If you can see through the hangover haze and black-eyed pea tradition that ties one First Day to another, January 1st can serve as a dog-eared page for the book of days that follow. But on New Year's Day 1997, I saw the cycle of mortal life more poetically than I ever had before.
The day began with a call from my uncle, delivering the news that my cousin, Sara Evelyn, had been born earlier that morning. It ended with an anonymous voice at a party that evening: "I heard Townes Van Zandt died today." The news wasn't confirmed for me until the following day, when I heard a touching retrospective of his life and art on NPR. I was on my way to pay my first visit to Sara Evelyn at the time.
I didn't know Townes Van Zandt, but like so many people who let his records get inside their heads, I felt like I had. The stories he told and the characters who inhabited them lingered well beyond their time in digital and analog space. At the time of Townes' passing, I was working in an upstairs office room at Easley Studio in Memphis. When he recorded there -- on the last three days of 1996, the final days of his life -- I was on holiday vacation.
When my friend Stuart Sikes, an engineer at Easley, first told me of Townes' sessions there, I was reminded of Jimmie Rodgers or even Bernard Herrmann: men who pursued their muse to the very end, who offered their art even as they took their dying breath.
As I researched this story, I stumbled upon dozens of names of people who knew and loved Townes in his last days. I wish I could have spoken with all of them, but time, space and other circumstances wouldn't allow it. Of the people I did speak with, some were present at the Easley sessions, some weren't. But all of them were touched by Townes' magic in the last days of his life, and to this day still. The story is theirs to tell.
JEANENE VAN ZANDT met Townes the day after John Lennon died. She lived with him in common-law and legal marriage for over 15 years. The two divorced shortly before Townes' passing, "to protect the family assets," Jeanene says. She is currently at work on several Townes-related projects: a film script based on the song "Pancho & Lefty", a book of lyrics, and an album that will include two previously unreleased Townes compositions, "Squash" and "Sanitarium Blues". (The latter has already seen the light of day in the form of a cover version by Seattle band the Walkabouts with guest vocalist Gary Heffern, released overseas in 1997 on Virgin Records as a bonus track on an import CD-single for the Walkabouts song "Lift Your Burdens Up".)
MICHAEL CATALANO is a guitarist and songwriter. He lives in Nashville and is the director of that city's Independent Film Festival. He met Townes in Atlanta in the '70s and toured with him on several occasions. He was scheduled to play guitar at the Easley sessions on "Dying Crapshooter Blues", a Blind Willie McTell song Townes wanted to cover.
HAROLD EGGERS was Townes' most loyal friend. More than a nanny to Townes' impetuous inner child, he was his business partner and confidant, his doctor and counselor. And though their relationship was characterized by constant turmoil, there isn't a man who did more for Townes. Eggers is currently at work on a book about Townes with Larry Monroe, a longtime disc jockey at KUT-FM in Austin, Texas (the 1997 documentary disc Last Rights on Gregor Records features segments of on-air interviews Monroe conducted with Townes).
ROBERT GORDON lives in Memphis. He is an author (It Came From Memphis) and documentarian (All Day & All Night) who met Townes while emceeing a package tour in Europe that also featured Lorette Velvette, Alluring Strange and Alex Chilton. Gordon recalls the two weeks he spent on the tour bus with Townes as "an intense way to meet an intense person." The two became fast friends during that span and visited each other occasionally in the years that followed. The last of these visits came on New Year's Eve 1996, when Gordon stopped by Easley Studio on Townes' final day of recording.
STUART SIKES has worked at Easley Studio for three years. He served as assistant engineer on the Townes sessions. He had previously recorded the members of Two Dollar Guitar (Townes' backing band for the Easley dates), but those sessions were his first introduction to Townes.
RAY FARRELL has worked in the A&R department of Geffen Records for nine years. He helped organize the Easley sessions and served as the label's point-man for the project. Though he wasn't present at the sessions, he did accompany Townes on an initial trip to Memphis a few months prior, where they met with the members of Two Dollar Guitar and planned a date for recording.
Two Dollar Guitar members Steve Shelley (best-known as the drummer for Sonic Youth) and Tim Foljahn were both asked to provide their recollections of the Easley sessions, but they politely declined. Their contributions are missed.
