Just picked up a bunch of Townes Van Zandt. I’ve listened to the debut album so far.

Townes is generally considered a criminally underappreciated artist. He came around in the late 60’s and died in 1997, after a long battle with alcohol and substance abuse. A ton of his material was interpreted and became hits by others but he never really had a big selling album or single under his own name.

Apparently he wasn’t too pleased about some of the extra instrumentation that was put on some of his earlier stuff. Reminds me of Neil Young’s first album. Neil himself wasn’t too impressed but it’s a great record noentheless. To be honest, I think it may have helped some of the more melodic songs, but I haven’t heard any alternate versions so I don’t know for sure. The extra strings certainly don’t make it any worse here.

Another thing, his singing reminds me of Leonard Cohen’s early discs. He’s got a better voice and more range though.

He also does talking blues.. sounds like early Dylan, which he was influenced by. Dylan, Young, Cohen undertones.. but original all the same. Sounds good in my book.

The title of this blog is a reference to the song ‘Me and Jiggs’ by Josh Ritter, a “younger” songwriter more from this time period. Song title is funny to me.. but that’s a story for another day (or blog entry).

Sometimes.. some people will ask what the point is in depressing music being created. Some don’t see the point.

To answer this question we need to go back to the Great Depression. In actual fact, we could probably go back a great deal longer. As we know, us humans often don’t learn from past mistakes and are doomed to repeat them.

The year is 1929, and music is only for the wealthy. Sure, slaves had their call and answer songs (see early Blues) but music was very much controlled by the supposed “fortunate sons”. Of course, then the stock market crashed and everything went to hades.

It was here, though, that music went from a controlled state to something that was available to everyone. Jug bands abounded, blues singers started getting more of a look. Some great innovations were made in music at the time, especially jazz. People found that you didn’t need to be rich to play nor listen, and that was liberating.

Now, for the songs. Well, it was the great depression. A lot of them were depressing in nature. However, people were getting things off of their chest. They had an outlet. Sort of like “writing it down” or “talking it through”, creating songs, playing songs, improvising songs helped get through the times. It was therapeutic.

The same goes for today. And the same went for every time period beforehand. Getting out your sad experiences in life through song in turn promotes strength and resurgence, and others listening can find those that relate to the circumstances. In turn, it becomes an enlightening chain.

Not to say there isn’t a problem with a happy song. That’s certainly where you like to be. However, sometimes it’s a journey to get there. We have all different emotions for a reason.. or maybe a ton of reasons. Of course, I don’t profess to know what the reason, or reasons, are.

Why in the blue heck does everyone keep slagging on Dylan’s voice??  I never hear anybody give Tom Waits even nearly as much slagging… nor Leonard Cohen for that matter.

He’s got a better range than both (I know, not saying much).  Personally, I like all three.  Hey, if you want to listen to Celine Dion or Mariah Carey more than those guys,  it’s your funeral and you can do what you want.  At the very least, leave the MAN alone!