| Product Summary | | Label: FAT POSSUM/RED | | UPC: 00767981117423 | | Release Date: 7/7/2009 | | Buy.com Sku: 211247189 | | Item#: M4P7GF | Format:  CD |
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Song Listing
| Disc 1 | | Song Title | Sample | | 1. Marie ~ Willie Nelson | ------ | | 2. Tower Song ~ Nanci Griffith | ------ | | 3. My Proud Mountains ~ John T. Van Zandt | ------ | | 4. To Live is To Fly ~ Guy Clark | ------ | | 5. White Freightliner Blues ~ Billy Joe Shaver | ------ | | 6. Pancho & Lefty ~ Delbert McClinton | ------ | | 7. Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold ~ Robert Earl Keen, Jr. | ------ | | 8. Nothin' ~ Lucinda Williams | ------ | | 9. If I Needed You ~ Ray Benson | ------ | | 10. Song For, A ~ Jonell Mosser | ------ | | 11. Snake Song ~ Emmylou Harris | ------ | | 12. Blue Wind Blew ~ The Flatlanders | ------ | | 13. Loretta ~ John Prine | ------ | | 14. Waitin' Around To Die ~ Rocky Hill | ------ | | 15. Highway Kind ~ Cowboy Junkies | ------ | | 16. Two Girls ~ Steve Earle & The Dukes | ------ |
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| | Album Notes and Credits |
Notes & Personnel Info |  | Includes liner notes by Susanna Clark. | | POET: A TRIBUTE TO TOWNES VAN ZANDT was nominated for the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. "Marie" was nominated for the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance. | | Tributee: Townes Van Zandt. | | POET: A TRIBUTE TO TOWNES VAN ZANDT features sensitive, true-to-the-artist treatments of Van Zant's better-known poetic masterpieces as well as a few rare gems. His hits "Poncho and Lefty," sung slowly and deliberately by Delbert Mc Clinton, and "To Live Is to Fly," soulfully reworked by long-time friend Guy Clark, are here. The lesser-known "Nothin'," off Van Zandt's 1971 DELTA MAMA BLUES, is given a blues-soaked, tortured reading by Lucinda Williams, and "Our Mother the Mountain," off his acclaimed sophomore breakthrough, MY PROUD MOUNTAIN, is done with true Van Zandt understatement by his son JT. Like that of any gifted songwriter, the artist's work fares well in interpretation, but it's hard to beat his own somber, grief-inflected versions. These attempts, by some of the best in the business (Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, and Steve Earle among them), hold up, in part because they stay so close to the artist's own arrangements. | | Tribute collections -- especially those dedicated to a deceased artist by a various group of performers -- are usually a mixed bag by their very nature. A dedicated various-artists set of songs by the towering songwriter Townes Van Zandt is even more daunting in concept. That said, Poet: A Tribute to Townes Van Zandt, originally issued in 2001, is the exception to the rule in every case. Containing 16 cuts by a stellar cast that includes everyone from Willie Nelson and Nanci Griffith to Lucinda Williams and John Prine with lots of folks in between. Other performers include two songwriters who have done their own full-length tributes to Van Zandt's genius: Jonell Mosser (whose wonderful Around Townes was the very first, issued in the '90s) and Steve Earle (whose own 2009 album, Townes, is classic in the genre). Nelson appears opens the album with an utterly believable reading of the harrowing "Marie." Guy Clark's tender and moving "To Live Is to Fly" is performed with the requisite wisdom and eagle eye vision he gives his own songs. It is especially poignant given how close he and Van Zandt were. Emmylou Harris' take on "Snake Song" is a spare, darkly spiritual reading. Lucinda Williams' "Nothin,'" is dredged in her own roots as a blues singer. There are some excellent surprises here as well, such as "My Proud Mountains," performed by John T. Van Zandt, the late songwriter's son. The echoes of his father's voice -- whether he likes it or not -- are threaded inseparably with his own in his performance. Billy Joe Shaver's reading of "White Freightliner Blues" is as hardcore country as the songwriter ever intended. The biggest shock is Asleep at the Wheel's Ray Benson's cover of "If I Needed You," which is delivered with the emotion of a wise and seasoned old soul. The violins and hand percussion added a gorgeous touch to the song. Griffith's version of "Tower Song" is arranged in such a way as to accent Van Zandt's status as a poet; its tenderness and empathy on full display in the grain of her voice. The Flatlanders reunite for a hardcore Texas take on "Blue Wind Blue" -- all of them in fine voice. And John Prine's skeletal performance of "Loretta," like Clark, makes the song sound like his own. . Mosser's "A Song For" is a very different kind of interpretation, but like Earle's rocking "Two Girls," offers proof of the breadth and depth of Van Zandt's artistry as a true American folk songwriter that another performer can take a song and add something of her or his own and extend its meaning. Delbert McClinton may seem an odd choice for "Pancho and Lefty," but he drenches it with a grainy, leathery expressiveness that is pure Texas, and pure McClinton, with traces of blues and R&B injected into the folk and country of the original. Ultimately, Poet is an extremely fitting tribute to a legend, and in its performances underscores not only Van Zandt's reputation among his a peers, but also the enduring relevance and beauty of the work he left behind. [The CD was reissued in 2009.] ~ Thom Jurek |
Producer: Gary Nicholson; Gregg Humphrey; Eric Paul; Freddy Fletcher; Ray Kennedy; Michael Timmons; Gurf Morlix; Jonell Mosser; Lucinda Williams; Owsley Manier; Steve Earle; Twangtrust |
| | Technical Info | | Release Date : 07/07/2009 | | Original Release Date : 2001 | | Catalog ID : 1174 | | Label : Fat Possum Records | | Number of Discs : 1 | | Studio/Live : Studio | | Mono/Stereo : Stereo | | SPAR Code : n/a | | UPC : 00767981117423 |
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| | Professional Reviews | | Rolling Stone (9/27/01, pp.68-9)
- 3.5 stars out of 5 - "...POET has the feel of a gang of old friends passing around an acoustic guitar and a bottle of Van Zandt's preferred libation..."Spin (11/01, p.136)
- 7 out of 10 - "...Van Zandt wrote songs for others to sing...as though he's waiting for a more sentimental type to soften his hard truths with a sweeter voice. That frees the performers here to flesh out his words..." Q (8/02, p.136)
- 3 stars out of 5 - "...A truly stellar cast bring their varying styles to bear on 15 songs..." No Depression (9-10/01, pp.128-9)
- "...Van Zandt's songs almost invariably bring out the best qualities in the artists who perform them..." |
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