The account that follows was created from interviews that were conducted individually with each of the six people listed above during November 1998.
FARRELL: We wanted to do these sessions with Townes for a specific reason. Sonic Youth had an imprint at Geffen Records under the name of Ecstatic Peace. They could sign and record any band that they wanted to for release through Geffen using all the promotional tools that we would be able to supply. They did a couple of rock bands that didn't really seem to go anywhere.
Sonic Youth were frustrated. They thought, "Well look, we're just like everybody else if all we're going to do is look for rock bands. Maybe we should try and do records with people whose records we really love. Maybe we can put a different spin on it."
One of the natural attractions they had was to Townes Van Zandt. They wanted to do something a little bit darker, a kind of sparse and stripped down, emotional record. But we didn't know how it would work out because, one, no one knew what kind of health Townes was in, and, two, we weren't sure if Steve's idea of using Two Dollar Guitar was really going to click with Townes.
We'd done a little bit of research as to the recording process Townes had gone through on the previous few records. We'd found that the last record [No Deeper Blue, released on Sugar Hill in 1995] was done in Ireland. It was very pre-fab. Everything was done before Townes got in there, and he simply had to come in and sing the songs and that was it.
A few of the producers we talked to said, "Well, you're going to make it a lot easier on yourself and a lot more cost-effective if you do it that way." But we really wanted to explore the idea of getting Townes more excited to have a band behind him. So, for the initial trip, we brought Townes in from Nashville just to meet the guys in Two Dollar Guitar; to go down to Easley and talk about what they would do, because no one was sure if Townes was even into the idea.
CATALANO: [Two Dollar Guitar] got interested in marrying their sound up with his, and Townes was excited about that. I don't really know the mechanics of how the recording session got together, but I do know there was a lot of mutual admiration going on.
EGGERS: It was Steve's idea to record at Easley. He had worked there before, and he really liked it. Townes was flattered that these younger cats wanted to play with him, and what they were doing sounded very cool.
FARRELL: It was an unusual experience for me, because I somehow arranged for Townes to get to Memphis without realizing that he had a caretaker [Eggers] that went on all his trips with him. I had one of the most experience-filled 48 hours I've ever had in my life, suddenly having to fill that role.
CATALANO: With Townes, getting to know him was a real gradual thing. There was the Townes that you saw onstage, and then the Townes that you met after the show, but really getting to know him was a challenge. And by that point in his life he was way out on the edge. To get anything done with him would have been a fair struggle.
FARRELL: He was very frail when I saw him in Memphis, but he still had a great time. He could keep all hours of the night. He could play poker. And he didn't have to be imbibing all the time. I think it was good for all of us to get some first-hand experience with him, because he was absolutely entertaining, and in the classic sense of the word, he was a true gentleman. His emotions could run high and low, but he was a gentleman through all of it. And I felt like he was a truly warm human being, even when he was bullshitting me.
One of my very favorite things that happened on that trip: At one point we were at dinner with the guys from Two Dollar Guitar, and Townes says, "Why don't we all write a song together." He started the first line, then whoever was directly to his right would do the next line, and you'd go around the table and you'd keep going until you kind of exhausted the story. It was absolutely amazing. I had never really been through anything like that before, but Townes made everyone at the table part of this party. It was an atmosphere he could create in just about any place.
CATALANO: He was a magician, you know.
FARRELL: It was a wild weekend, particularly by my standards, but we got him back to Nashville after a couple of days and he said, "Yeah, I'm ready to do this."
VAN ZANDT: Townes was determined to get these sessions done. He knew going into it that this was going to be his last record, and he was determined to go do it, no matter what kind of shape he was in. I begged him, "Townes, just cancel. You don't have to do this. Everyone will understand." He said, "No, no, I've got to do it." He thought it was so cool that these younger guys wanted to record with him.
SIKES: I think [the sessions] lasted three days. They would come over around 11 or 12:00. They would try and work for maybe three hours, and then Townes would have to take a nap. So he'd go do that and then around 6 or 7:00 he'd come back.
