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Best Townes Van Zandt album(s)?


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It's already been said but just an affirmation that Live at the Old Quarter is definitely the place to start. It not only has a majority of his best tunes on it but showcases Townes as Townes, a fantastic performer and stage man with all the emotion and humor one could ask for.

 

His actual albums are great as well but the songs get bogged down with too much instrumentation and arrangement for my tastes. He gets kind of lost in the mix sometimes on them. That being said, I personally would recommend any of the first 3 (For the Sake of the Song, Our Mother the Mountain, and Townes Van Zandt) and/or The Late Great Townes Van Zandt. But as also mentioned, hard to go wrong with any. Enjoy!

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Omnivore released a nice collection of out takes and demos from '71-'72, when his first two albums came out. Maybe not the place to start but it has great stripped down versions of some songs that got over-produced on the official releases, no mariachi horns and such. I think it was an RSD thing last year but it's still around, on nice sounding red vinyl to boot -- Sunshine Boy.

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As people have said, Live at Old Quarter is a good album as you get to hear just him and his playing, but his albums also have some great gems on them that didnt make it to that. I love Delta Momma Blues, it has Tower Song, Rake, Nothin'. If you can grab the soundtrack to his documentary Be Here To Love Me it has a lot of great versions of his stuff, some live and some studio. At My Window is perhaps his best late era album coming out in the 80's. For straight studio go for Late Great Townes Van Zandt though, it has Pancho and Lefty, If I Needed You, a great version of Sad Cinderella and a cover of Guy Clark's Dont Let the Sunshine Fool Ya.

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