A Deeper Blue: The Life and Music of Townes Van Zandt

2. No Lonesome Tune

2  No Lonesome Tune J OHN TOWNES VAN ZANDT GREW up between the end of World War II and the coming of Elvis Presley, a great cusp of the old and the new in America. It was on this cusp that the boy, who went by his middle name, formed his first impressions of the world, gathered his first memories, and began to try to make sense of his life. Harris and Dorothy Van Zandt provided a solid family-centered environment, strongly rooted in the extended Van Zandt and Townes families in Fort Worth and Houston. While there were branches of both sides of the family that were considered wealthy, Harris and Dorothy lived relatively modestly. “We were the Dido Van Zandts,” says their second son, William Lipscomb Van Zandt. Bill was born in 1949, namesake of the grandfather who had originally moved his branch of the family out to the small farming community of Dido. There always “seemed to be enough” money for the family to be comfortable, but “there was never a bunch” of money, sister Donna recalls. “I remember my dad telling stories about how the Depression had absolutely no effect on his family, except all of a sudden their neighbors were 13  14 A Deeper Blue: The Life and Music of Townes Van Zandt as poor as they were.” She remembers her father telling the family how he had never had ice cream until he was in college, then adding, “you don’t miss it if you’ve never had it.”1 Harris was a strongly built man with a set gaze and a wellcropped crew cut. He was a tough businessman, a straight arrow, and by all accounts a compassionate father and a Texas gentleman . Dorothy Townes Van Zandt, tall and slim, with dark hair and dark eyes, had grown up in the upper-middle-class environment of a prominent professional family, living in Houston and also on a ranch near Conroe, north of the city. “The family raised Great Danes,” Donna remembers, “and they raised some cattle. In every picture of my grandmother, they are surrounded by Great Danes.” Dorothy’s sister, Anne, was married to Brownie Rice, Sr., of the prominent Houston family that included the founder of Rice University—“old bluebloods,” according to a relative2 —and they lived in one of the mansions that graced the Montrose area of the city. Mr. Rice also owned a ranch west of Houston, where the young Van Zandt family spent a lot of time. Other members of the Rice clan were among the first developers of the prestigious River Oaks neighborhood, which became the home of a number of Dorothy’s relations. “The Townes family had their wealth a lot longer,” explains a relative. “The Van Zandts were famous in their own right, but they were always country people and farmers.”3 The oil business was booming in Texas and throughout the West after the war, as new markets opened and production soared to all-time highs. Harris Van Zandt was doing very well as a corporate lawyer, and the family prospered. The family was also quite mobile. Donna recalls, “We moved a lot in Fort Worth. They never bought a house, just rented. When we would outgrow one they would have to rent one a little bit bigger, as the kids grew up.” The family maid, Frances, who started working for the Van Zandts shortly before Townes was born, recalls the household scene vividly, and her memories provide a fascinating window into Townes’ childhood.4 “I remember his first birthday,” she says. The family was living at 2130 Stanley Av-  No Lonesome Tune 15 enue, in Fort Worth. “Mrs. Van was out of town. I thought if she was home we might have a party.” She asked Mr. Van Zandt to invite his mother and sister over for dinner, and Frances baked a cake. “Mrs. Van had some real silver glasses for drinking water . These were used,” she recalls. She remembers Townes as a fast-moving child who loved to play outside with a little dog named Sandy and who would climb the fence and generally roughhouse with a boundless energy. Mr. and Mrs. Van Zandt—known to friends and family as Van and Dotsie—had an active social life, mostly revolving around the extended family. During football season, Dorothy’s two sisters and their husbands and children would often visit, going...