To Live’s To Fly: The Ballad of the Late, Great Townes Van Zandt

By John Kruth

Chapter 1

Where I Lead Me

“There ain’t much I ain’t tried,
Fast livin,’ slow suicide”
~ TVZ - “Still Lookin’ for You”

Wherever the road led him on his brief fifty-two year tour of this sad and beautiful planet, Townes Van Zandt’s reputation had a way of preceding him. Word of him traveled down the pike long before he blew into town, with his dusty, scuffed-up cowboy boots, old guitar and aw-shucks gold-tooth grin. He was a living legend, albeit more often than not, an unknown one. Van Zandt was a notorious rambler, gambler, a hell-bent drunk of the first order, and arguably the greatest American songwriter of his day. The first time Emmylou Harris laid eyes on him at Gerde’s Folk City in Greenwich Village in the mid-sixties, she swore he was the reincarnation of Hank Williams, “but with a twist.” That “twist” to which Emmylou referred was Townes’ incandescent lyrics, expressed with pristine imagery, well-crafted wordplay and stark honesty.

Yet no matter how his friends and the press raved about him, Townes simply wanted no part of it. When his old pal, Texas songwriter Guy Clark dubbed him “the Van Gogh of country music,” Van Zandt quipped, “Actually Guy said that because I have no ear.”

Perhaps the grandest (and most preposterous) acclaim for Townes’ lyrics came from his friend singer-songwriter Steve Earle, who as a kid was in such awe of Van Zandt that he used to carry Townes’ guitar case around just to be in the man’s presence. “Townes Van Zandt’s the best songwriter in the world and I’ll stand on Bob Dylan’s coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that.” Earle once declared. Although Townes appreciated the sentiment, after taking one look at Dylan’s bodyguards, he assured Steve he didn’t think it would be such a good idea.

“It makes me nervous,” Van Zandt joked in his typically self-deprecating fashion. “I’ve met Bob Dylan’s bodyguards, and if Steve Earle thinks he can stand on Bob Dylan’s coffee table, he’s sadly mistaken.”

Whenever anyone would try to tag him with that “world’s greatest songwriter” handle, Van Zandt would shrug his bony shoulders and reply, “What about Mozart? What about Paul Simon? What about Bob Dylan?” and then quote the comedian/free-speech activist Lenny Bruce, who once said, “Flattery isn’t bad, if you can hold your breath long enough.”

Accolades aside, Van Zandt knew very well where he stood in the larger scheme of things, citing competition with “Beethoven, Lightnin’ Hopkins, the Rolling Stones, and the Lord.” If by chance the word legend happened to be mentioned in the same breath as his name, Townes would clarify that only people of such caliber as Albert Schweitzer, Vincent Van Gogh, Chuck Yeager, Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan deserved a reserved seat in such rarified atmosphere.

In addition to the overly enthusiastic Earle, Norah Jones, Lyle Lovett, the Cowboy Junkies, Hoyt Axton and Doc Watson have all recorded fine renditions of Townes’ songs. Van Zandt’s verses have also inspired a couple of chart-topping duets over the years. Emmylou Harris and Don Williams’ cover of Townes’ lilting love song “If I Needed You” went to number three on the country music charts in 1981 while “Pancho and Lefty,” Van Zandt’s classic outlaw ballad, first covered by Emmylou in 1977 on her Luxury Liner LP, was recorded by Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard and topped the country charts at number one in 1983. More Van Zandt inspired duets followed: Nanci Griffith and Arlo Guthrie cut a stirring rendition of “Tecumseh Valley,” Townes’ tragic ballad of Caroline, the miner’s daughter. And Jimmie Dale Gilmore kicked out the jams on “White Freight Liner Blues,” backed by the Seattle grunge rockers Mudhoney.

 

John Townes Van Zandt came kicking and screaming into this world on March 7, 1944, in Fort Worth, Texas. The son of a fourth-generation oil family, Townes wasn’t born to money as much as he’d been born to history. In 1848, Van Zandt County (named in honor of Townes’ great, great grandfather Isaac Van Zandt) was created on eight hundred and fifty square miles of land, fifty miles east of Dallas. From 1822 - 1839 it was owned and colonized by the Cherokees, but during the Civil War the county became known as “the Free State of Van Zandt.”

