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Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

An Exercise In Nonsense

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Woah! Had to chop several chunks of my full review to make it fit into the 1000 word limit. I read every word of every review at time of posting and I'm slightly disgusted by seeing only 18 reviews 5 years after release and that the writing is not more persuasive. Oddly, I was unimpressed with favorable reviews by Townes' admirers only because their eloquence with words was few and far between, even though there were some good bits. My favorite review was the worst rated one, because of these words: "nor is there any attempt to give you any sense of what he did other than write songs". Well that is Townes Van Zandt in a nutshell. He didn't really do much with his life except for "write songs" and even his own family barely knew him after they approved the electroshock therapy.'Heartworn Highways' documents the true birth of the scene called "outlaw country music". There's not as much footage as I'd like, but the stories about him by people who knew him well are a river of carefully crafted words that any appreciator of a good story should love instantly. Music and poetry are Townes' breath and blood. His life is many peoples' stories, and everyone knows parts, but no one knows the whole thing 100%. Susanna Clark might know more than anyone else possibly.The film centers around a few tapes recorded by a friend whom Townes confided in over the phone. Director Margaret Brown shows that she has brains simply by her choice of subject. In one tape, Townes clearly recaps his early musical birth, that when he was 8 years old he saw Elvis Presley (on the television at his home deep in the heart of Fort Worth, Texas, unlike Gram Parsons and Tom Petty who both met Elvis in person) and the next Christmas his father bought him a guitar. He remembered something about learning some songs and going to the school and making all the girls go crazy and then going home a hero. He details how he penned his first country/western single 'Waitin' Around to Die' when he had been "locking myself up in the closet for weeks on end with the phone off the hook and listening to early Bob Dylan and Lightning Hopkins". There is so only one biography I know of in print (on my shelf) called 'To Live is to Fly'. It is only able to tell part of the story. Much of it is unknown or not very well documented. The author states that he tried to interview Susanna Clark and got rebuffed by her because she is writing her own book about him or something like that. Guy says that Susanna and Townes were kind of like soul mates.Townes said Doc Watson was the first person to officially cover one of his songs, told everyone that Lightnin' Hopkins gave him his first joint (possibly true), and the last major band he tried to produce with was Sonic Youth. Something I discovered while researching online was that Townes died tragically on January 1st, 1997 and the great country music legend Hank Williams also tragically died on January 1st, 1953 exactly 44 years to the day. You must watch the bonus interviews on the DVD to see his bonus interviews where Guy Clark says, "Even though sometimes there's a lot of words, there's a lot of phonetic hot licks going on, it's the holes you leave, you know, emotionally in the story line and Townes was like...he was so good it sounds unconscious. I don't believe it was...he knew what he was doing...I knew Townes, he's a smart S.O.B., and he's the coolest guy that ever walked, BUT he was not unaware of how good he was and what he was doing...It wasn't magic. It was (expletive) hard work and paying attention." Guy Clark talks about when Townes was at his best and could perform songs that would just take your breath away. "That's our goal as songwriters, is to try to hit that mark."There are hilarious stories in the DVD extras from Leland Waddell about trying to once-and-for-all cure Townes of his suicidal tendencies by actually giving him a loaded shotgun, driving backward 40 miles to a gig in Lubbock that was already canceled because of the rain, and letting the tramps take his nice shirt and moccasins while picking a grave site because he drove off after they saw him drag an passed-out drunk Townes to the grave site. Johnny Guess says he was Townes' witness inside a little trailer when Bob Dylan wanted to meet Townes and they met in a blocked off part of Guadalupe street (the "drag" in front of the University of Texas) and when Bob Dylan got to meet Townes Van Zandt and hear him play and sing, Johnny Guess said his jaw was dropped wide open because he got to meet Townes Van Zandt. "That was Bob Dylan. It doesn't get any better than that." There are many great arrangements of words a person can have ingrained upon their memory after watching this movie. I think my favorite quote from Townes in the film is from the 1995 Amsterdam interview where he says, "I try to write about things that matter and make every song good." The best part of the film for me is when John Lomax III calmly tells us (with tears flowing down his face) about when he tried to manage and get to the bottom of the business affairs of Townes Van Zandt and put an advertisement out for fan mail to "America's Greatest Songwriter" and the letters he got from tons of people said that listening to this guy's music had saved their lives, that they were on the verge of suicide and his music brought them back, or they had lost a loved one and his songs had helped them get through a tough time.

I can say without a doubt, that Townes Van Zandt is simply best American songwriter of the past century. He owes a lot to classic bluesmen like Lightnin Hopkins and country balladeers like Hank Williams, but for my money, he's the greatest. He has an economy of words and a poetry that none of his competition comes close to. Many people would site Dylan as the greatest, but I think Townes blows him out of the water. There is a rawness, and realness to Townes that you very rarely hear in music, period. You can feel the pain and longing that haunted this man, also the genius poet at work and occaissonally goofy fun lover in all his songs. I discovered Townes thanks to this movie, so I feel indebted to it for introducing me to some of the best music I've ever heard.

Having lived in Austin back in the 70s when Townes played here all the time, I have to say we really took him for granted. I never knew any of his history or that he had such an impact on so many performers. In some ways, I wish I was still naïve. Be prepared for an extremely depressing movie. Yet, the movie has stayed with me for over a week now. The film was very powerful but I just cannot put in to words how. Everyone who heard his music knew his songs were sad but somehow I envisioned him as being OK when the show was over. For the most part, it was not. At one point in the movie someone ask him, "Why are your songs depressing". Townes simply looks at he guy and says ". . . life is sad. Don't you think"? Such a perfect answer for anyone who experiences melancholy. Another powerful scene shows Townes oldest son fishing as he pontificates on the road that his father had chosen. We all hear over and over how this performer or that celebrity gave up everything to follow his heart but gosh it was all worth it. Yet JT somehow describes how there are so many other simple everyday aspects of life which are equally important and his father missed a lot of those moments. This is such a profound perspective from such a young man. The movie has many memorable moments. I'd recommend it for anyone who likes sad songs like one might hear from Iris DeMent or John Prine. Everyone else should go rent a Ben Stiller movie.

The life and times of songwriter Townes Van Zandt told through clips, interviews and his music.I always knew the name but never had any idea what he wrote. The one song you're probably most likely to know is Poncho and Lefty which was a hit for Emmylou Harris and Willie Nelson And Merle Haggard. This documentary filled me in, to some degree, on the man and his music, but it never really made me understand the man any more than I did before. The film certainly didn't turn me into a fan of his. Townes was an amazing songwriter who said his songs were "mostly sad and the rest are hopeless". He wrote, performed and then drank and did drugs in order to deal with his personal demons. I'm really not to sure what those demons were, they just were sort of there, or so it seems from the movie. The movie isn't clear about many details in Townes life, its really just a portrait of the man as a person you might meet on the street, it doesn't really give you any sense of what he did (other than write songs) or when he did it. He had some kids and he had some wives, but there isn't really any attempt to sort that out, nor is there any attempt to give you any sense of what he did other than write songs (this is not a movie to see if you want dates and places) Its a good movie. Its not a great one. It does give you a sense of who this person was as if he were a random person, but it doesn't really tell us why he is so important and so well loved. For me its a bunch of people telling his story and saying he's great, but not explaining why. I enjoyed it, but I really wish I knew more about him other than he wrote songs.