Jeff McCord on the month’s new releases
Austin director Margaret Brown, 34, has just seen her acclaimed film about legendary songwriter Townes Van Zandt, Be Here to Love Me, released on DVD.
Was there a specific moment that sold you on making this film?
The music struck me first. When I first heard the song “Waiting Around to Die,” the next day I went out and bought all the Townes I could find on vinyl. After that, it was just a gradual realization that the film addressed a question I had about art and artists of all kinds: How much do you have to live your art?
And it took four years to complete?
I researched for about six months, and then we shot about forty to fifty interviews over a long period. I guess there are about eighty hours of interview footage. It did take a long time to edit, and we took breaks because we did not have money. Not knowing if I would ever finish was agonizing. There’s a lot that I could not work in, and some of it is on the DVD.
The film doesn’t follow a traditional narrative.
I avoided the rise-and-fall-and-rise-again Behind the Music chronology because I did not think it was the right way to tell the story. I wanted to go for an emotional truth over a factual truth, because there is so much mythology surrounding Townes, and I wanted to be able to play with this too.
Willie Nelson
Lost Highway
I know what you’re thinking. You need a new WILLIE NELSON CD like Mack Brown needs a $400,000 raise. Well …… maybe. Don’t imagine another Red Headed Stranger, but YOU DON’T KNOW ME: THE SONGS OF CINDY WALKER (Lost Highway) does have a sound concept in mind. Though it seems a no-brainer, Willie has recorded little of Walker’s astonishing catalog over the years. The devastating “You Don’t Know Me” might be her pinnacle, but it’s Nelson’s take on “Not That I Care” (“Does she still close her eyes when she dances? / I just wonder, not that I care”) that finds a perfect note of sadness. Two-steps like “Don’t Be Ashamed of Your Age” and “It’s All Your Fault” have the timeless feel of Nelson classics. Surprising that he took so long to tackle a writer Bob Wills revered decades ago? Perhaps not. At one time Nelson aspired to be Walker, who was already a Texas star when his career as a songwriter began. He’s given all that up, though, and unless he’s hiding another “Crazy” under his bandanna, Nelson could hardly find better songs to sing.
Red Garland
Prestige
For reluctant pianist RED GARLAND (he had really wanted to be a boxer), there was only one question: Was there life after Miles Davis? Garland, who was also leading his own sessions, had just finished four years in the mercurial trumpeter’s employ when he recorded his live At the Prelude. Davis was everything Garland was not: fearless, attention grabbing. And Garland’s idiosyncratic style (delicate treble runs with boxy chording down low) did not strive toward distinction. His career had been unspectacular before Davis, and several years after that 1959 session, he left New York to return to hometown Dallas. But on the newly assembled two-CD RED GARLAND TRIO AT THE PRELUDE (Prestige), there’s a definitive glimpse of Garland out of the shadows, smoothly powering his trio through a diversified American songbook (and interestingly, only one tune from the Davis stable).
» BREAKUP WATCH: Hurts to Purr
After three years and the recent release of its eponymously titled full-length debut (self-released; available through cdbaby.com), this Austin band is calling it quits. It’s a shame, as these relative newcomers have made an album so confident and assuredly cool that it seems to have sprung from seasoned vets. Vocalist and pianist Liz Pappademas’ songs gleam with uncanny originality (“Mr. Atom,” the wisely cynical “Six Months,” the hypnotic “Stop Blowing Your House Down”). Her voice has a charming, dusky timbre, while her playing channels everyone from Randy Newman to Paul Bley. If you’ve haven’t caught them, do so quickly. According to their Web site, Pappademas is soon San Francisco–bound. Wherever she ends up, she’s a talent you’ll want to keep in your sights.
