TOWNES VAN ZANDT LIVE AT OLD QUARTER INSANELY RARE SEALED ORIG'77 TOMATO 2LP SET

$

676

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·       TOWNES VAN ZANDT – LIVE AT THE OLD QUARTER, HOUSTON, TEXAS –  INSANELY RARE ORIGINAL 1977 TOMATO RECORDS STEREO 2-LP SET TOM-2-7001 (THE RECORDING MADE IN 1973, FIRST RELEASED ON AN ALBUM ON TOMATO RECORDS IN 1977) 

·       ORIGINAL U.S. PRESSING

·       THIS IS A MONSTROUSLY RARE ORIGINAL 1977 TOMATO PRESSING, NOT A MUCH MORE COMMON 2009FAT POSSUM  REISSUE: EASILY, BY FAR THE TOWNES VAN ZANDT RAREST ALBUM IN EXISTENCE -- BELIEVE IT OR NOT, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME WE HOLD IN OUR HANDS THE ORIGINAL PRESSING OF THIS ALBUM -- WE HAVE LITERALLY NEVER SEEN ONE IN 45 YEARS OF COLLECTING

*** STILL SEALED GUARANTEED ORIGINAL FIRST PRESSING ***

·       BELIEVED TO BE THE PROMOTIONAL PRESSING (BASED ON THE CUTOUT PROMO HOLE); NAMELY, ON CAPITOL AND AFFILIATED LABELS, A NEAT CUTOUT HOLE IN THE UPPER RIGHT-HAND CORNER SIGNIFIES PROMO PRESSINGS, NOT, REPEAT, NOT A CUTOUT ITEM.

·       GUARANTEED ORIGINAL RED "TOMATO " LABEL

·       THE THICKNESS OF THE VINYL, THE APPEARANCE AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE COVER, LABEL’S LOGO AND OTHER PERIPHERAL ELEMENTS OF THE COVER, ARE ALL PERFECTLY CONSISTENT WITH THE ORIGINAL, FIRST PRESSING OF THIS TITLE.

·       TWO “BREATHE” (AIR) HOLES NOTED ON THE SHRINK WRAP

·       THIS IS THE ORIGINAL, AUTHENTIC, FIRST U.S. PRESSING; THIS IS NOT A REISSUE, AN IMPORT, OR A COUNTERFEIT PRESSING.

·       ORIGINAL GATEFOLD COVER

·       FAIRLY THICK VINYL PRESSING On the scale from 1 to 10 (1 being the least thick, and  10 being the thickest), we assess the thickness of the vinyl as 7.

 (►PLEASE SEE THE IMAGE OF THE COVER, LABEL OR BOTH, SHOWN BELOW)

(Note: this is a REAL image of the ACTUAL item you are bidding on. This is NOT a "recycled" image from our previous auction. What you see is what you’ll get.  GUARANTEED!)

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Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas is a double live album by Texas singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt. The recording captures Van Zandt in a series of July 1973 performances in an intimate venue and there is a strong critical consensus that this recording is among the most exemplary of Van Zandt's career.

Recording

In July 1973, Van Zandt performed a string of shows over five sweltering nights at the Old Quarter club owned by Rex Bell and Dale Soffar that were recorded on a portable four track by Earl Willis, the album's producer and engineer. They would eventually be released four years later by Van Zandt's previous producer and manager Kevin Eggers on his new Tomato Records label. The liner notes describe the recording as the "Rosetta Stone" of Texas music. One can hear Van Zandt's influences in covers by artists like Bo Diddley, Texas bluesman Lightnin' Hopkins, and country picker Merle Travis. Van Zandt's most famous works can also be heard, such as "If I Needed You" and "Pancho and Lefty" played to an audience not already familiar with these songs. The singer's laconic banter and corny jokes are also on full display. The album is also noted for the intimacy of the performance, with Van Zandt taking the stage alone and accompanying himself on guitar as he did thousands of times during his career. In the 2007 biography To Live's To Fly: The Ballad of the Late, Great Townes Van Zandt, John Kruth writes that Van Zandt played "to nearly a hundred folks per set, packed shoulder to shoulder within the club's bare brick walls. The room was so jammed that it was impossible for a waitress to wend her way through the crowd to take drink orders. People had to pass money hand over fist and wait, in hopes that a mug of cold beer would eventually find its way back to them." Van Zandt is introduced by Dale Soffar and, after apologizing for the busted air conditioning, performs a gentle reading of "Pancho and Lefty", describing how he wrote the song while traveling near Dallas with Daniel Antopolsky. At the end of the song the singer remarks, "I've never heard it so quiet in here." The photograph on the album cover was shot by Steve Salmieri.

