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Townes Van Zandt CBG Tribute Album - Your Submissions needed

Hey, y'all!

Townes Van Zandt (1944 - 1997) was a Texas singer-songwriter-poet, whose music has touched a deep chord (pun intended) amongst many of us here at CBN. No, he's not related, except perhaps very distantly, to those other musical Van Zandt boys many of us also love. Townes was hailed, back in 1985 by none other than another gifted songwriter, Steve Earle, as "the greatest songwriter in the world, and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that!" Whether or not you agree with ol' Steve, there is a deep knowledge of the blues, heartache, pain and melancholy in Townes' songs. For those of you unfamiliar with his work, please visit his estate's website to get to know him better (all proceeds go to support his children and his second wife, Jeanene):

https://townesvanzandt.com/

Several of us here at CBN (myself, Uncle John, Turtlehead, and maybe some others I haven't seen or heard - I know the owner of Diamondbackguitarshop and beStillroy are also huge fans) have done videos of us playing our versions of Townes' songs, many of which came out nearly 40 years ago. We realized that the CBG may be the perfect instrument on which to reinterpret and breathe new life into Townes' songs. In fact, we've been kicking the idea around in the Comment section of Uncle John's video rendition of "Flying Shoes" for the last coupla weeks (check it out), and came up with the idea for a tribute album, using only CBGs (I know, I know: Townes never played one, to my knowledge, and I and perhaps many others of you learned "Pancho and Lefty" on a 6-stringer, but still...).

So, if you're still with me, we're looking for MP3 submissions from those who play Townes' songs, wanna try 'em on CBG, may have never heard of him but like what they hear - any and all are welcome. His catalogue is pretty deep, so I'd like to lay claim to "If I Needed You" right here, right now! (hmmm. Jesus Jones...nah) ;-) We're also looking for someone willing to create some original cover art. The idea behind this is not to make money. We wouldn't want to charge for these songs or this album. We just wanna get 'em out to the larger CBN audience. As currently envisioned, it would be of a similar nature to the free download Robert Johnson tribute album, or the various CBN Christmas albums. It is not designed to detract from, or compete with, the Blues Album Dan Sleep is currently putting together for CBN, which many of us here are also contributing to. All we ask, like the judges on American Idol, is that you make your submitted TVZ song your own.

For those who are interested, you can add MP3 files using the Attach Files or Upload Files link at the bottom left to this Discussion. Record 'em however y'all feel comfortable: lo-fi, hi-fi, wi-fi, or in-fi, doesn't matter. You can PM me here at CBN for any offline technical or otherwise discussions. I will, eventually, get back to you.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on April 8, 2012 at 7:07pm

Hey, y'all,

Version 2 (just had to add the angel wings - Townes was a seer of angels- and make the CBG look more coffin-shaped with some masking):

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on April 8, 2012 at 8:15pm

BTW y'all, I think I'm gonna work up "Two Girls" as well. How's the rest of the submissions coming? I'm thinkin' we gotta get some more people involved...should I set a deadline now?

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Permalink Reply by RTZGUITARS on April 10, 2012 at 7:30pm

How many song are we looking at for this? I will post Rake this weekend.

I could do more or less or none at all depend on drinking schedule and quite

time in the house. All good recordings have doors slamming babys crying and air conditioners right.

Freddy would be cool, how bout John Prine or Mississippi John Hurt.

Its been a few years that i look up Townes stuff on the internet and there is 10 times more then

then i remember. One of the fisrt thing i did when i got the internet was look up MJH TVZ and Prine.

This is like icing on the cake again great idea Ron!

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on April 10, 2012 at 10:21pm

RTZ,

Depends on how many people we have. If I'm counting correctly, there's you, me, Uncle John, Vinylhed, turtlehead, Russell Carlin, Voodoo Highway, and Thorsten (did I miss anybody who's replied so far? If so, my apologies!). That's 8, so if we do 2 each, that's 16 songs (and virtually all of us have said we could take a whack at at least 2 songs each). That's a good number for a covers CD, I was personally hoping for somewhere between 15 and 20. "Tecumseh Valley" and "Pancho and Lefty," Townes' only real hit, for example, are not yet represented; dunno, is that a good thing? I think 2 each is a good number, but if people feel compelled to do more, I'm fine with that. There's gotta be more people here on CBN who love Townes and are willing to share their talents intepreting his songs on CBGs, but I don't see them crawling out of the woodwork just yet. I noticed on the recent Blues Album compilation that a huge raft of songs came in the last week of the deadline, so I'm considering doing something similar with this one.

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Permalink Reply by turtlehead on April 11, 2012 at 4:37am

I'll start working up another one here soon. Just to recap for everyone, here's what I came up with going through this thread. Let me know if I missed anything.

I think someone needs to do Pancho and Lefty. Crazy idea: What if we decided on a key and everyone took a shot at it and then we edit it together with everyone getting a few lines or a verse. Don't know if it would work, but I'd volunteer to put it together.

Oily - If I Needed You, Two Girls

Uncle - Flying Shoes

Turtle - Mr Mudd

Thorsten – Nothin’

Russell Carlin - Kathleen

Voodoo Highway - Waitin' Round to Die

RTZGUITARS – Rake

Vinylhed – St. John the Gambler/Black Jack Mama

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Permalink Reply by Thorsten Hinrichsen on April 11, 2012 at 5:06am

Fine idea. We should set the key but also the beats per minute. If there's some time left, I'll record another song.

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Permalink Reply by Uncle John on April 11, 2012 at 5:15am

Ron, I f you can wait till the end of April - I can try to do Towne's Two Hands'.

Kind of have a ful list of things to do for a while.

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Permalink Reply by Thorsten Hinrichsen on April 11, 2012 at 9:26am

Think I'll try Rex's Blues. But I need about two weeks, there's too much other work around.

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Permalink Reply by Vinylhed on April 12, 2012 at 12:33pm

Well, for better or worse here's my rendition of St. John The Gambler. The guitar parts are played on my Black and Gold CBG, and put together using Mixcraft 5. For my first attempt at using Mixcraft, I'm quite pleased. I did spend hours trying to program a bassline, but it was rather tricky, so I gave up...this time. I can't really get my head round playing the bass. Strange, as I play the tuba in a brass band, where it provides the bassline more often than not. Maybe I need to make a cigar box bass and learn it.

Oh, and I love Turtle's idea of us all sharing the vocals on Pancho and Lefty. All we need is a key and a tempo, and we're off!

Attachments:

St. John The Gambler.mp3, 4.8 MB

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Permalink Reply by Uncle John on April 12, 2012 at 1:43pm

Vinyl... I listened to St. John The Gambler and don't know how to express how good it is. No BS, no buttering you up. One word: Fantastic.

Linda and I have become big Townes fans in a short time. She came down to the den and listened to it. She liked it at least as much as I do. She had several words and phrases besides these two. "Marvelous. He nailed it."

Ha! I hear her upstairs singing it now.