A Deeper Blue (44 page)

Authors: Robert Earl Hardy

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3. Townes is referring to “Snow Don’t Fall.” See Paul Zollo,
Songwriters
on Songwriting.

4. Joe Gracey, from correspondence with the author, June 2002. The resulting Kimmie Rhodes album,
West Texas Heaven
(1996) is highly recommended.

5. Some tracks were eventually released in 2002 on
Absolutely Nothing
, on Normal Records.

6. Jim Calvin, Bob Moore, and Claudia Winterer all confirm the story of and the existence of the bruise, from the author’s interviews and correspondence.

7. The accounts of Townes’ last weeks related in this chapter are from the author’s interviews with Jim Calvin, Royann Calvin, Susanna Clark, Jimmy Gingles, and Bob Moore, plus the account in “Townes last moments—report from Jeanene,” Aug. 2 1997, http://ippc2.orst.

edu/coopl/tvznotice4.html.

Endnotes

285

8. Matt Hanks, “A Gentleman and a Shaman: The Last Days and Sad Death of Townes Van Zandt,”
No Depression
, Jan.–Feb. 1999.

9. Titles of the songs Townes intended to record include “Harm’s Swift Way,” “Old Satan,” “Carolina,” “Southern Cross,” “The Meadowlark,” “Apt. 213,” “Cascade,” “The Deer,” and “Long Ball Hitter.”

10. The attending physician, Dr. Michael McHugh, noting that his patient is a “chronic alcoholic,” reported that “The patient did have alcohol on his breath at the time that he consented to the surgery, however, his wife was present and he did seem to be understanding of the description.” A handwritten note initialed by the doctor and dated 1/20/97 says “Later I found out she was actually his ex-wife.”

11. Will Van Zandt, interview by Ruth Sanders.

12. This could have been a seizure from alcohol withdrawal, indicating that Townes could not “sip” enough to get his blood alcohol level high enough.

13. Forensic specialists consulted on general background regarding the autopsy report include a chief medical examiner, a forensic chemist, and a professor of medicine and law at a major school of medicine.

14. The autopsy and the autopsy report are problematic, having been conducted and reported not by the Davidson County Medical Examiner, but by Dr. Miles J. Jones, an Indiana pathologist working with a private company, Forensic Medical, to whom the county had contracted its autopsies. An article in
The Tennessean
, “Public Autopsies in Private Hands,” August 1, 1999, details the many serious problems that this arrangement engendered.

15. The diphenhydramine in Townes’ system at the time of his death has been a matter of some controversy. The 0.62 ug/mL level listed in the toxicology report indicates that Townes took more than four Tylenol P.M. tablets. Jeanene Van Zandt later recounted that “I went to his nightstand drawer and found a bottle of antihistamines from Europe and all I can figure out is that while I was at the store for the Tylenol he must have found them and thought they were pain pills and took a bunch and it freaked his heart out.” (“Townes last moments—report from Jeanene,” Aug. 2, 1997, http://ippc2.orst.edu/

coopl/tvznotice4.html.)

Jeanene, in a post on her public e-mail discussion site, later expanded on this story, calling the pills in question “Harold’s antihistamines”

and saying “Harold [Eggers] had the allergies and the labels were in German and somehow when they parted ways after the last tour Townes’ Ibuprophen, which he took almost every day got switched for Harold’s allergy medicine and ended up in his nightstand drawer which was the only place he could have gotten them from while I was at the store buying him what he needed.…” (http://groups.ya-hoo.com/group/AboutTownes.)

However, Jim Calvin recalls, “But Royann, to this day, she’ll tell you there wasn’t no damn pills in there, she had just cleaned that whole place just a day or two before, and there weren’t any kind of pills of
286

A Deeper Blue: The Life and Music of Townes Van Zandt
any sort in there.” Royann, in fact, reports: “[Jeanene] claims there was a bottle of European-made Benadryl in his drawer. I know for absolute certain that there was not. Because I cleaned everywhere; I even knew where her little hiding place in the bottom of his thing was, and I looked in there even, and I dusted and moved the table.…

So I know for a fact that that did not exist.”

