My Years with Townes Van Zandt: Music, Genius and Rage

My Years with Townes Van Zandt: Music, Genius and Rage

by Harold F. Eggers
My Years with Townes Van Zandt: Music, Genius and Rage

My Years with Townes Van Zandt: Music, Genius and Rage

by Harold F. Eggers

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Overview

“Other people locked themselves away and hid from their demons. Townes flung open his door and said, 'Come on in.'” So writes Harold Eggers, Townes Van Zandt's longtime road manager and producer, in My Years with Townes Van Zandt: Music, Genius, and Rage – a gripping memoir revealing the inner core of an enigmatic troubadour, whose deeply poetic music was a source of inspiration and healing for millions but was for himself a torment struggling for dominance among myriad personal demons.

Townes Van Zandt often stated that his main musical mission was to “write the perfect song that would save someone's life.” However, his life was a work in progress he was constantly struggling to shape and comprehend. Eggers says of his close friend and business partner that “like the master song craftsman he was, he was never truly satisfied with the final product but always kept giving it one more shot, one extra tweak, one last effort.”

A vivid, firsthand account exploring the source of the singer's prodigious talent, widespread influence, and relentless path toward self-destruction, My Years with Townes Van Zandt presents the truth of that all-consuming artistic journey told by a close friend watching it unfold.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781493065431
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date: 09/15/2022
Pages: 264
Sales rank: 659,547
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Harold F. Eggers, Jr. (Austin, TX) is a music industry executive of 40 years' experience, who worked with Townes Van Zandt as road manager, business partner, and co-record producer, helping bring the songwriter's unforgettable music to live audiences across Europe and North America over a span of two decades.

L. E. McCullough is a native of Speedway, Indiana, and has worked as a journalist, musician, arts administrator, and script and stage writer with 52 books published in fiction, nonfiction, and drama. He is the author of hundreds of articles on music and the music industry. Dr. McCullough holds a PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of Pittsburgh.

Table of Contents

Foreword L. E. McCullough vii

Introduction: "The Truth, No Matter What" Harold F. Eggers Jr. ix

Prologue: 1978: "Everybody Here's Crazy Except Me!" xiii

1 I First Meet the Late, Great Townes Van Zandt 1

2 Moving Forward, One Backward Step at a Time 7

3 Welcome to Nashville: Would You Rather a Knife in the Chest or the Back? 19

4 We Hit the Road: Road Hits Back 39

5 The Crying Tour 71

6 Interlude … Insanity Leaves, Then Sneaks in the Back Window 87

7 All Trails Lead to Townes 97

8 Back on the Road, Back on the Edge 103

9 "My Musk Precedes Me" 123

10 The Last Lost Highway 133

11 No Place to Fall 149

12 Goodbye to All My Friends 175

Afterword: "The Van Gogh of Lyrics" L. E. McCullough 185

A Townes Van Zandt Discography Patrick Hurley 195

Townes Van Zandt Discographical Data Hans Golverdingen 203

Recording Townes: Process and Philosophy Harold F. Eggers Jr. 205

Acknowledgments 209

Index 211

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