Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas
Fat Possum
ProducerEarl Willis
Townes Van Zandt chronology
The Late Great Townes Van Zandt
(1972) 		Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas
(1977) 		Flyin' Shoes
(1978)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]
Best of Country Music(favorable)[2]
Cosmik Debris(favorable)[3]
Crescent Blues(favorable)[4]
Folk World(favorable)[5]
Goldmine(favorable)[6]
Music Box[7]
PopMatters(favorable)[8]
Rolling Stone[9]

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 Old Quarter. There is a strong critical consensus that this recording is among the most exemplary of Van Zandt's career.

Recording

In July 1973, Van Zandt performed a string of shows over five sweltering nights at the Old Quarter bar owned by Rex ("Wrecks") Bell and Dale Soffar that were recorded on a portable four-track by Earl Willis, the album's producer and engineer. They would eventually be released four years later by Van Zandt's previous producer and manager Kevin Eggers on his new Tomato Records label. The liner notes describe the recording as the "

intimacy of the performance, with Van Zandt taking the stage alone and accompanying himself on guitar as he did thousands of times during his career. In the 2007 biography To Live's To Fly: The Ballad of the Late, Great Townes Van Zandt, John Kruth writes that Van Zandt played "to nearly a hundred folks per set, packed shoulder to shoulder within the bar's bare brick walls. The room was so jammed that it was impossible for a waitress to wend her way through the crowd to take drink orders. People had to pass money hand over fist and wait, in hopes that a mug of cold beer would eventually find its way back to them." Van Zandt is introduced by Dale Soffar and, after apologizing for the busted air conditioning, performs a gentle reading of "Pancho and Lefty", describing how he wrote the song while traveling near Dallas with Daniel Antopolsky
. At the end of the song, the singer remarks, "I've never heard it so quiet in here." The photograph on the album cover was shot by Steve Salmieri.

Release and reception

The release of Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas in 1977 followed a period of relative inactivity for Van Zandt, whose last album,

Black Crowes told Van Zandt biographer John Kruth that he'd been given a copy of the album by Mark Olson of the Jayhawks and that the record "really spoke to me. I listened to it constantly while on a tour of Europe. In rock and roll
people tend to forget about the importance of songwriting. Townes really inspired me to become a better songwriter. That motherfucker had his antennas up."

Van Zandt remained cautiously optimistic about his critical windfall, stating in a 1977 interview with Omaha Rainbow, "I kind of forgot all about them. Then Kevin Eggers took the tapes to a studio at Lima, Ohio, and came out with the record. It's okay. That's what went down and it's good to have. Getting that record out on Tomato meant to me that all the mire that the business end of my career got wedged into was finally evaporating. I was out of the chute on a brand new horse, right?"

Track listing

All lyrics and music by Townes Van Zandt except where noted.

Disc 1:

  1. "Announcement" (by Dale Soffar) – :44
  2. "Pancho and Lefty" – 4:08
  3. "Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold" – 3:40
  4. "Don't You Take It Too Bad" – 2:57
  5. "Two Girls" – 3:51
  6. "Fraternity Blues" – 3:07
  7. "If I Needed You" – 3:18
  8. "Brand New Companion" – 4:20
  9. "White Freight Liner Blues" – 3:26
  10. "To Live Is to Fly" – 3:20
  11. "She Came and She Touched Me" – 4:09
  12. "Talking Thunderbird Blues" – 2:33
  13. "Rex's Blues" – 3:05
  14. "Nine Pound Hammer" (Merle Travis) – 3:06

Disc 2:

  1. "For the Sake of the Song" – 4:48
  2. "Chauffeur's Blues" (Lightnin' Hopkins) – 4:33
  3. "No Place to Fall" – 3:08
  4. "Loretta" – 2:26
  5. "Kathleen" – 2:54
  6. "Why She's Acting This Way" – 5:42
  7. "Cocaine Blues" (Traditional) – 3:21
  8. "Who Do You Love?" (Ellas McDaniel) – 3:44
  9. "Tower Song" – 3:47
  10. "
    Waiting 'Round to Die
    " – 2:35
  11. "Tecumseh Valley" – 4:30
  12. "Lungs" – 2:34
  13. "Only Him or Me" – 2:42

Release history

year format label catalog #
1977 LP Tomato 27001
1977 Tomato 20001
1989 CD Tomato 2696402
1989 LP Decal LIKD 57
1994 CD
Rhino
 71245
2002 CD Tomato Music 3011
2003 CD Charly 508
2003 CD CoraZong 255041
2008 CD Fat Possum 1118-2
2009 LP Fat Possum 1118-1

Personnel

Music

  • vocals

Production

Artwork/liner notes

  • Liner notes by Earl Willis, Chet Flippo and Arthur Wood
  • Edited by John Tobler
  • Cover design by Milton Glaser
  • Photography by Steve Salmieri

Notes and sources

  1. ^ Allmusic review
  2. ISBN 978-0-385-19192-0 (link
    )
  3. ^ Shaun Dale, "Review: Townes Van Zandt: Live At The Old Quarter, Houston, Texas", Cosmic Debris, 2002 (link)
  4. ^ Michael Pacholski, "Crescent Blues Music Views: Live at The Old Quarter – Townes Van Zandt", Crescent Blues E-Magazine, Volume 5, Issue 4 (link)
  5. ^ "Folk World CD Reviews", folkworld.de Issue 26, October 2003 (link)
  6. Together at the Bluebird Cafe), Goldmine
    , 28:14:573, July 12, 2002, p. 65-66
  7. ^ John Metzger, "Review: Townes Van Zandt – Live at The Old Quarter, Houston, Texas", The Music Box, 10:2, February 2003 (link)
  8. ^ Andrew Gilstrap, [Review of seven 2003 reissues of Van Zandt albums], PopMatters, March 25, 2003 (link)
  9. ^ Anthony Decurtis, "Album reviews: Townes Van Zandt – Live at the Old Quarter", Rolling Stone, 911, November 19, 2002
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Live_at_the_Old_Quarter,_Houston,_Texas&oldid=1192360010"