Not a whole lot, but there are a few stories left untold, and a few points about his life that are worth repeating and emphasizing. Brian T. Atkinson's new book I'll Be Here in the Morning is proof-positive of that. Whereas the Hardy and Kruth books are linear accounts of Van Zandt's life, Atkinson is more of an appreciatory assessment of Van Zandt's work, as belied by the book's subtitle: The Songwriting Legacy of Townes Van Zandt. Atkinson also takes more of a Studs Terkel approach, allowing his 41 musical interviewees to speak, often at great length, about what Townes's songs and life meant to them.
Atkinson says the book has been nine years in the making. "I always intended it to be an oral biography," he says over the phone from his home in Austin, where he lives and works as a freelance writer. "I didn't necessarily intend from the beginning for it to be about his songwriting legacy, but it evolved into that along the way because that was better than focusing on the more fucked-up aspects of his life. I wanted to put as little of my own editorializing in it as possible and get as much as I could straight from the source."
There are a few you'd expect to find in here: Guy Clark, Rodney Crowell, James McMurtry, David Olney, Lucinda Williams and Billy Joe Shaver, to name a few, and a few surprises — most notably, Jim James of My Morning Jacket. (Also surprising: Steve Earle is not included in the book. Atkinson says he wanted him in there but they never could get their timing down for the interview.)
In the book, Guy Clark retells the tale that he believed was the key to understanding Van Zandt's psyche. Townes told Clark he had a philosophical epiphany in the third grade when his teacher told him that the sun and all the stars would burn out some day. "It froze in his mind," Clark remembers. "He said, 'You telling me the sun's burning out? Are you serious? The fucking sun's burning out? Why do I have to be here on time and shine my shoes, comb my hair, and sit up straight?' He said from that moment on he lived his life like that."
In Kevin Russell's chapter, the Gourds front man says, correctly, that Van Zandt's finest album is Live at the Old Quarter — as it captures Van Zandt at the peak of his vocal and instrumental powers and is utterly shorn of schmaltz. Russell then goes a little too far when he says it's the only Townes you'll ever need. Yes, the old studio albums were overproduced, but there are quite a few great songs on them nonetheless, many of which are not on the Old Quarter album: "Sad Cinderella," "Colorado Girl," "Quicksilver Daydreams of Maria," to name but three he recorded before the Old Quarter taping, and gems like "Flyin' Shoes," "Snowin' on Raton" and "Marie" that came later. All of that said, if you've never listened to Old Quarter, you've cheated yourself of a chance to truly appreciate Townes. And that goes double if you've been suckered into buying one of the many, almost always ghoulish, posthumous live albums.
Atkinson's book is prefaced with a 2003 scene from the annual New Year's Day Townes wake at old running buddy Wrecks Bell's Galveston reincarnation of Houston's Old Quarter. He relates seeing Hayes Carll for the first time, as the lanky, sleepy-eyed Townes acolyte stepped out from behind the bar to wail "Greensboro Woman" and "Loretta."
Carll may or may not be there again in 2012, at Bell's 15th annual wake. But the scene will be much as he described it to Atkinson in the book: "You have this collection of people that could not be more different, everything from suburbanite Yuppie kids who are aspiring singer-songwriters to old prostitutes who were friends with Townes to old drug addicts who knew him in the day to legitimate, successful singer-songwriters to accountants from North Dakota, but it's this collection of people who are there for one reason and from all walks of life."
