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I first discovered Townes Van Zant on a field recorder somebody left in the cushions of a couch in Gallery Row coffee shop in Carrollton GA circa 2007. The purchaser of said field recorder had uploaded a few mp3 albums to listen to presumably when they weren't field recording, and it took me a while to figure out that you could find those folders in the hard drive. There was a really dense electronic Radiohead record--you know, the one with the weird numbers for titles--and a two part Townes greatest hits called To Live is to Fly. It sounded cheesy, so I didn't listen for a while, just tucked it away on the hard drive of my cheap bulky laptop. I distinctly recall playing the album for the first time though; it was like a veil had been lifted. I had never heard so much pain in a voice before, and this was a young kid bred on alt-rock, emo, and then Ryan Adams (who, for all his myriad faults, has the voice and range of someone who's currently being executed). Townes not only had that pain--that entrypoint into my lexicon--he had craft. Even the 'hokey sounding' songs were honed to perfection with not one meaningless line whose soul purpose was to get to a rhyme, no cliches without agenda, nothing that sounded 'country' even though it was country music.
It kinda shook my world. I didn't know I liked this kinda stuff really. 90s alternative country was about the limit for me, and even I wasn't into Uncle Tupelo or Wilco. But there was something real about TVZ the way there was something real about Neil Young and Crazy Horse: it sounded like someone you know made a killer album. In good Neil Young records, the most prodigious thing is not how they sound but how much that guitar and voice and band moves you. With Townes, it was the melodies and the words, the way the songs wore the words. Bob Dylan could do the same thing, but that was rare and only in albums in the 70s (in my opinion, 60s Dylan is by turns amazing lyrically but musically trite and full of players with trite feel).
But here's the thing: Townes' songs and feel for them only gets better the later in his discography you get. Sure, The Late Great has his best songs, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't have any more.
Anyway, I recorded Hibbs Family Band in a church a year ago playing Townes' songs and they let me sing on one, and yeah I had to do my own little version of one. Me and Kimberly have a stellar duet on "If I Needed You," which is my favorite chorus of a love song. Hope you get your TVZ fix and feel something weird and good. Maybe upload this teeny record to an old mp3 player and leave it in a couch for someone like who you used to be as a kid and let them find it. Could be cool.
--tyler
Recorded by Tyler Key in a church in Watkinsville that shall remain unnamed, summer 2021. Except of course "Ships of Andilar," also recorded by Tyler Key in his cabin out in Monroe GA at the same time. Album art by Rob Hibbs with assistance from Berlin Watters.
credits
released March 7, 2022
Tyler Key: Vocals on "If I Needed You" and "Silver Ships of Andilar"
Kimberly Simpson: Vocals on "If I Needed You"
Rob Hibbs: Vocals on "Pancho and Lefty" and "No Deal"
Hibbs Family Band is Rob, Garrett, Henry, and Judy Hibbs, and they play the instruments on all songs except "Silver Ships of Andilar," which is all Tyler, even the floor tom for percussion.
West Virginia country-folk singer-songwriter Trae Sheehan aims to find a balance between the traditional and the modern on his new LP. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 29, 2020