Jacob Van Zandt Sr. born around 1750, emigrated from Holland to Pennsylvania with the Moravian Colony shortly before the American Revolution. He then moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he married a Virginian named Catherine Moon, who gave birth to a son, Jacob Van Zandt Jr. Shortly before 1800, the peripatetic Jacob senior, packed up his family once more and moved to Tennessee, near Winchester in Franklin County.

In Franklin, Jacob Jr. married Mary Isaacs, who gave birth to a son, Isaac, on July 10, 1812. Isaac first became a merchant, studied law, and soon after passing his bar moved to East Texas.

Isaac Van Zandt was soon elected to congress where he figured prominently in the diplomatic affairs of what became the Lone Star State. In 1842, Sam Houston, the president of the Republic of Texas, appointed Isaac to the position of Charge d’Affair to the United States. As a member of the congress of the Republic of Texas, Isaac represented his country in the annexation negotiations with the Union. The U.S. had rejected the notion twice before a deal was finally cut. Frustrated with the long, drawn-out proceedings, Van Zandt sent a dispatch to the Honorable Anson Jones, Secretary of State dated October 16, 1843, inquiring: “Are we ready to negotiate a treaty of annexation or not?” A savvy yet compassionate man, Isaac was concerned with the treatment of “wild Indians” in Texas and complained of the “illicit trade” practices and poor treatment of native peoples in a dispatch in September of 1843. Not only did Isaac represent the Republic of Texas as its first ambassador to the United States under Sam Houston, he also served as its ambassador to France from 1835 —1845. Five years later, at age 38 he would die of yellow fever while running for governor.

Isaac’s first son, Khleber Miller Zandt, born November 7, 1836, was variously a general, legislator, merchant, banker and community leader and had a reputation as a quiet and genteel man. An old photograph portrays a dignified Southern gentleman in a three-piece suit with tie and watch chain. His pomade hair, graying at the temples, is neatly parted on the left side. What is instantly striking about him, beyond his meticulously groomed white goatee, is a pair of dark eyes that reflect the pain of witnessing the horror of war and the destruction of his beloved Confederacy.

There is little known about Khleber’s younger brother Isaac Lycurgus Van Zandt, Townes’ great-grandfather, who was born in 1840. The black sheep of the family, Isaac Lycurgus was rumored to have wasted the family fortune and run off with the Indians (hence the speculation that Native American blood ran through Townes’ veins).

Traditionally a first son is named for the father but as Khleber was named after a favorite clerk who worked in his father’s mercantile shop (Khleber Miller), the honor was bestowed upon Isaac Lycurgus. While Townes gained a deep appreciation for his great, great granddad, the rest of the family rarely, if ever, spoke his name.

At 93, Khleber finished his autobiography Force Without Fanfare within a few months of his death in 1930. The book recalled how the Van Zandts left Washington, D.C. in 1856 and joined the first migration west, leaving behind “the debt ridden and stifling society of the antebellum South. Seeking a newer, freer society,” the family settled “on the edge of the prairies” of what would soon become the city of Fort Worth, whose population at the time barely reached 250.

Khleber Van Zandt paints the dreary scene: “Forth Worth as I first saw it late on an August afternoon in 1865 presented a sad and gloomy picture. The town had lost much of its former population due to the war. The young men had nearly all gone into the confederate army. Many of them had fallen on the field of battle and those who had returned home had fallen prey to the apathy of the old men who remained at home and became weary with four long years of watching and waiting. It is apparent that if Fort Worth was to become a city something had to be done very soon,” the General proclaimed and taking the bull by the horns, he founded the town’s first newspaper, The Fort Worth Democrat with fellow Confederate officer BB Paddock by trading a wagonload of wheat for an old printing press from The Quitman Herald. Khleber then became founder and president of the Fort Worth National Bank and was also instrumental in bringing the railroad to Fort Worth.

“Business was prospering and I had the opportunity of becoming a wealthy man,” he wrote. “But I was interested in other values before money.” The General believed that “men gained by giving.” Putting his money where his mouth was, Van Zandt, upon his death, donated his farm to the growing city. Today, the cultural hub of Fort Worth thrives where his old homestead once stood.

 

On the other side of the family was Townes’ great grandfather, judge and law professor, John Charles Townes, to whom the main building of the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, Townes Hall, is dedicated. Born in Tuscumbia, Alabama on January 30, 1852, John Charles was four years old when his parents, Eggleston Dick Townes and Martha Cousins (Betts) moved to Travis County, Texas, where he grew up, attended Baylor University and received an honorary LL.D degree.

