The Odyssey has a hankerin' for Townes Van Zandt right now - I just rolled a live album featuring Townes at Disc 231, and here we are again.
I am totally fine with this - I can handle as much Townes Van Zandt as the Dice Gods see fit to serve me, and more besides.
Disc 236 is...Our Mother the Mountain
Artist: Townes Van Zandt
Year of Release: 1969
What’s Up With The Cover?: It is a picture of Townes, looking very country to suit this album. Half his face is in light, and half in shadow, which is about as accurate a depiction of Townes as you could have.
How I Came To Know It: I heard Townes Van Zandt through the Steve Earle remakes album "Townes". "Our Mother the Mountain" was part of my initial explosion of purchasing him back in Fall of 2009.
How It Stacks Up: I now have six studio albums and two live albums of Townes. "Our Mother The Mountain" is pretty high up that list - I'd say second only to "High, Low and In Between" (which I should've given 5 stars to back when I reviewed it at Disc 43, but gave it an insulting 4). That record is actually a 5, and so is this one. While I can't correct the earlier mistake, I can at least get this one right.
Rating: 5 stars
You can't go wrong with Townes Van Zandt. He is a master storyteller, songwriter and sometimes prophet to those who fall under his spell. "Our Mother The Mountain" is his second album, coming out way back in 1969.
Townes records will often move around thematically. He'll have a couple funny songs and some bluesy numbers mixed in with his mainstay of thoughtful folk stories. "Our Mother the Mountain" does not range about this way, and consistently sticks with folk music. It does not suffer for this, and the tracks here are as strong as anything Townes will ever write.
Moreover, of all of his first three records (the others being "For The Sake of the Song" and "Townes Van Zandt"), "Our Mother the Mountain" benefits from the best production value. It is very stripped down, but it avoids the slightly tinny sound that occasionally creeps into Townes' early recordings.
Lyrically, this record is the richest Townes has to offer. My favourite song is the title track, an eerie tale of a man living in the mountains who has a strange and fey visit one evening from a beautiful woman:
"My lover comes to me with a rose on her bosom
The moon's dancin' purple all through her black hair
And her ladies-in-waiting they stand 'neath my window
And the sun will rise soon on the false and the fair.
"She tells me she comes from our mother the mountain
And her skin fits her tightly and her lips do not lie
She silently slips from her throat a medallion
Slowly she twirls it in front of my eye."
This song of faeries and haunted forests sounds like it could have been written two hundred years ago. Like any great folk song, it is timeless. I'd like to think that in two hundred years from now, it will still be played around campfires on a single guitar.
Townes' vocals - never his strongest quality - are at their best on this album. Partly because the slow, quiet songs, many in a minor key, suit his style, but also because he sings them so well, and with such pathos. I was often favourably reminded of Leonard Cohen from around the same period.
Because of the richness of language, and the subdued nature of the music, "Our Mother The Mountain" requires your full attention. It is not music to put on in the background, but if you want to sit quietly in the dark - maybe alone, maybe with a loved one in like mood - it will deeply move you.
Best tracks: Everything except maybe "St. John The Gambler" because it sounds too much like "House of the Rising Sun". That still leaves 10 other kick-ass tracks, so it is hardly a problem.
I am totally fine with this - I can handle as much Townes Van Zandt as the Dice Gods see fit to serve me, and more besides.
Disc 236 is...Our Mother the Mountain
Artist: Townes Van ZandtYear of Release: 1969
What’s Up With The Cover?: It is a picture of Townes, looking very country to suit this album. Half his face is in light, and half in shadow, which is about as accurate a depiction of Townes as you could have.
How I Came To Know It: I heard Townes Van Zandt through the Steve Earle remakes album "Townes". "Our Mother the Mountain" was part of my initial explosion of purchasing him back in Fall of 2009.
How It Stacks Up: I now have six studio albums and two live albums of Townes. "Our Mother The Mountain" is pretty high up that list - I'd say second only to "High, Low and In Between" (which I should've given 5 stars to back when I reviewed it at Disc 43, but gave it an insulting 4). That record is actually a 5, and so is this one. While I can't correct the earlier mistake, I can at least get this one right.
Rating: 5 stars
You can't go wrong with Townes Van Zandt. He is a master storyteller, songwriter and sometimes prophet to those who fall under his spell. "Our Mother The Mountain" is his second album, coming out way back in 1969.
Townes records will often move around thematically. He'll have a couple funny songs and some bluesy numbers mixed in with his mainstay of thoughtful folk stories. "Our Mother the Mountain" does not range about this way, and consistently sticks with folk music. It does not suffer for this, and the tracks here are as strong as anything Townes will ever write.
Moreover, of all of his first three records (the others being "For The Sake of the Song" and "Townes Van Zandt"), "Our Mother the Mountain" benefits from the best production value. It is very stripped down, but it avoids the slightly tinny sound that occasionally creeps into Townes' early recordings.
Lyrically, this record is the richest Townes has to offer. My favourite song is the title track, an eerie tale of a man living in the mountains who has a strange and fey visit one evening from a beautiful woman:
"My lover comes to me with a rose on her bosom
The moon's dancin' purple all through her black hair
And her ladies-in-waiting they stand 'neath my window
And the sun will rise soon on the false and the fair.
"She tells me she comes from our mother the mountain
And her skin fits her tightly and her lips do not lie
She silently slips from her throat a medallion
Slowly she twirls it in front of my eye."
This song of faeries and haunted forests sounds like it could have been written two hundred years ago. Like any great folk song, it is timeless. I'd like to think that in two hundred years from now, it will still be played around campfires on a single guitar.
Townes' vocals - never his strongest quality - are at their best on this album. Partly because the slow, quiet songs, many in a minor key, suit his style, but also because he sings them so well, and with such pathos. I was often favourably reminded of Leonard Cohen from around the same period.
Because of the richness of language, and the subdued nature of the music, "Our Mother The Mountain" requires your full attention. It is not music to put on in the background, but if you want to sit quietly in the dark - maybe alone, maybe with a loved one in like mood - it will deeply move you.
Best tracks: Everything except maybe "St. John The Gambler" because it sounds too much like "House of the Rising Sun". That still leaves 10 other kick-ass tracks, so it is hardly a problem.
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