Last week, Kevin Norton wrote a tribute on the No Depression website to the great Texas singer-songwriter, Townes Van Zandt, who died New Year’s Day, sixteen years ago.

This sentence captured some of the flavour of his talent, his music, and his demons:

If there was ever a musician that fit the mold of Robert Johnson’s blues man making a demonic bargain at a crossroads at midnight for his talent and then looking over his shoulder, terrified, as he fled for the rest of his life from some hell hound only he could see, it was Townes.

Read the article here

Below, Townes performing “Marie”