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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 June 12, 2012 at 6:00pm

Letha,

No worries. We do what we can do, and family and friends are more important. Thanks very muchly for your contributions to date, they make this thing so much more than it was (which was really good, only now it's more so:-) ). There will be other projects, trust me.

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Permalink Reply by Cris Portillo Jr. on June 12, 2012 at 6:14pm

Hey Oily,

I finished my track for Fare thee well miss carousel, ill upload it by the deadline. I was gonna ask, my band Moes Tavern has done Waitin' Around to die and if needed I can upload our version of it.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on June 12, 2012 at 7:42pm

Cris,

I've seen the vid of your version of Waitin' and like it.

Bring 'em both on! I'd rather have an embarrassment of riches than be richly embarrassed. ;-)

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Permalink Reply by Lindo Cortez on June 13, 2012 at 6:10am

Hey Oily, my good pal Cris gave me a heads up on the tribute, hoping to squeeze a song in by the deadline. I was thinking "dont you take it too bad" or "when she's acting this way"...Hope no ones picked these yet..let me know wat you think.

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Permalink Reply by RTZGUITARS on June 13, 2012 at 7:37am

Lindo page 25 has the list of song already done I don't think "Dont you take it too bad" or "when she's acting this way" have been done do both. he said he would put more then one version on if he got them.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on June 13, 2012 at 8:52am

Lindo,

Agreed, bring 'em on! Nobody's done those, so feel free.

Woo Hoo! More good stuff comin' - y'all are amazing! :D

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Permalink Reply by Lindo Cortez on June 13, 2012 at 11:36am

Sounds meant to be...haha...

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Permalink Reply by turtlehead on June 13, 2012 at 12:17pm

Last call for Pancho. I'm working on my vocals tonight and hope to add a little cigar box as well. If anyone wants to add vocals or any instrumentation, go back and look up Vinyls excellent guitar backing track on page 13 of this thread and work off of that. Sunday night is the deadline and I will mix on Monday and get it to Oily.

And down the stretch we come....

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Permalink Reply by Vinylhed on June 13, 2012 at 12:56pm

I had a go at recording some vocals, but I've always found it a tricky song to sing. The results were pretty poor,so I'll content myself with having supplied the backing track. I can't wait to hear the finished result.

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Permalink Reply by Thorsten Hinrichsen on June 13, 2012 at 11:02pm

hi turtle.

I will also record some slide guitar and bass. Will post tomorrow evening.

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Permalink Reply by Mr.C on June 13, 2012 at 12:44pm

I was going for blackjack mama but the vinalhead version much better than i can do.

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Permalink Reply by Vinylhed on June 13, 2012 at 1:01pm

Rubbish, Mr. C! It would be a different version, and hopefully one that isn't so OTT. My version will not be to everyone's taste, so it'd be good to have another version on the album. I'd love to hear another take on the song.