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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 Thorsten Hinrichsen on April 20, 2012 at 7:48pm

I'm going to work on the basic track for "two hands" this weekend. I've already recorded it but need some "fine tuning".

Vinyl, just choose a "key" which is fine to sing for you. We'll try to adapt to that. Would be nice if some of us also recorded instrumental parts for the songs to be cut into the final mix.

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Permalink Reply by Turkeychicken on April 20, 2012 at 1:09am

Wow. I just sumbled across this thread, don't know how I missed it. I think this is awesome! With just under 2 months til the deadline, I should be able to find time to contribute Dead Flowers.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on April 20, 2012 at 4:40am

Aaannnnnd we have a winner!

Tc, was wondering where you'd been...welcome. Yes, please, contribute. More the merrier.

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Permalink Reply by turtlehead on April 20, 2012 at 12:30pm

TC in the house! I thought about doing Dead Flowers too. Townes' version it the best.

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Permalink Reply by Ben on April 21, 2012 at 12:53am

I didn't see anyone else call it. Can I have Dollar Bill Blues?

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on April 21, 2012 at 6:41am

Ben,

If no one else has called it, it's yours! Thanks for joining in! This is gonna be incredible...

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Permalink Reply by Thorsten Hinrichsen on April 21, 2012 at 10:16am

TVZ-addicts. Here's the backing track for "TWO HANDS" - hope the sliding won't lead you off the key. I played in E which seems easy to sing to. (played my 3rd build "gata blanca" 4-string-slide-cbg into line6-ux2 and pod farm and samplitude recording software - drums are samplitude sounds).

Song scheme goes like this:

Chorus - Verse 1 - chorus - verse 2 - chorus - verse 3 - chorus

So, all in all, there are 7 repetitions of the chorus (same chords as the verse).

Just record your voice or instrument and send me your track (without backtrack!). If you're not into multi tracking just download the backtrack, copy it on your mp3 player, put your headphones up and sing into your microphone.

Attachments:

BackingTrack-TwoHands.mp3, 3.9 MB

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Permalink Reply by RTZGUITARS on April 21, 2012 at 2:39pm

Aces Thorsten that real easy to fallow it's sleepy and happy already sang it twice.

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Permalink Reply by Thorsten Hinrichsen on April 21, 2012 at 9:03pm

thank you very much. looking forward to you singing.

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Permalink Reply by Uncle John on April 22, 2012 at 2:57am

Yup, nice job, Thorsten. Just as RTZ said.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on April 21, 2012 at 6:44pm

THorsten,

Nice job! Great playing! This oughta be easy, and also offers a good way to do "Pancho and Lefty" in similar fashion. Will get to work on my vocal this week. I can do a pretty deep bass underlay, if you want. I should probably wait until someone has sung melody, though.