Just last week, we focused our show on an album made by Nick Drake, an incredibly talented British songwriter and performer who made a fantastic album that everyone ignored until he was dead. This week, (with an album that just happened to be released at approximately the same time as Drake’s album), we move our focus to an album by Townes Van Zandt, an incredibly talented songwriter based in Texas who also  made a fantastic album that everyone ignored until he was dead.

The men could not have been much more different from one another, but the coincidences go even deeper. Both were from reasonably well-to-do families. Both shunned the privileges of that wealth, and both were exceptionally bright but plagued by depression. The circumstances of their lives, quite naturally, can be interpreted as exceptionally sad, but each of them added an incredibly strong spiritual quality to their songs, which made them seem richer and more potent than anything else at the time. “Townes Van Zandt’s eponymously titled album was his third.

Featured songs include;

For the Sake of the Song

Columbine

Waitin’ Around to Die

Don’t Take It Too Bad

Colorado Girl

Lungs

I’ll Be There in the Morning

Fare Thee Well, Miss Carousel

Quicksilver Dreams of Maria

None But the Rain

September 1969 - Billboard Did Not Chart