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"Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy goots and say that" -- Steve Earle
Perhaps a bit of hyperbole, but it's a quote on the DVD cover of Be Here to Love Me, a interesting and well-done documentary on the work and troubled life of singer/songwriter Townes Van Zandt.
Townes had various mental problems even going back to his childhood, conditions that were quite possibly exacerbated later on by ill-advised shock-treatments and most definitely by years of drug and alcohol abuse plus the trials of a life spent largely on the road.
But, despite all his troubles and frequent lone-wolf status, he had no shortage of admirers (or wives for that matter) and, particularly within the music community, his popularity far exceeded his otherwise stunted career. Townes remains, now 7+ years after his death, a kind of godfather emeritus to that largely Texas-based country/folk/blues music scene.
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