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Saturday 10 December 2022

Townes Covered - To Live's to Fly

 


Last week's low scoring contest  nearly saw the first defeat to Townes losing 3-2 to John Prine with their respective versions of Loretta  prior to a very late vote from Ernie for Townes.

Therefore the  overall score still remains  Townes 5  The Rest 0 or maybe more realistically if we count the two draws with The Postman and Nanci Griffith  the score readsTownes 6 The Rest 1. (I'm going with this one from now on in).Will he still remain unbeaten by the time we get to 10? Stay tuned and keep voting to find out.

This week Townes is up against fellow Texan singer songwriter Guy Clark . Indeed Townes was very close to Guy and his wife Susannah or in fact extremely close as this Guardian article alludes to. 

Susannah Clark wrote the sleevenotes to the  compilation album Poet -a tribute to Townes Van Zandt .She writes that Townes phoned her at 8.30 every morning and that this morning 8.30 came and the phone didn't ring.

I'm going for Townes and not just because Guy Clark was the rudest artist that my friend Tom ever promoted.

Others, of course, may choose to differ.

Guy Clark - To Live is to Fly

Townes Van Zandt - To Live's to Fly

I've just noticed that all five artists mentioned above are sadly no longer with us

7 comments:

  1. Stung by the implied criticism I'm getting in early this week. Townes.

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    1. There was an even later one which was too late to include!

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  2. I keep listening and then forgetting to comment! Not that it would have swayed last week's or this week's result. It's Townes for me, too.

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  3. I do like Guy Clark, despite his reputation. Still. Townes.

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  4. Townes for me as well, but I do like Guy Clark's version. In general my favorite cover versions of songs are by artists who also write their own material. I've been enjoying this series a lot. Even though I tend to prefer Townes' versions, I also like a lot of the covers, many of which I hadn't heard before. (I think I've heard all the TVZ originals so far.)

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  5. Hmm... Like last week I'm kind of torn. I think the more I listen to Townes versions the more I like hearing alternatives to his sound. In this case however Townes sounded a bit 'early Bob Dylan-y' to my ears.

    Going to go with the Guy version and I like the slide guitar element (if that's what it is) as it makes it more old country.

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