The Late Great Townes Van Zandt
| The Late Great Townes Van Zandt | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Townes Van Zandt | ||||
| Released | 1972 | |||
| Recorded | 1972 Jack Clement Studios, Nashville, Tennessee |
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| Genre | Country, Folk | |||
| Length | 38:31 | |||
| Label | Tomato | |||
| Producer | Kevin Eggers, Jack Clement | |||
| Townes Van Zandt chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Pitchfork Media | (8.4/10) |
The Late Great Townes Van Zandt is a 1972 studio album by Texas singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt. It was the second album that he recorded in 1972, and a follow-up to High, Low and In Between. The album is considered by many to be his best and features two of his most covered songs, the Western outlaw ballad "Pancho and Lefty" and the gentle love song "If I Needed You". The album also includes several cover songs, the definitive version of "Sad Cinderella", and Van Zandt's most experimental track, the darkly psychedelic epic "Silver Ships of Andilar".
The Late, Great Townes Van Zandt would be the singer's last studio album for the ailing Poppy Records. It was produced by Van Zandt's manager Kevin Eggers and Jack Clement, with Eggers telling Van Zandt biographer John Kruth in 2007, "Jack produced the basic tracks to 'No Lonesome Tune' and 'Honky Tonkin'. I cut all the basic tracks to everything else and mixed it. The strings on the 'Silver Ships of Andilar' were arranged by Bergen White, one of the few black musicians in Nashville who happened to be the top string arranger in those days." According to the book To Live's To Fly: The Ballad of the Late, Great Townes Van Zandt, Eggers had wanted to overdub drums on "Pancho and Lefty" but Van Zandt vetoed the idea.
The album includes what is Van Zandt's signature tune, the enigmatic "Pancho and Lefty". In an interview that appears in the book Songwriters on Songwriting, Paul Zollo asked if he remembered writing the song, to which Van Zandt replied, "Yes. I was in Dallas. In a hotel room. That one kind of came from not having anything to do and sitting down with the express purpose of writing a song. I took one day and then I played what I had that night at a gig. And a songwriter told me, 'Man, that’s a great. But I don’t think it’s finished.' So I went back to my hotel room the next day and wrote the last verse. The only thing I remember thinking about while I was writing it was consciously thinking that this is not about Pancho Villa." The song tells the story of a Mexican bandit named Pancho and a more mysterious character, Lefty, and implies that Pancho was killed after he was betrayed by his associate Lefty, who was paid off by the Mexican federales. In the 1984 PBS series Austin Pickers, the singer elaborated: "I realize that I wrote it, but it's hard to take credit for the writing, because it came from out of the blue. It came through me and it's a real nice song, and I think I've finally found out what it's about. I've always wondered what it's about. I kinda always knew it wasn't about Pancho Villa, and then somebody told me that Pancho Villa had a buddy whose name in Spanish meant Lefty. But in the song, my song, Pancho gets hung. 'They only let him hang around out of kindness I suppose' and the real Pancho Villa was assassinated."
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