The Calvins’ recollections do not preclude the possibility that, in the brief time he was at Bayou Self when he dropped Townes there before being driven to the airport to catch his flight back to Austin, Harold Eggers might have left a bottle of pills in Townes’ drawer, for whatever reason, or somehow by mistake. But, Jim Calvin makes this further observation: “Hell, [Townes] wasn’t capable of grabbing any pills. Not unless somebody gave them to him and stuck them in his mouth. He was having trouble enough hitting his face with his pieces of roast beef and cheese. He was too weak to hardly do anything like that, I don’t think. But I don’t know.”

16. By all accounts, Lara Fisher was Townes’ fourth child—his second-oldest—unacknowledged except through the exclusionary gesture in the final version of his Last Will and Testament. The following recollections of three of Townes’ friends are relevant to this statement:

“I know he had a will, and I know he cut his illegitimate daughter out. You should probably try to find that little girl and ask her what she feels about having such a famous daddy who treated her like shit. It was his blood relative. Townes had no reason to treat this kid bad. If you saw her, you could tell that she’s his kid. I know Jeanene had him cut her out because she didn’t want to have to deal with it.”

—Peggy Underwood, author’s interview.

“He told me that he had an illegitimate daughter, and this had all happened with a woman he just met at a gig somewhere—in Texas or Louisiana, I think—and that the mother didn’t want anything from him, but he was so upset about Jeanene taking her out of his will.

He was a good man, you know, and wanted to provide for this kid, but she wouldn’t allow it. This was not long before he died. He was so angry, and so sad, really. She was a teenager at the time, when he talked to me about her. It just went against everything he wanted, to cut her out like that.” —Bianca DeLeon, author’s interview.

“He told me this chick came up to him at a gig one time, and just told him she was madly in love with him and wanted to have his child. And they jumped in the truck and did it, and it worked, and she came back about eight months later, pot-bellied, and said, ‘It worked, and we’re gonna have a baby, and I’m not gonna bother you or anything, but I thought you might want to know that you got a kid out there.’ And he was not overjoyed, because he’d never had time to really think about it, she just would pop up and leave.

And then she showed up about seven years later, with this little girl.

And she showed up at the funeral, but nobody spoke to her. Cindy also showed up at the funeral and no one spoke to her. I didn’t know Endnotes

287

either one of them, and I had Claudia with me, so nobody would speak to me. But he made his will, and wrote this child into his will, and Jeanene would not abide by it. This child was supposed to get some money, at some point, somehow, and Jeanene wouldn’t hear of it. But there is a fourth child out there that he knew about and was happy to know about, and when he told me that [mid-1996], he said she must be about sixteen now. And he said the kid was undeniably his, just from the face. I know for a fact that he wanted to provide for that child, and wrote up papers. But Jeanene didn’t go by what he wanted with that.” —Royann Calvin, author’s interview.

17. From the Richard Dobson Archive: http://nativetexas.com/_dobson/

archive.html#35.

18. Actually, Jeanene had Townes’ body cremated in Nashville; she kept some of the ashes, so only the remaining ashes were buried in Dido.

The other family members in the plot as of the time of the author’s visit on January 1, 2001, were H. P. Williams, March 18, 1866–July 25, 1904; William Lipscomb Van Zandt, February 3, 1875–April 8, 1948; Bell Williams Van Zandt, June 30, 1882–February 24, 1965; Infant Twins, December 6, 1904; Martha Ann Van Zandt Perryman, May 19, 1908–February 10, 1998; Jack Van Zandt, February 8, 1911–November 20, 1916.

