Townes Van Zandt

Townes Van Zandt

**John Townes Van Zandt** (Born March 7, 1944), better known as **Townes Van Zandt**, is a critically acclaimed American singer-songwriter. Much of Van Zandt’s musical canon—songs such as "Pancho and Lefty", "For the Sake of the Song", "Tecumseh Valley", "Rex's Blues", and "To Live is to Fly"—are widely considered masterpieces of American folk music. His musical style is often described as melancholy in sound and delivery with rich and poetic lyrics.

## Life

### Early Life

Born in Fort Worth into a wealthy family, Van Zandt was a third-great-grandson of Isaac Van Zandt, a prominent leader of the Republic of Texas and a second great-nephew of Khleber Miller Van Zandt, a major in the Confederate army and one of the founders of Fort Worth. Van Zandt County in east Texas was named after his family in 1848. Townes's parents were Harris Williams Van Zandt (1913–1966) and Dorothy Townes (1919–1983). He had two siblings, Bill and Donna (1941-2011). Harris was a corporate lawyer, and his career required the family to move several times during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1952, the family transplanted from Fort Worth to Midland, Texas, for six months before moving to Billings, Montana.

At Christmas in 1956, Townes's father gave him a guitar, which he practiced while wandering the countryside. He would later tell an interviewer that "watching Elvis Presley's October 28, 1956, performance on *The Ed Sullivan Show* was the starting point for me becoming a guitar player... I just thought that Elvis had all the money in the world, all the Cadillacs and all the girls, and all he did was play the guitar and sing. That made a big impression on me.”

In 1958 the family moved to Boulder, Colorado. Van Zandt would remember his time in Colorado fondly and would often visit it as an adult. He would later refer to Colorado in "My Proud Mountains", "Colorado Girl", and "Snowin' on Raton". Townes was a good student and active in team sports. In grade school, he received a high IQ score, and his parents began grooming him to become a lawyer or even a U.S. Senator. Fearing that his family would move again, he willingly decided to attend the Shattuck School, in Faribault, Minnesota. He received a score of 1170 when he took the SAT in January 1962. His family soon moved to Houston, Texas.

The University of Colorado at Boulder accepted Van Zandt as a student in 1962. In the spring of his second year, his parents flew to Boulder to bring Townes back to Houston, apparently worried about his binge drinking and episodes of depression. They admitted him to the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, where he was diagnosed with manic depression. He received three months of insulin shock therapy, which erased much of his long-term memory. Afterwards, his mother would claim her "biggest regret in life was that she had allowed that treatment to occur". In 1965, he was accepted into the University of Houston's pre-law program. Soon after he attempted to join the Air Force, but was rejected because of a doctor's diagnosis that labelled him "an acute manic-depressive who has made minimal adjustments to life". He quit school around 1967, having been inspired by his singer-songwriter heroes to pursue a career in playing music. Ever since making that decision, he had lived on his own in Houston, sometimes playing for as little as $10 per night, and often living in dilapidated rooms with no electricity or running water. Of late, he’d found a sweet gig at that bar in the Old Quarter, and had not just electricity in his room, but a bed with no bugs and a refrigerator as well.

### Rise to Popularity

On August 11th, 1969, Van Zandtt was performing in a cafe in Houston when he caught the attention of world-famous rockstar Johnny Cash and his wife June, who were visiting the city at the time. After they met, Zandt told the two his life story, causing them to feel pity for him, and decide to take him back with them to Nashville, Tennessee to get a new home.

After appearing on the Johnny Cash Show, Van Zandt saw an incredible increase of popularity, with some publications even calling him "the next Bob Dylan". In September 1970, he would meet Emmylou Harris, a fellow talented and divorced musician, the two are currently in a relationship.