EGGERS: Townes and I were pretty much fighting the whole time. That was the nature of our relationship at that point. I was like the mother superior with the stick. The sessions lasted three days, but it felt like months. Townes was in a lot of pain from his fall -- he had broken his hip right before Christmas -- and that made things worse.
VAN ZANDT: He was in incredible pain. He had lied to everyone, he had told us he pulled a muscle in bed having a bad dream. He said, "If I just stay off it, it'll be all right, it'll get better." So, he rented a wheelchair. But days went by and he didn't get any better. But he insisted, "If I go to the hospital, I'll die. I cannot go to the hospital, I've got to do this record."
GORDON: I knew he was in a wheelchair before I went over [to Easley Studio]. When I got there I watched them working from behind the glass. Harold rolled him into the control room on his way out that night and I remember being surprised by the way Townes looked. He hadn't shaved in a few days, and he was gaunt....He was a very heavy drinker and I remember when he took a shot during the sessions, you could hear it going through him. You could hear it moving through his blood going into his body and then out again. It didn't change his behavior radically, but you could hear the change -- in his slur. It was almost like this wave that went across him.
CATALANO: Ever since we had done the sessions for The Highway Kind [Townes' last album for Sugar Hill Records, released posthumously in 1997], Townes told me he wanted to do this old Blind Willie McTell song called "Dying Crapshooter Blues". It's a very odd song, kind of a cross between a ragtime and a blues. It's very complicated rhythmically, but Townes really wanted to get it down. He said to me, "Michael, I know you can play this."
I have an old guitar from that era, so I was able to get the sound down, but it took me forever to get the rhythm nailed. Finally I did, though, and I mean I really got it, the whole resonance of the song, everything. But for Townes to sing off of the tape that I had made still would have been very difficult. It would have been better for him to watch my hands, so he'd know where to go. And we didn't have enough time in Nashville to put it down right.
But I sent him off to Memphis with a DAT master of the guitar part. I got a call from Harold a few days later: "Townes says he can't do that tune by himself," and I said, "Well, he's probably right." And Harold said, "Well, maybe we'll fly you over here." So, I was preparing myself to go out there, because I knew he wasn't going to be able to [record the song without me]. That's when I got the second call from Harold saying that Townes was sick. When I got the third call, he had passed away.
EGGERS: Townes loved that "Dying Crapshooter Blues". I actually have a tape of him reciting the lyrics to that song while we're driving down the highway. You can hear the shwoop, shwoop of the windshield wipers keeping time with him. I find myself sitting around and listening to that once in a while.
FARRELL: Townes recorded a number of demos in Nashville with Jack Clement [before coming to Memphis], one of which still haunts me to this day. It's a track called "Sanitarium Blues" and it's really like a spoken word thing. Absolutely amazing. It's the one thing that came out of both sessions [in Nashville and Memphis] that you can truly say is classic Townes. He cut it at Easley too, but it didn't come out nearly as good as it did with Jack. Townes wanted that piece to be spoken word because of its towering subject matter. It's taken from the point of view of a man being wheeled into an asylum against his will, knowing he still has some use of his faculties. He thinks to himself that of all the people around him, he's probably the most sane.
GORDON: The last song recorded the night I was there, which I think was the last of the session, was Townes playing solo electric guitar. It was a heavy and uncharacteristic blues, more guitar fire than I expected. I think his electricity -- his, not his instrument's -- knocked out something and they called it a night. I don't know if it all got to tape, but any of it would be worth releasing.
SIKES: There was a lot of problems throughout the whole thing. The tape machine broke, and when that happened it sort of solidified their decision to stop....[Townes] understood, and he agreed. He wanted to go back to Nashville and try and clean up and get better. He said he was going to try and get into a program.
EGGERS: I know Jeanene wants to release [the Easley recordings], and I think you could do it, if you worked on it. I think it could eventually see the light of day, but I don't know in what form.
SIKES: That stuff should never be released. It'll be a real shame if it does. I don't think anyone involved would want it to come out.
FARRELL: I get the sense from Jeanene that she doesn't want to put anything out just for the sake of putting it out. She has a very sensitive ear toward his work. She has a good handle on it.
