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

Scott Avett

Scott Avett Greensboro woman, don’t you smile on me I do not feel like being comforted —TVZ, “Greensboro Woman,” from High, Low and In Between S cott Avett’s theoretical last will winnows earthly import to a chill. “Don’t bother with all my belongings,” Avett sings in “MurderintheCity,”theunifyingnucleusoftheAvettBrothers’ 2008 EP, The Second Gleam. “Make sure my sister knows I loved her / Make sure my mother knows the same / Always remember there was nothing worth sharing / Like the love that let us share our name.”1 Scott Avett’s Scott Avett, Austin City Limits Music Festival, Austin, TX, October 2, 2009 SCoTT AVeTT 163 rawintimacy,asunflinchingaswindowsallowedintohissoulbyTownes Van Zandt, has become a defining nexus of his songwriting approach. “When Scott discovered Townes Van Zandt, it greatly affected how he saw music,” says younger sibling and songwriter Seth Avett.2 Scott Avett, born June 19, 1976, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, but raised in Concord, North Carolina, often fastens lyrics on themes of self-doubt and self-improvement. His confessional storytelling has rapidly risen in popularity in recent years. “We’ve seen a lot of temporary, disposable, plasticmusicinthemainstream,”Avettsays.“Whenthepublicbecomes oversaturatedwiththat,it’sverypleasingtohearsomethingmoresimple and human and with less libido, like someone’s just talking to you.” Accordingly, the Avetts deliver their unique blend of rock and mountain music, which at times wraps Charlie Poole’s banjo blues (“Pretty Girl from Chile”) and calypso great Lord Kitchener (“Pretty Girl from San Diego”) around a single lyrical theme, in conversational narratives.3 The Avett Brothers frequently have covered Townes Van Zandt’s “Greensboro Woman” in concert. “‘Greensboro Woman’ was easy just for its [geographic] point of reference, but I also cover ‘Highway Kind’ for my daughter,” Scott Avett says. “She’ll get real quiet when I play the piano when she’s crying. It’s so serious and dark, and I just love it.”4 That connection emerged clearly on the band’s 2009 major-label debut I and Love and You, produced by Rick Rubin (Slayer, Johnny Cash), an important figure in the Avett brothers’ musical development. “When we were thirteen to eighteen years old,” Scott Avett says, “a lot of the records [he produced], from the Beastie Boys to the Chili Peppers, were high on the rotation.”5 The Avett Brothers’ early albums, including The Avett Brothers (2000), Country Was (2002), and A Carolina Jubilee (2003), owe deeply to such home-state influences as Doc Watson, Blind Boy Fuller, and Squirrel Nut Zippers. However, the high-energy concert albums Live at the Double Door Inn (2002), Live, Vol. 2 (2005), and Live, Volume 3 (2010) perhaps better capture the band’s spirit. “I first met the Avett Brothers in New York [around 2003], and I was excited to be invited to North Carolina 164 I’ll Be Here In THe MornInG to support them at the [Chapel Hill’s] Cat’s Cradle not long after,” says folk-pop singer-songwriter Langhorne Slim. “There were people young and old freaking out all night. I thought to myself, These guys are like some kind of bluegrass Beatles.”6 I and Love and You caused some backlash among fans passionate for the band’s leaner early sound, but the album earned significant critical acclaim.7 One writer claimed that the Avett Brothers display the “heavy sadness of Townes Van Zandt, the light pop concision of Buddy Holly, the tuneful jangle of The Beatles, the raw energy of the Ramones.”8 Seth Avett grounds their influences in a less likely source. “[Blind Melon’s] Shannon Hoon had the most joyous voice while talking about the most heart-wrenchingchallengesandconfusion,”hesays.“Hemadeitsound so sweet. What an apt description of people in general. We’re all complicated , and we all have a way of being two ways at once.”9 • • • Scott Avett IpulledsomevocalmovesthatTowneshadusedonacoupleofhissongs on I and Love and You. It was just like a Townes Van Zandt song because it was just verse after verse after verse. I love that because the song moves and never gets hung up on a chorus. That’s a true folk or country-folk song. Rick Rubin was like, “Man, those two verses are just killing me, and I want to hear it again.” The song was eight verses, so we cut out two of them, took the sixth and took one and turned it into a chorus, took another and turned it into a concept and theme. So now you...