Townes Van Zandt

Townes Van Zandt’s career was built around an unrelentingly honest approach to folk and outlaw country music. The gifted storyteller, born in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1944 and dying in Tennessee in 1997, sympathised with outsiders because he saw himself as one. His songs, like “Poncho & Lefty,” made famous by Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson, are populated by outcasts and oddballs. Van Zandt was attracted to the overlooked, and his great works paint portraits of the seemingly mundane characters that eventually reveal themselves to be far more complex than the protagonists occupying centre stage. Van Zandt spent his life travelling to bars and clubs across the country, playing his worn and ragged songs for anyone who lent an ear. He was the favourite songwriter of many legendary musicians, and it’s easy to tell why he built such a rabid following from fellow crooners with songs like the poignant “Waiting Around to Die” from his 1969 self-titled album, in which he took a heartbreaking look at dependency. Whether Van Zandt was singing about alcohol, a love that got away, or a gunslinging ranger, he did so honestly and, occasionally, autobiographically.