VAN ZANDT: The Easley stuff may get released; I just have to buy the tapes back from Geffen. [The tapes] are pretty rough, though. It's obvious that Townes was not feeling well.
SIKES: It's a shame that the songs didn't get done, because they were good songs. But there was no way it could have happened under those circumstances. Everyone was trying; nobody wanted to stop. Everyone wanted to help him. Even Harold, when he was being tough on him, was trying to help him. I mean, Steve and Tim, they really admired him. Everybody felt like shit that he was in such bad condition, and it got to the point where they felt they were putting him through something they shouldn't be.
FARRELL: I thought from the beginning we're really going out of our way to get something out to Townes, and he may just not be into it. We really got the sense that we were pushing him too hard. We stopped the session because we felt we were getting into territory that none of us could handle. It's not that we wanted to abandon the project, but when he left Easley it was obvious that we were going to have to rethink it.
VAN ZANDT: Steve Shelley called me from Memphis on New Year's Eve. He says, "Townes just can't do it, he's in too much pain. I can't bear to watch him anymore. We'll just have to do it later." I got Harold on the phone and I said, "Harold, I don't care if you have to drag him kicking and screaming. Don't bring him home, go straight to the hospital."
Townes wouldn't go to the hospital, so [once back in Nashville] they took him to one of those convenient-care places. The doctor took one look at his leg and said, "Are you insane? You could have a blood clot, it could kill you any minute. You have to go the hospital immediately." Harold called me and he said, "Townes won't let me take him, he'll only go with you." I said, "Okay, I'm on my way. I met [Townes] out at the lake house, and he tried to talk his way out of it again, but I insisted. So we got him to the hospital, they X-rayed him and the doctor told us his hip was broken!
I talked to Townes and he really didn't want them to operate on him. So, I said, "Townes, do you want to get wheeled out onto the stage for the rest of your life, or do you want to walk out onto the stage?" He said, "I guess you're right."
Townes made me promise that I wasn't going to let them keep him there. He hated hospitals with a passion. So, I went [to see him] the next morning, and he didn't look too good to me. They didn't want to let me take him home. They wanted to put him in rehab and all that stuff, but I insisted, "No you can't do that. He's too frail, you can't do that to him now." So, I took him home, and he sat around in his wheelchair for a while, and he joked and was in a good mood.
So then, I fixed him a plate of his favorite munchies like roast beef and crackers and sliced apples and grapes. I took him that stuff and then told him I was going to go call everybody to let them know he was okay. He was really doing good, he was fine. Katie [Townes and Jeanene's young daughter] was standing next to him talking to him. As I was leaving the room, Will, my son, who was thirteen at the time, passed me in the hall and he said, "Dad, do you need anything?" And Townes said, "No, I'm fine." So Will went to go take a pee. I'm on the phone in the living room. Will comes out of the bathroom and looks in on Townes and he comes running into the living room and he says, "Mom, you better come look at dad, he looks dead." I ran into there, and as soon as I walked through the portal of the doorway I knew that his spirit was no longer in the room. He was gone.
FARRELL: Townes was the kind of guy who, whether through alcohol or his life experience or whatever, whose demons were within arm's reach. The demon wasn't alcohol necessarily. Whatever the darkness in his life was, it wasn't far from him. It wasn't like, "That's when I was in my twenties." Townes always had it. That was the sad part of it, but he didn't want any pity; in that way, he was a real cowboy.
VAN ZANDT: Townes had told me as long as we were together that he was going to die at the age of 52. That's how old his father was when he died, and he just said, "I'm never going to make it past that, I'm going to die just like the old man." I'd always say, "Oh bull, Townes, you'll outlive all of us just to mess with us." [Townes would have turned 53 on March 7, 1997.]
CATALANO: Townes knew he was coming to the end. He almost called the day. I remember having a conversation four or five years ago with some promoter over some European gig, and he said, "Townes is in such bad shape, I'm afraid he's going to die over here." Townes got word of that and he said, "Nah, I'm not going to die until I'm 52." He was a real shaman.
Matt Hanks lives in Memphis. He wiles away his evenings writing about music. He spends his days working at a publicity company, trying to convince other people to do the same.
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