Release & Reception

The release of Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas in 1977 followed a period of relative inactivity for Van Zandt, whose last album, The Late, Great Townes Van Zandt was released in 1972. Van Zandt had recorded a follow up with the working title 7 Come 11, but its release was held up due to a dispute between producer Jack Clement and Poppy Records founder Kevin Eggers. When the live album finally came out it received euphoric praise from critics, who had bemoaned the overproduction on some of his earlier records. Sean Mitchell of the Dallas Times Herald commented, "Though this gifted songwriter has been a legend in and around the folk circuit of the Southwest for a decade, his albums have been harder to find than El Dorado." The LA Times hailed Van Zandt as "a cross between Woody Guthrie and Leonard Cohen." AllMusic writes that Van Zandt "could work magic in front of an audience under the right circumstances, and while a wealth of live recordings of Van Zandt have emerged since his passing on the first day of 1997, Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas ranks with the very best of his concert albums." Amazon.com opines, "It's not just his best live album, but maybe his best album, period." Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes told Van Zandt biographer John Kruth that he'd been given a copy of the album by Mark Olson of the Jayhawks and that the record "really spoke to me. I listened to it constantly while on a tour of Europe. In rock and roll people tend to forget about the importance of songwriting. Townes really inspired me to become a better songwriter. That motherfucker had his antennas up."

Van Zandt remained cautiously optimistic about his critical windfall, stating in a 1977 interview with Omaha Rainbow, "I kind of forgot all about them. Then Kevin Eggers took the tapes to a studio at Lima, Ohio, and came out with the record. It's okay. That's what went down and it's good to have. Getting that record out on Tomato meant to me that all the mire that the business end of my career got wedged into was finally evaporating. I was out of the chute on a brand new horse, right?"

Track listing

All lyrics and music by Townes Van Zandt except where noted.

Disc 1:

"Announcement" (by Dale Soffar) – :44

"Pancho and Lefty" – 4:08

"Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold" – 3:40

"Don't You Take It Too Bad" – 2:57

"Two Girls" – 3:51

"Fraternity Blues" – 3:07

"If I Needed You" – 3:18

"Brand New Companion" – 4:20

"White Freight Liner Blues" – 3:26

"To Live Is to Fly" – 3:20

"She Came and She Touched Me" – 4:09

"Talking Thunderbird Blues" – 2:33

"Rex's Blues" – 3:05

"Nine Pound Hammer" (Merle Travis) – 3:06

Disc 2:

"For the Sake of the Song" – 4:48

"Chauffeur's Blues" (Lightnin' Hopkins) – 4:33

"No Place to Fall" – 3:08

"Loretta" – 2:26

"Kathleen" – 2:54

"Why She's Acting This Way" – 5:42

"Cocaine Blues" (Traditional) – 3:21

"Who Do You Love?" (Ellas McDaniel) – 3:44

"Tower Song" – 3:47

"Waiting 'Round to Die" – 2:35

"Tecumseh Valley" – 4:30

"Lungs" – 2:34

"Only Him or Me" – 2:42

 (EXCERPT FROM AN ONLINE REVIEW IN WIKIPEDIA.ORG)

Townes Van Zandt is better regarded as a songwriter than as a performer, and not without reason -- he was a peerless lyricist with a singular ability to capture the landscape of the heart and soul in words, but while he was a fine singer he wasn't exceptional, and the ravages of alcohol, tobacco and drugs took a fearsome toll on his voice in his last years. But Van Zandt could work magic in front of an audience under the right circumstances, and while a wealth of live recordings of Van Zandt have emerged since his passing on the first day of 1997, Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas ranks with the very best of his concert albums. Live at the Old Quarter is simple and spare, capturing Van Zandt in a 1973 solo performance at a Houston saloon with just his acoustic guitar for company, and the engineering ably captures the ambience of the room, with the audience clearly caught up in the spell of these songs. The set features 26 songs, all originals except for covers of "Cocaine Blues," "Nine Pound Hammer," and "Who Do You Love," and Van Zandt brigs these tunes to life with an easy grace that's a striking complement to the emotional gravity of his lyrics, though he also gives his lighter side an airing here, occasionally cracking jokes and offering a pair of funny talking blues numbers, "Talking Thunderbird Blues" and "Fraternity Blues." If the renditions of "Pancho & Lefty," "If I Needed You," "Rex's Blues," "For the Sake of the Song," and "Tecumseh Valley" aren't quite definitive, they're beautiful and affecting, and thanks to the sharp performances, on-point vocals, and superb set list, this is a superior document of Townes Van Zandt on-stage, and is a fine introduction to his body of work.

