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prelude VinCe bell The wicked king of clubs awoke, it was to his queen he turned His lips were laughing as they spoke, his eyes like bullets burned —TVZ, “Mr. Mudd and Mr. Gold,” from High, Low and In Between V ince Bell, born September 16, 1951, in Dallas, Texas, is one of several Texas artists who learned about songwriting from Townes Van Zandt in the 1970s. While Bell has not achieved widespread commercial success in his own right, many musicians including Nanci Griffith (“Woman of the Phoenix”) and Lyle Lovett (“Sun andMoonandStars”)haverecordedhissongs.Bell’smemoirsSixtyeight Twentyeight and One Man’s Music chronicle his personal and professional recovery after a near-fatal car accident on December 21, 1982, following a recording session with Stevie Ray Vaughan in Austin, Texas. The Austin (L-R) Townes Van Zandt, Vince Bell. The Cactus Café, Austin, TX, 1996. Courtesy Sarah Wrightson 6 PreluDe American-Statesman’searlyeditionthatmorningerroneouslyreportedthat Bell had died in the accident.1 “Townes Van Zandt was filling houses in Texas,” says Bell, who included a version of Van Zandt’s “Mr. Mudd and Mr. Gold” on his album Recado (2007), “when most of the rest of us were nailing the quarter we made in tips to the backstage wall. Townes and I met right off the bat at SandMountainCoffeehouseinHoustonin1971.Heprobablytaughtme how to play an A-minor chord in the back room. When he wanted to be, Townes was powerful with a lyric and a guitar. He was the most convincing of us all for many moons. There was a time when we all learned most everything from him and Guy Clark. In the early days, Townes made the utterly simple elevating. He was fearless. ‘Mr. Mudd and Mr. Gold’ is my favorite in the fleet of Van Zandt, a poet’s poem. It’s an excellent talking blues that Steve Earle and I will probably do until we drop. Because of Townes,wesongwritershaveturnedwhatbeganasapopsongonanAM radio station into some of the relevant literature of our time. He would have liked that.”2 ...

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