A Sampling of Steve Earle’s Stories from The Troubadour, Los Angeles, October 11, 2009

Introduction to “Rex’s Blues”:

I had a friend, a teacher. His name was Townes. He was a songwriter,
a folksinger, the best I ever saw. He was a migratory beast. He
summered in Colorado, did his winters in Texas and Tennessee. Those
of us who lived along his migratory path, well we just waited with
baited breath until he’d come around again next year.

He had a horse named Amigo, he kept in the Bronco Newcombe stable in Aspen,
Colorado. Every summer he’d pick him up and he’d ride him across the
mountain at Crested Butte. I was 17 years old when I met Townes.
I thought that was the coolest thing that I’d ever heard of. Actually,
I’m fifty-four and a half now, and I still think that’s the coolest
thing.

But then the seventies wound down. Times got hard, I guess. And Townes had
to let Amigo go. It’s my belief that he began to die that day.

Several winters back, I made the trip backwards, from Crested Butte
over to Aspen. Fifty-eight miles as the crow flies, but I ain’t no crow.
It’s a hundred seventy-five, a hundred eighty by the highway. But we ran
into a particularly tenacious little snowstorm, you know the kind. It took
us eight and a half hours to make the ride. I couldn’t sleep so I wound up
in the shotgun seat. Whilst the snow blowing across the highway and the
headlights looked like low flying ghosts, I swear to God I saw Townes and
Amigo come over the mountain five times that night.

I thought I’d make me a record of Townes Van Zandt songs. This ain’t
on it.

—

Introduction to “Pancho and Lefty”:

Now when a fella’s gonna make him a record of Townes Van Zandt songs, you
know you got your work cut out for you. I mean, the night before I started
recording I had twenty-eight songs on the short list. I have no idea
how I got it down to fifteen.

I met a guy from North Carolina that built guitars, and he said that you
just kind of cut away everything that didn’t look much like a guitar.
It was probably a similar process to that.

But I did know, once I decided to do this, what I was going to record
first. You have to apply your own life experience to these things.
The first day in jail, what you do, you go out in the yard, and you
pick out the biggest motherfucker out there, and you knock him out.
If you get away with that, then you get to keep your radio. So,
applying that theory, I decided to record this first.

—

Intro to “Brand New Companion”:

If aliens were to land in West Hollywood tonight, and one walked straight
up to me, and stuck his raygun into my head, and said, “Quick, tell me
about Townes Van Zandt,” I would say “Townes Van Zandt was a blues singer,
sir.” By that I don’t necessarily mean that all of his songs consisted
of an opening line that states an issue or problem, followed by a second
line that reiterates the issue, followed by a third line that fails
miserably to resolve it.

Townes and myself, and my other teacher Guy Clark, we can say that
we were in Houston, Texas in the early 1970’s, and we saw Mance Lipscomb
and Lightnin’ Hopkins in the same room at the same time on more than one
occasion. That, my friends, is a very big deal. If you don’t believe
me, google it.

Townes used to say that there’s only three kinds of music. There’s the
blues, and there’s zippity do da. This, my friends, is not
zippity do da.