 (EXCERPT FROM AN ONLINE REVIEW BY MARK DEMING, ALL MUSIC GUIDE  /ALLMUSIC.COM/)

Live at The Old Quarter, Houston, Texas is essentially Townes Van Zandt's unadorned greatest hits collection.  For this very reason, many fans of his peg this as his greatest album ... and for good reason.  Van Zandt was a tortured soul who was just a plain and simple songwriter.  Some people considered him a country artist, others folk, some yet still blues.  He was just a songwriter.  Musically, his compositions weren't that complex, but, as well all know, musical complexity does not a good song make.  Lyrically, he shares few peers.  He is often compared with Bob Dylan, which is a comparison I've never really understood (aside from the fact that both are solid lyricists).  Van Zandt was more interested in narrative than Dylan, and more preoccupied with the resonance of images in his narratives than Dylan, who, in his best songs, is driven to play with words and juxtapose opposing meanings to break down narrative.

Recorded on a hot, humid summer evening in July 1973 at a cramped bar, this is as intimate a live recording as you're likely to hear.  One reason why many Van Zandt aficionados prefer this two-LP set to his studio albums is that Van Zandt was indifferent to the recording process.  As a result, his studio albums are often marred by dated, lachrymose string arrangement that challenge the integrity of the songs and their creator's vision.  This album presents just Townes Van Zandt and his guitar (and an attentive audience).

Here, we get some of his best songs: "Pancho & Lefty," "If I Needed You," "For the Sake of the Song," "Waiting 'round to Die," "Tecumseh Valley," and "Lungs" among them.  That being said, listening to an hour and a half of Townes Van Zandt can get a tad-bit monotonous.  His plaintive, detached, quavering vocals display a journalists' distance from his material.  There's also not much variety in his playing, which generally relies on "finger-picking."  When he does mix it up, he defers to talking blues (such as "Talking Thunderbird Blues" and his apprentice song "Fraternity Blues") or to dull jokes.  By Side Three, the listener stops paying all that much attention.  However, by the fourth Side, Van Zandt hits his stride with a string of his better compositions (and a fun take on Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love").

Though this is not my favorite Townes Van Zandt album (I prefer his self-titled 1969 LP), for many people, this is the only one of his albums you'll need.  On it, we hear some of the greatest songs of the twentieth century.

 (EXCERPT FROM AN ANONYMOUS ONLINE REVIEW)

The PROMOTIONAL, RADIO STATION-, AUDITION OR DEMONSTRATION COPIES AND RELEASES (such as the one we have here) were often distributed among the radio stations before the record was released to the public, sometimes as much as four months ahead. These records are generally considered to be the "first among equals", which is to say the VERY FIRST generation and the VERY FIRST pressings of the particular title; a PROTOTYPE and the earliest known official pressing of the record.

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CONDITION:

RECORD

(IMPORTANT NOTE: unless otherwise noted, ALL records are graded visually, and NOT play-graded!; we  grade records under the strong, diffuse room light or discrete sunlight)

(a)          THE ALBUM IS STILL FACTORY SEALED AND IS BELIEVED TO BE PERFECTLY MINT. Please note: sealed items are assumed to be mint and are sold as-is, as we have no way of inspecting them. For our policy on still sealed records ►click here (PLEASE READ BEFORE PLACING A BID).

(b)            The records are GUARANTEED to come in their original brown Tomato stock inner sleeves with a "Tomato 12" quality produce" logo printed across the top arc (we can see the distinct brown Tomato inner sleeves through the opening side)

(c)             The records are apparently pressed on a RELATIVELY  thick, inflexible vinyl. This is NOT a thin, flimsy ('dynaflex' type),  vinyl, but not the thickest, most rigid vinyl, either.

(d)          Of course, this is a full-bodied ANALOG recording, and not an inferior, digital recording!!!

·       COVER

COVER IS STRONG NEAR MINT, STILL SEALED AND COVERED IN ITS ORIGINAL ►SHRINK WRAP

The following flaws or imperfections are noted on the cover:

-        Cover has a neat, round PROMO cutout hole in one of the corners

-        Cover has a visible "wrinkle"(crease)  in one of the corners.  (VISIBLE ON FRONT SIDE ONLY)

NO OTHER IMPERFECTIONS ON THE COVER:

-        No split seams

-        No ring wear

-        No cut-out corners

-        No saw-marks or indents

-        No dirt/dust rubbing stains (friction marks caused by rubbing against other covers)

-        No yellowing from aging

-        No writing

-        No stamps

-        No tearing: no chips, dents or nicks on the seams

-        No peel-off marks

-        No stains

-        No mold or mildew spots

-        No stickers or labels

-        No water damage

-        No razor marks, scratches, pressure marks, lines, streaks, or  cuts.

-        No warping

-        No wax, glue, paint or liquid drops on the cover

-        No glue traces or wax residue.

-        No bar codes

-        No RIAA stamps or stickers. 

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POSTAGE & SHIPPING:

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