Townes Van Zandt - Live At The Old Quarter, Houston, Texas

Fat Possum - FP1118-1

Includes Digital Download

Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas is a double live album by Texas singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt. The recording captures Van Zandt in a series of July 1973 performances in an intimate venue and there is a strong critical consensus that this recording is among the most exemplary of Van Zandt's career.

Townes Van Zandt's "Rex's Blues" is a difficult song to write for a friend. "If it rained an ocean I'd drink it dry/ and lay me down dissatisfied." Much of it seems too personal to share, and the author's insistence that Bell - a bass player - never accompany him on "Rex's Blues" is telling. Like Merle Travis' "Nine Pound Hammer," which Van Zandt covers on Live at the Old Quarter, the song is a tentative goodbye.

In Van Zandt's lyrics, the best are personal, told in the first person. He wrote testimonials of frailty and helplessness that instantly identify them with their author: "Livin's mostly wastin' time/ and I waste my share of mine/ but it never feels too good/ so let's don't take too long." He called them sky songs, borrowing from Bukka White before him. "Songs one simply pulled from the sky."

Side A:
1. Announcement
2. Pancho & Lefty
3. Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold
4. Don't You Take It Too Bad
5. Two Girls
6. Fraternity Blues
7. If I Needed You

Side B:
8. Brand New Companion
9. White Freight Liner Blues
10. To Live Is to Fly
11. She Came and She Touched Me
12. Talking Thunderbird Blues
13. Rex's Blues
14. Nine Pound Hammer

Side C:
1. For the Sake of the Song
2. Chauffeur's Blues
3. No Place to Fall
4. Loretta
5. Kathleen
6. Why She's Acting This Way

Side D:
7. Cocaine Blues
8. Who Do You Love?
9. Tower Song
10. Waiting 'Round to Die
11. Tecumseh Valley
12. Lungs
13. Only Him or Me

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