Townes Van Zandt 1978

Townes Van Zandt, hand-drawn playing his Martin D-35 on May 16, 1978 in New York City, age 34.
Zandt was in New York where he appeared at the Lonestar Cafe, 13th St. and Fifth Ave., New York City on May 15th and 16th.

Legend has it that Townes Van Zandt once owned a Martin D-35 that he picked up at a pawn shop.
This D-35 had the initials RJ on one of the frets. Apparently, Townes was out playing late one night and when leaving the club early one morning a couple of guys roughed him up and stole his guitar.
Townes’ famous last words where something like, “I really liked that guitar”.

John Townes Van Zandt was an American singer-songwriter. He was born in Fort Worth, TX into a wealthy family.
He wrote numerous songs, such as “Pancho and Lefty”, “For the Sake of the Song”, “If I Needed You”, “Snake Mountain Blues”, “Our Mother the Mountain”, “Waitin’ Round to Die”, and “To Live Is to Fly”.
His musical style has often been described as melancholic and features rich, poetic lyrics. During his early years, Van Zandt was respected for his guitar playing and fingerpicking ability.

He suffered from a series of drug addictions and alcoholism, and was given a psychiatric diagnosis of bipolar disorder. When he was young, the now-discredited insulin shock therapy erased much of his long-term memory.

In 1983, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard covered and popularized Van Zandt’s song “Pancho and Lefty”, reaching number one on the Billboard country music chart.

Van Zandt died on New Year’s Day 1997 from cardiac arrythmia caused by health problems stemming from years of substance abuse.
He was 52.

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