On December 28, 1871 John Charles married Kate Rector Wildbahn who bore him four children included John Charles Jr. Three years later Townes was admitted to the bar and practiced law in Austin until 1877. The family moved once again, this time to San Saba County where John Charles was elected judge of the Thirty-third Judicial District.

As a professor of law at the University of Texas, John Charles Townes became their first dean in 1902, but a year later he resigned and returned to teaching. In 1907 he was appointed dean once more and held that position until resigning in August 1923. Later that year he died in Austin. During his lifetime John Charles Townes published five books on the study of law. After his death his former students donated a portrait and bust of him to the University of Texas law school while the University Baptist Church named its bible chair in his honor.

 

John Charles Townes Jr., Townes’ grandfather, was born in Georgetown, Texas, on July 4, 1886. Originally a liberal arts student at of the University of Texas, he ultimately followed in his father’s footsteps, switching his major to law in 1906 and received a LL.B. degree in 1909. A year later, John Jr. married Helen Markle of Palestine, Texas. They had three daughters.

From 1909 to 1917 John Jr. practiced law privately in Houston until joining the army at the outbreak of World War I. After the war he became the general attorney for Humble Oil and Refining Company until resigning in January, 1929. Following the death of his first wife, he married Mozelle Barnhart on June 9, 1944 and practiced law privately until his death on February 22, 1948.

A photograph of John Charles Townes Jr. depicts him standing in a grove of enormous ponderosa pines, wearing a straw hat, holding a leashed pair of harlequin great Danes with their long tongues dangling from their mouths. With a cigar stub planted firmly in the corner of his mouth, he bore a striking resemblance to Sydney Greenstreet in Casablanca.

 

With a family filled with distinguished congressmen, high-ranking soldiers and high-power lawyers on both sides, Townes soon discovered he had a lot to live up to. But beyond the remarkable and intimidating history of his forefathers was a more subtle, soulful influence that came from an unexpected source.

As an infant, Townes’ parents employed a black nanny named Frances Edwards, who had an enormous influence on the child’s development. While the Van Zandts regularly attended the local white Baptist church every Sunday, Frances spirited her son Jimmy and young Townes across town to the black Pentecostal church where he was thrilled by the driving rhythm of gospel music.

One year for Christmas, Frances presented the Van Zandt family with a small handwritten book entitled My White Family. Filled with precious memories and anecdotes of her years with the Van Zandts, Ms. Edwards composed a handful of short vignettes recalling each child’s personality and adventures. The chapter on Townes began: “Townes was a pistol. He was so lively and always busy.”

On the occasion of Townes’ first birthday, Frances recalled that “Mrs. Van” was out of town for the baby’s party. Inviting Mr. Van’s mother and sister over for dinner, Frances “baked a white cake and fixed the table real pretty,” with “real silver glasses for drinking water.” She dressed the child in a little white gown and set him in his high chair. “After dinner the cake was served. Townes had fun with his cake. He was one year old.

“Mr. and Mrs. H.W. Van Zandt were a really nice couple,” Frances wrote. “They were known to their friends as Van and Dotsy. Mrs. Van needed a maid. That was the beginning of many years of service. She was expecting a baby. When the baby came, he was Mr. Townes Van Zandt. I really did not want to be a babysitter,” Frances confessed. “One night the white lady couldn’t come. I told them I would sit that night. That was the beginning of many nights of sitting. I did general housework, but cooking was my hobby, collecting and saving recipes.”

Frances recalled how Townes at two years old “could run so fast. He would go down the driveway and down the walk, past four or five houses. He knew I could not catch him. He would laugh, and I would want to sit down and cry. He played with a pretty little dog named Sandy. I did not like Sandy. He would play so rough, but Townes loved him. I would worry about him. He would climb the cyclone fence, and his foot would get [caught] in one of those little holes.”

One morning on Washington Terrace, Frances was working in the kitchen while young Townes played outside. “He came in and asked me for a nickel. He came back several times for a nickel. I asked Townes what was he doing with so many nickels? Nickels was getting low! He said there was a little boy down the street selling Kool-Aid for five cents a glass. I said, ‘Townes, it would be cheaper for me to make you a pitcher of Kool-Aid for five cents a package.’”

