Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas [LP]

Track Listings (double album)

Side 1

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 2

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 3

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 4

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

Culled from Van Zandt's Years of Independently Released Country-folk Records, the Austere Collection of Songs Here Serves, in Effect, as a Greatest-hits Package, Albeit with Glitches, Errant Noises, Goofy Jokes and Witty Anecdotes. Van Zandt's Dry, Narrative Wit was the Source of Influence for Such Singer-songwriters as Lyle Lovett, but One Would Be Hard-pressed to Find a More Simple, Prettier Love Song Than "if I Needed You" (A Hit for Emmylou Harris) Or a More Riveting Ballad Than "Kathleen", Both Sung with Focused Precision. The Old Quarter Falls as Silent as a Church. "Brand New Companion" Shows off Van Zandt's Blues-picking Expertise. "Talking Thunderbird Blues" Demonstrates his Wit. One of his Best Creations, "For the Sake of the Song", Shows off his Poetic Strength. This is the Place to Start If You Are Just Entering the Parched, Spare Domain of Townes Van Zandt. By Album's End, You Will Be Thirsty for More.

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Townes Van Zandt had released half a dozen studio albums before Live at the Old Quarter appeared in 1977. None of them had sold more than 40,000 copies, but, on the strength of songs such as "Tecumseh Valley," "To Live Is to Fly" and "For the Sake of the Song," Van Zandt had already earned a reputation as the greatest songwriter Texas had ever produced. Since his death at fifty-two, in 1997, Van Zandt has become something like the patron saint of alternative country. From Emmylou Harris to Lucinda Williams, from Steve Earle to Ryan Adams, his influence lives in every aspect of that movement.

One listen to Live at the Old Quarter reveals why. Drawn from five sweltering-hot nights when Van Zandt performed at a legendary Houston club in July 1973, the album features the singer alone with an acoustic guitar doing twenty-three of his best songs. These versions of "If I Needed You," "No Place to Fall" and "Tower Song" are as charged with emotion as they are rigorously unsentimental. "Everything is not enough/ And nothing is too much to bear," he sings; the stoic idealism of those lines sums up all his best work.

Onstage, Van Zandt would often seem to disappear into his songs, as if he were at once completely united with his listeners and a million miles away. He maintained concentration that way, and you can feel the stringent force of his focus here, all the more strongly for the coughs, chatter, shuffling and clinking of glasses in the tiny club. His singing likewise is simultaneously laconic and intent - a style that suggests there is no truth so harsh it can't be stated plainly and beautifully.

ANTHONY DECURTIS
(Rolling Stone 911 – December 12, 2002)