I'll Be Here in the Morning: The Songwriting Legacy of Townes Van Zandt

Peter Rowan

Peter rowan In the kitchen mama sneezed, and he grinned big as you please Said ‘bless you’ and a tear come to his eye —TVZ, “No Lonesome Tune,” from The Late, Great Townes Van Zandt P eter Rowan often matches Guy Clark’s sharp storytelling with Townes Van Zandt’s nonlinear dreamscapes (for instance, “Panama Red” and “Midnight Moonlight”). Rowan, who developed interest in bluegrass, rock, and social protest music at an early age, gained intimate access into one of Texasmusic’sgreatfriendshipsonoccasionaltriple-billtourswiththetwo songwritersthroughouttheUnitedStatesandabroad.“Townesleanedon Guyinawaythatprobablyenabledhimtostayalivelonger,”Rowansays, “but Guy needed Townes in his life just like Townes needed him.”1 As a young man, Rowan, born July 4, 1942, in Boston, Massachusetts, Peter Rowan, Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Telluride, CO, June 21, 2003 26 I’ll Be Here In THe MornInG took measures necessary to enter into elite bluegrass circles. In the early 1960s,RowanmovedtoNashvilletomeetbluegrasspioneerBillMonroe, and he ended up performing with Bill Monroe & His Blue Grass Boys for nearly four years, from 1964–67. Rowan’s time with the legendary outfit offered a solid foundation in the genre’s traditional style, but diversity has defined his path since.2 Rowan has continually explored new variations that span a variety of genres, including art rock (Earth Opera), jazz fusion (Seatrain), “newgrass” (Muleskinner), and country (Peter Rowan and the Free Mexican Airforce).3 Inthelate1960s,RowanrelocatedtoCalifornia,wherehejoinedSeatrain in San Francisco. The group’s first two albums, Sea Train (1969) and the follow-up Seatrain (1970), garnered critical acclaim. “Seatrain was really interesting,”Rowansays,“becausetheywereclassicalmusicians.There was no fooling around. It was back to the strict tempo approach that we’d used with Bill Monroe.” One critic calledSea Train “the best country album since The Band.” Seatrain’s flautist Andy Kulbert categorized its sound as “sort of bluegrass, because the thing that stands out is Richard [Greene]’s violin.”4 Rowan later formed Old and In the Way with the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia, renowned fiddler Vassar Clements, mandolin player David Grisman, and bassist John Kahn. The group’s self-titled debut (1975) infusedbluegrasssensibilitiesintocountry(Rowan’s“PanamaRed”)and rocktunes(theRollingStones’“WildHorses”)andtraditionalsongs(“Pig in a Pen”). The quintet released four albums after Garcia’s 1995 death, including Breakdown (1997) and Live at the Boarding House (2008).5 In the 1980s, Rowan found success writing songs that were recorded by mainstream country artists such as Ricky Skaggs (“Walls of Time”) and George Strait (“Dance Time in Texas”) while living in Nashville.6 By nature a philosophical man, Rowan approaches the songwriting craft altruistically.“Idon’tseemtoplayinamilitantstylethat’stryingtoshake the foundations of the empire,” he says. “I just write songs about what I see and hear and people I know. I don’t have an agenda, really. I think music is a healing force, and it helps people.”7 Rowan recorded Townes PeTer rowAn 27 Van Zandt’s songs “No Lonesome Tune” on the Rowan Brothers’ album Tree on a Hill (1994) and “To Live’s To Fly” with celebrated guitarist Tony Rice on Quartet (2007). Rowan frequently performs both in concert. • • • Peter rowan Townes and I played a bunch of shows together at an Irish pub in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, back in the 1970s. He was always so unique. He dressed in this kind of beige corduroy suit and moccasins. The suit was perfect and the moccasins were really comfortable . We were on the road together, Guy Clark, Townes and me, and we played this festival in England. I guess he’d been on kind of a tear, and he bought himself a leather jerkin. He had on this beautiful white shirt and jeans and this jerkin. He kept saying, “Man, do you know what this is? This is a jerkin.” I was like, “Well, yeah?” He said, “This is what they wore here for centuries, jerkins.” He wouldn’t take the thing off, and he wore it the whole tour, that giant leather vest. He wore it until it looked like the middle ages. He was so proud of that jerkin. Then he gave it to somebody at a festival up in Scotland. What we had was on the level of a poetic friendship. Every time I saw him near the end of his life, he’d throw lines at me, challenging me to rhyme with him. Like saying, “Look what I came up with.” I really couldn’t keep up so much with the lifestyle. I just don’t have it in...