Gauging by Frances’ memoir, it seems that Townes’ bad habits began at a very early age: “During the war, we could not get much laundry soap,” Frances recalled. In lieu of store-bought detergent, she whipped up some homemade soap with bacon grease that she stirred with a wooden spoon. “Townes climbed up in a chair and licked the spoon. His little mouth was blistered. I was sorry. We found him one day sitting on the bathroom floor with a can of Sani-Flush. Thank the Lord, he hadn’t eaten any.”

“He began to grow up,” Frances continued. “I read so many cowboy books. He loved stories. He liked pancakes and cherry pie. The children liked to take the bedspreads and blankets and make tents over the card table and take the big pretty cushions from the divan and place them in a long row and play train. Sometimes it seemed as if a cyclone came through.”

In return for her many years of loyal service, the Van Zandts helped Frances’s sister pay for her college tuition. In her careful handwriting, she quoted from Psalm 41, verses 1, 2 and 3: “Blessed is he that considereth the poor. The Lord will do wonderful things for him.”

“I can never thank them enough,” she added. Townes’ well-known generosity and compassion for the poor undoubtedly was inspired by his parents’ example. “The Van Zandt home was a haven to Jimmy [Frances’ son]. They would give him Townes’ cowboy shirts he had outgrown. He loved those shirts better than new ones.”

Family snapshots of Townes as a cub scout reveal a gangly boy with a mischievous grin and shining dark eyes. “I think his childhood was pretty ordinary, with a family that loved him. He was a happy-go-lucky, funny kid,” Townes’ older sister, Donna Spence recalled.

 

According to Jeanene Munsell Van Zandt, Townes’ third wife, Townes spoke of his father as “a great, compassionate man who he really respected.” Harris Van Zandt had been the company lawyer for Pure Oil until he was promoted to the position of vice president. One day, a young Townes came home to discover his father in tears. He had never seen Van so emotionally distraught before. Clearing his throat, his father explained, “Son, today I had to lay off three hundred men.” Torn apart over the matter Harris soon resigned from the job.

Townes’ first eight years, the most stable in his life, were spent in Fort Worth, until a series of moves made every few years permanently uprooted him. First the family moved to Midland, Texas. Then a year later, the Van Zandts packed their bags again and headed north to Billings, Montana. At that point, Frances sadly chose to stay behind. Four years later the family would relocate once again, this time to Barrington, an affluent Chicago suburb, for a three-year stretch.

“We would move a lot,” Donna reminisced. “Mom used to laugh and say that before the truck was empty and the furniture was put in the house Townes would’ve rounded up a friend for him and a friend for me and a friend for our younger brother Bill in the new neighborhood. He was an easy person to like, friendly, outgoing and caring, a nice, silly little brother, but his life took a different turn later on.”

“I had a nice childhood and all that,” Van Zandt once joked. “I don’t remember it, but that’s what I’ve been told.” Townes’ remark isn’t nearly as flippant as it seems. His memory had been permanently fogged by a series of electric and insulin-shock treatments he later received after being diagnosed as a manic depressive with schizophrenic tendencies in the wake of a nervous breakdown suffered during his sophomore year of college.

Counter to what Van Zandt claimed, his youth in Texas was not a complete blank. Bits and pieces of memories came drifting back years later when columnist/author Cynthia Heimel pressed him for some substantial answers. “I remember smells,” he said hesitantly, “hot sun after a rain mixed with cow manure and grass.” Townes also recalled the first song his father sang to him and began to hum a few bars of “By the Beautiful Sea.” There was an uncle who like to sing “Ragtime Cowboy Joe.” And at his first roundup at the age of four, Townes got an eyeful of the first naked girl he ever saw, bathing in a water trough. Her name was Bonnie, the daughter of the foreman on his Uncle Brownie’s ranch.

“What was it like in the mental institution?” Heimel probed. As if out of a hazy dream, Van Zandt began describing a scene sounding like something from an Ingmar Bergman film: images came rushing back of long corridors filled with strange silent people in white gowns, standing around in the soft light of dawn. Van Zandt recalled his parents coming to visit him and the doctor having to reintroduce his mother to him as “the one with the long hair.”

From the book To Live’s To Fly: The Ballad of the Late, Great Townes Van Zandt by John Kruth. Copyright © 2007. Published and reprinted by arrangement with Da Capo Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group (www.perseusbooks.com). All rights reserved.