of ne-er-do-wells one could ever hope to hoist a virtual beverage and a song chorus with!

Enough already. Enjoy the download, y'all!

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on July 9, 2012 at 7:02am

Yeah, home field advantage doesn't hurt! :-)

BTW, my daughter and I just listened to the whole album on the way to and from dinner. She told me to tell you, RTZ, after hearing your tracks, that she hoped the rest of the album sounded that good. She really likes the way you sing and play. She even had kind things to say about MY singing! She, too, mentioned that I had an unfair Southern / Texas voice advantage.

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Permalink Reply by Ben on July 10, 2012 at 2:00am

Hey everyone, sounds great! I'm glad I could be part of it all!

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on July 10, 2012 at 2:04am

Ben,

Thanks very much for your contribution. Dollar Bill Blues sounds great the way you did it. My daughter liked the fiddle, and I liked the distorted git in the background, as well as your vocals. You did a nice job pulling all the elements together. Feel free to join us for the Neil Young tribute, sometime in the next coupla months. You got skills, man.

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Permalink Reply by bill on July 10, 2012 at 4:06am

i am a big townes fan i am downloading this now and cant wait to see what y'all did with this true finger pickin master.

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Permalink Reply by Uncle John on July 11, 2012 at 2:25am

Got it down loaded and gave it a listen to. Townes was a treasure and so is this download. Many thanks to Ron and his co-conspirators. Excellent!

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on July 11, 2012 at 11:38pm

Uncle John,

This would not have been as much fun, nor would it have gotten as far as it did, without your enthusiastic support and contributions. I am proud to have made this album with you, and look forward to more collaborations. Your wise guidance and understanding really help keep me going. I hope you like how everything turned out.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on July 16, 2012 at 6:16am

Wow, over 550 page views! I wonder if there's a way to know how many downloads there've been...

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Permalink Reply by Dan Sleep on July 16, 2012 at 6:45am

If ya ask Ben, he can check the download stats on the site for you.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on July 17, 2012 at 8:54am

Thanks, Dan, I will.

On another semi-related note, I just realized that Boneyard Strut could be the perfect instrumental for your project. ;-)

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Permalink Reply by Dan Sleep on July 17, 2012 at 10:17am

LOL!

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Permalink Reply by turtlehead on July 17, 2012 at 11:44am

Finally able to sit down and give this a good spin. It turned out fantastic! I thought we might get 5 or 6 of us in on it at first, but slowly and surely, people came out of the woodwork and filled this album out the way it should be.

It's been a pleasure collaborating with y'all and like RTZ said, I learned a lot from this process. From Townes songs I'd never heard before, to playing the CBG, recording and mixing. This is the first web forum I've ever been an active contributor to and I feel like I've made some friends along the way.

Thanks to everyone. Long live Townes and long live the Nation!

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Permalink Reply by Jamie MacBlues on July 17, 2012 at 12:00pm

Yes, Mr Oily Ron , well... the boy done good. So, ya now caught in Townes world, ma man. Or caught in the mud (Mr Mudd). Nice cover , BTW, Donatello ;)