Introducing Townes van Zandt – Via the Great Unknown (Forthesakeofthesong)

The ideas simple, get a eclectic bunch of unknown (mostly) indie artists together and record an album of Townes van Zandt songs, we’ve already had one van Zandt tribute recording this year from the great Earle senior, which I blogged about back in March.


Do we need another one ? Absolutely and this one is coming at it from a different angle, does it work – in a word yes. Why? Well the power of Townes writing tends to transcend most music and in this instance the covers are not half bad either.


The packaging for the CD is great too, the accompanying booklet giving plenty of information on the unknowns encouraging the buyer to go do some research, unknown of course is a relative term and there are of course some recognisable artists on the CD, here’s the full tracklist.


1 Lessons In Time (AU) – At My Window
2 Thomas Denver Jonsson (SWE) – To Live Is To Fly
3 Loophole & Ciaran Kirby (IRL) – Lungs
4 Great Lake Swimmers (CAN) – Our Mother The Mountain
5 Fort King & My Hawaii (US) – Loretta
6 Christina Kulukundis (UK/US) – If I Needed You
7 J. Tillman (US) – My Proud Mountains
8 Gustav Haggren (SWE) – Fare Thee Well, Miss Carousel
9 Kevin Tihista (US) – Still Looking For You
10 Kate Maki (CAN) – I’ll Be Here In The Morning
11 Anders Parker (US) – No Place To Fall
12 Telafonica (AU) – St. John The Gambler
13 Nick Jones (US) – Don’t Take It To Bad
14 The Wheel (US) – She Came And She Touched Me
15 Stephen Duffy & The Lilac Time (UK) – Pancho And Lefty
16 Pacific Ocean Fire (UK) – You Are Not Needed Now
17 Chris Mills (US) – Tecumseh Valley
18 The Be Good Tanyas (CAN) – Waiting Around To Die
19 Jad Fair (US) – Turnstyled, Junkpiled


It’s not often I’ll blog about Duran Duran (first and last) but for those who don’t know Stephen Duffy was one of the bands founder members and had a hit solo record in the 80’s with Kiss Me under his Tin-Tin moniker.


You can take a listen to some of the songs over at MySpace and buy yourself a copy direct from the label here, it’ll cost you a tenner for the CD including delivery worldwide, a perfect festive gift for a discerning Townes can Zandt fan.