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A Deeper Blue: The Life and Music of Townes Van Zandt
Audio and Video

Sources

The following listing documents Townes Van Zandt’s recorded legacy
in its original form, as first presented on his “official” U.S. album
releases (not including reissues) and on various live recordings and
collections issued on labels in the U.S. and Europe during Townes’

lifetime and within the first decade following his death.

Date

Title

Producer

Label/Catalog #

1968

For the Sake of

Jack Clement/

Poppy/PYS 40001

the Song

Jim Malloy

1969

Our Mother the

Kevin Eggers/

Poppy/PYS 40004

Mountain

Jack Clement/

Jim Malloy

1970

Townes Van

Kevin Eggers/

Poppy/PYS 40007

Zandt

Jim Malloy

1971

Delta Momma

Ron Frangipane Poppy/PYS 40012

Blues

1972

High, Low, and

Kevin Eggers

Poppy/PYS 5700

In Between

1972

The Late, Great
Jack Clement/

Poppy/PP-LA004

Townes Van

Kevin Eggers

Zandt

1977

Live at the Old

Earl Willis

Tomato/

Quarter, Hous-

TOM 2-7001

ton, Texas

1978

Flyin’ Shoes

Chips Moman

Tomato/TOM 7017

1987

At My Window

Jack Clement/

Sugar Hill/SH1020

Jack Rooney

288

Audio and Video Sources

289

Date

Title

Producer

Label/Catalog #

1987

Live and

Stephen Men-

Sugar Hill/SH1026

Obscure

dell/Townes

Van Zandt/Har-

old Eggers

1991

Rain on a

Wolfgang

Exile/EXLP02

Conga Drum

Doebeling

1993

The Nashville

Kevin Eggers

Tomato/

Sessions

598.1079.29

1993

Rear View

Townes Van

Sundown/

Mirror

Zandt/Harold

SD2100-2

Eggers

1993

Road Songs

Townes Van

Chlodwig/

Zandt/Harold

7432113007

Eggers

1994

No Deeper Blue

Phillip

Sugar Hill/SH1046

Donnelly

1996

Abnormal

Townes Van

Return to Sender/

Zandt/Harold

RTS32

Eggers

1997

The Highway

Townes Van

Sugar Hill/SH1042

Kind

Zandt/Harold

Eggers

1997

Documentary

Larry Monroe/

Normal/N211

Harold Eggers

1999

A Far Cry From
Eric Paul/

Arista Austin/18888

Dead

Jeanene Van

Zandt

1999

In Pain

Townes Van

Normal/N225

Zandt/Harold

Eggers

2001

Live at

Townes Van

Return to Sender/

McCabe’s

Zandt/Harold

RTS32

Eggers

2001

Texas Rain:

Kevin Eggers

Tomato/TOM-2001

The Texas

Hill Country

Recordings

290

A Deeper Blue: The Life and Music of Townes Van Zandt
Date

Title

Producer

Label/Catalog #

2002

A Gentle

(no production Dualtone/

Evening with

credit)

80302-01119-2

Townes Van

Zandt

2002

The Best of

Kevin Eggers

Tomato/TOM-2002

Townes Van

Zandt

2003

Absolutely

(no production Normal/N235

Nothing

credit)

2003

In the

Jack Clement

Compadre/

Beginning

6-16892-52402

2004

Rear View Mir-

Townes Van

Varese Sarabande/

ror Volume Two

Zandt/Harold

302 066 608 2

Eggers

While Townes Van Zandt’s recorded output includes numerous live
recordings from various periods released by various record labels, there
is a further rich body of independently recorded performances that
circulates among collectors and aficionados to which the author was
privileged to have access. The following is a list of those live recordings that are directly referenced in the text or directly inform general
statements made in the text.

Audio

10/20/70

Bob Fass radio show, WBAI-FM, New York City

9/30/75

Austin City Limits

5/6/78

East Lansing, Michigan

6/24/81

Anderson Fair, Houston

4/22/84

Anderson Fair, Houston

5/31/87