ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 4, 1997 TAG: 9701060070
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: The Dallas Morning News
Fort Worth native Townes Van Zandt, the revered yet tortured songwriter who penned the Western classics ``Pancho and Lefty'' and ``If I Needed You,'' died Wednesday, apparently of a heart attack. He was 52.
With friends and family nearby, Van Zandt died at his Smyrna, Tenn., home while recuperating from hip surgery.
For nearly three decades, Van Zandt was at the forefront of the hard-living Texas-troubadour movement that also spawned Jerry Jeff Walker, Guy Clark and Willie Nelson. In turn, those artists influenced the next generation of Texas singer-songwriters, including Nanci Griffith, Rodney Crowell, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Steve Earle.
Born March 7, 1944, into a wealthy Fort Worth oil family, Van Zandt did not live a privileged life. Like his heroes, blues great Lightnin' Hopkins and country legend Hank Williams, Van Zandt translated his own hardships into song. He endured poverty, mental illness (as a teen-ager, he was diagnosed as manic depressive with schizophrenic tendencies) and alcoholism.
The characters in Van Zandt's compositions were usually down-and-out fringe figures fighting to survive or looking for a means to an end.
``Even when the pictures weren't pretty, they were true,'' said Jonell Mosser, the Nashville vocalist who recorded 13 of his songs on 1996's ``Around Townes.'' ``There was a lot of pain in him, an enormous amount of pain that he spent a lot of time trying to kill, and his body finally succumbed.''
That pain was poetry for country and folk luminaries. Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard turned his ``Pancho and Lefty,'' a sobering tale of vagabonds and criminals, into a No.1 country hit in 1983. Country-folk songstress Emmylou Harris and another Texan, Don Williams, took ``If I Needed You'' to No.3 on the country charts. Nanci Griffith and Steve Earle both recorded ``Tecumseh Valley,'' a song in which innocence and optimism go awry.
``You could always tell he was living whatever he was writing,'' said Houston singer-songwriter Mary Cutrufello, who performs Van Zandt's ``White Freight Liner Blues'' at the end of her shows.
``He could go directly from his soul into yours ... It has always struck me how direct that connection is.''
``Townes Van Zandt will one day be recognized as one of the great American poets of the 20th century,'' said Jimmie Dale Gilmore, who has shared concert bills with Van Zandt and has recorded his songs. ``It is a tragedy that he died too young to see that.''
LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Van Zandtby CNB