According to a post at The Grateful Web unheard Townes Van Zandt releases, that have been locked away as a result of multiple label acquisitions of the initial Poppy Records recordings, will finally see the light of day with support from Zandt’s estate.
Omnivore Recordings will release Sunshine Boy: The Unheard Studio Sessions and Demos 1971-1972, a two-CD set of previously unavailable music from Towns’ spanning the studio albums High, Low & In Between and The Late Great Townes Van Zandt. One disc features outtakes and alternate takes/mixes of tracks like To Live Is To Fly, presented in both alternate take and demo form, and the classic Pancho & Lefty, a mix made alongside the known version, but without the strings and horns of the commercial version. There will also be songs included that have never released until now.
If the music wasn’t enough (and it is!) the release will offer unseen photos and comprehensive liner notes by musicologist Colin Escott (Hank Williams: The Biography.) Escott writes “alternate versions add an entirely new dimension, like seeing someone you thought you knew so well in a new light. The new songs are simply good to have when it seemed the barrel was empty. And so here are more than two hours of Townes Van Zandt — music unheard since the engineer peeled off a little splicing tape to seal the box 40 years ago.”
Track listing:
Disc One: Studio Sessions
1. T for Texas
2. Who Do you Love
3. Sunshine Boy
4. Where I Lead Me
5. Blue Ridge Mountains
6. No Deal
7. Pancho & Lefty (Alternate 1972 mix without strings and horns)
8. To Live is to Fly
9. You Are Not Needed Now
10. Don’t Take it Too Bad
11. Sad Cinderella
12. Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold
13. White Freight Liner Blues
14. Two Hands
15. Lungs
16. Dead Flowers
Disc Two: Demos
1. Heavenly Houseboat Blues
2, Diamond Heel Blues
3 To Live is to Fly
4. Tower Song
5. You Are Not Needed Now
6. Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold
7. Highway Kind
8. Greensboro Woman
9. When He Offers His Hand
10. Dead Flowers
11. Old Paint
12. Standin’
Originally posted at TwangNation.com
