I started writing poetry before I started writing songs. In my checkered college past I was a creative writing major at Long Beach State University, which had a great writing program, and that’s where I learned all the nuts and bolts that helped me out in songwriting. They forced us to write in traditional forms — sonnets, iambic pentameter — just so we could understand that writing wasn’t just splaying free verse all over the page. But then the more songs I wrote using all those poetic forms, the more my poetry become like prose, almost to the point of journalism…
The Best Songs: Tecumseh Valley by Townes Van Zandt
I first heard this song when Emmylou Harris sang it, then I heard Nanci Griffith’s version on the album, Other voices other rooms. Great interpretations both of them. It made me seek out Townes Van Zandt’s versions, they’re even better!
John Townes Van Zandt I (March 7, 1944 – January 1, 1997), best known as Townes Van Zandt, was an American singer-songwriter. Many of his songs, including “If I Needed You” and “To Live Is to Fly”, are considered standards of their genre.
While alive, Van Zandt had a small and devoted fanbase, but he never had a successful album or single and even had difficulty keeping his recordings in print. In 1983, six years after Emmylou Harris had first popularized it, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard covered his song “Pancho and Lefty,” scoring a number one hit on the Billboard country music charts. Despite achievements like these, the bulk of his life was spent touring various dive bars, often living in cheap motel rooms, backwoods cabins, and on friends’ couches. Van Zandt was notorious for his drug addictions, alcoholism, and his tendency to tell tall tales. (Wikipedia)
Early version from the album, For the sake of the song:
Late version (more like the one on Our Mother The Mountain):
Unchained is my second favorite American Recording done by Johnny Cash (after the first).
It is the second album in Johnny Cash’s American Recording series (and his 82nd overall). Like all Cash’s albums for American, Unchained was produced by Rick Rubin.
On the album, Cash is backed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers as well as a guest appearance of Flea, Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood. Marty Stuart also plays on 8 tracks.
Johnny Cash (w/Marty Stuart) – Rusty Cage (including interview with Jay Leno, 1996):
“Seven Spanish Angels’ is the title of a song written by Troy Seals and Eddie Setser, and recorded by American country music artist Willie Nelson as a duet with Ray Charles. It was released in November 1984 as the first single from the album Half Nelson. Half Nelson is a compilation album of duets performed by Willie Nelson along with various other artists, released in 1985. It also includes a few never-before released hits as well. “Seven Spanish Angels” was the most successful of Ray Charles’ eight hits on the country chart. The single spent one week at number one and a total of twelve weeks on the country chart.
Rockefeller concert venue looked different this chilly night in october, the lights were dimmed and the stage was put in the middle of the room, there were draperies and burning candles. It was like coming into someone’s home. I could sense the anticipation from the audience, they were expecting something special. Dixie Chics softly on the speakers.
