At My Window
The first and best album the late Texas singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt made for Sugar Hill Records, this 1987 set mixes older material ("For the Sake of the Song") with fresh material (the instant classic "Buckskin Stallion Blues"). As is usually the case with Van Zandt albums, the originals shine. The funky "Ain't Leavin' Your Love" comes complete with an unlikely saxophone solo, while "Catfish Song" boasts the kind of gospel melody that marked this gentle, hard-living man as one of the finest songwriters to have ever worked in a country-folk vein. His voice--never the acquired taste of aJimmie Dale GilmoreorBob Dylan--had lost some of its certainty and range by this time. Fortunately, what's absent in reach is more than offset by a very appealing world-weary hue. This set features a raft of first-class supporting players, including bassist Roy Huskey Jr., fiddlerMark O'Connor, and guitarist Mickey White. Horn accents abound in the arrangements, and the whole session hangs together in a warm, rewarding way. Van Zandt's last studio album stands as his final bona fide classic.--Robert Baird