[.ca] Delta Momma Blues

"Delta Momma" Made Me A "Townie" For Life:
I confess to a sentimental attachment to Townes Van Zandt's "Delta Momma Blues", because it was the first album I ever purchased by the late great Texan singer/songwritter. Some moments stick to your psyche for a long,long time. I remember purchasing "Delta Momma" at the Harvard Coop in Cambridge MA in the early seventies. It was a "blind" purchase....I never heard of Townes, but I liked the fact that it was on the pioneering indy label, Tomato, and he had the scruffy appearence of authenticty on the cover. I also like the fact that "delta" and "blues" were in the title, as I was collecting pre-war Mississippi Delta blues music, like Robert Johnson, Fred McDowell and Son House. Towne's music had little to do with delta blues, but upon hearing this album, my life (as we so often say) was changed. I became a "Townie" for life. A Townie is one of those obessessed Van Zandt fans who counts his TVZ albums as his most precious possessions. If my house were burning down, I'd grab by Van Zandt albums first. The dogs, cats and my wife would have to wait their turn because a Townie has his priorities. This edition of "Delta Momma Blues" is a digitally remastered version of the 1971 vinyl release that followed me around the country during my wandering years. My first copy "Delta Momma" was played so much that surface noise on the album had virtually drowned out the musical content. The vinyl surface was so damaged, it should have been melted down to make a bowling ball. I went "compact disc" with the album in the early eighties. The ten songs on "Delta Momma Blues" are quite simply the most poetic and elegant songs TVZ ever wrote. Most folks know the story of Townes Van Zandt; he was born into a socially prominent Texan family, who even had a Texas county named after them. He rebelled against his priviledged birthright and choose the path of a county singer. His songs are explorations of the dark side of human nature but many are, paradoxically, the tender musings of a wounded man. It's as if Townes struck a Mephistophelean deal with Satan and wanted his soul back. Two songs, "Rake" and "Nothing" communicate Townes' existential despair so vividly, that his misery becomes a shining object of beauty. The love songs like "Only Him or Me", "Come Tomorrow", and the "Tower Song" are magnificent revelations about Townes' ambivalence toward romantic love. "Come Tommorrow" employs the change of seasons from summer to fall as a metaphor for a dying romantic relationship. It's tempting to call the summer/fall analogy derivative, but the lyrics of the song transcend the meataphor with their understated elegance: "...the winds of winter rearranging all the leaves like fallen queens of sorrow"; or: "...it's strange how so many tortured mornings fell upon us without a warning." "Delta Momma Blues" is one of the few cheery songs and it celebrates allure of infatuation. Townes was capable of writting optimistic and wryly humorous songs, but those didn't come as fast and furious as the dark and tortured songs. By the time he recorded his last studio album, "No Deeper Blue", Townes was in the grip of the dark forces that followed him his entire life. His singing voice was gravelly and cracked from the whiskey, and the tenderness of his early songs was gone. The songs of "No Deeper Blue" were those of a bitter man, who's greatest music was behind him and he was waiting for the devil to collect his due...or as Townes would put it, he was "waiting around to die." "Delta Momma Blues" is the young rake in his prime, with a richly nuanced voice capable of conveying pain, pleasure, irony, humor, the dark mysteries of love. This is Townes Van Zandt the scruffy and profane backwoods poet, who never lost the air of his princely birthright. No amount of debauchery or whiskey can destroy the soul of Van Zandt's unanswered claim to nobility. He died in 1997, without any commerical success, but a favorite of many of his peers like Willie Nelson, Emmylou and Merle Haggard. He left a big bag of songs to a handful of Townies, his relentless fans, who would have moved mountains and swam oceans for one last chance to see him on stage, with his bottle of beer, his bad jokes and one last rendition of "Pancho and Lefty."

• FFV - Townes Van Zandt
• Delta Momma Blues
• Only Him or Me
• Turnstyled, Junkpiled
• Tower Song
• Come Tomorrow
• Brand New Companion
• Where I Lead Me
• Rake
• Nothin'