Townes Van Zandt
Our Mother the Mountain
1969

1. Be Here to Love Me
2. Kathleen
3. She Came and She Touched Me
4. Like A Summer Thursday
5. Our Mother The Mountain
6. Second Lover's Song
7. St. John The Gambler
8. Tecumseh Valley
9. Snake Mountain Blues
10. My Proud Mountains
11. Why She's Acting This Way

For my contribution to this lovely thread, I'll be highlighting a certain Townes Van Zandt. Boasting a relatively large discography and a very faithful following (which included a lot of his fellow poets, singers and songwriters, particularly in country and folk circles), the fact that, throughout his short career, mainstream success had eluded in both long and extended play format saw him considered as one of the original cult artists. Anyway, it's this, his second LP release, that gets my official seal of recommendation, partly because I don't have much else by him, but also because of reasons I intend to go into right about now.

In a nutshell, the reason Mr Van Zandt here can claim a place among my favourite country singer-songwriters is that, from what I've heard, he reminds me a lot of the early work of Leonard Cohen and John Wesley Harding-era Bob Dylan. I love both those things so this is, of course, good news. In fact, were it not for the distinctive kind of country twang and Van Zandt's beautiful, soaring vocal, Be Here To Love Me would sound exactly like something off of one of those albums. He's a man with the flair for a good lyric of Cohen and Dylan, what with the gorgeously dark little nuggets like this...

Dunno what's up with the video though. When the songs come off as a glorious, despairing whole, what you get is a sound that's not too far removed from gothic/alternate country (at least to these ears), which is quite something seeing as this was released in 1969. In fact, the whole mood of the album and a lot of Van Zandt's music can be summed up by the opening lines of the string-laden Kathleen - it's plain to see the sun won't shine today, but I ain't in the mood for sunshine anyway - setting us up for a fragile, delicate little song.

From such a gloomy opening salvo, things take a turn for the slightly more upbeat with a couple of nice, cute lovesongs, the first of these being the livelier She Came and She Touched Me, followed by the pensive, Dylanesque Like a Summer Thursday. Despite the lack of the particularly miserable vibe of the songs before them, it's Van Zandt's clear, smooth and spectacular voice and clever lyrical wordplay which keeps them on the same tracks, and such is the common strength of this album.

As the title cut, Our Mother the Mountain serves as a spectacular, 'this album by the numbers' kind of song - the intelligent, yarn-spinning lyric about how you should 'watch who you're lovin'', that kind of addictive, finger-picking motif on Van Zandt's acoustic guitar and the colours that the occasional entry of a flute into the sonic picture adds. It's the same kind of story with the gorgeous, string-laden Second Lover's Song - the way the odd swathes of flute in the mix add a whole lot of colour to a brilliant and sorrowful song which has a near perfect opening in the shape of these lines...

St John the Gambler is another slow, finger-picking tune coloured by the seamless combination of Van Zandt's piercing, melancholy vocal trademark and the string arrangements, punctuated by the unmistakeably-folky use of harmonica. Tecumseh Valley, covered by a certain Nancy Griffith among many others, is one of the classics of country-folk, with a distinctive kind of country twang about the whole thing and a very Dylanesque use of the harmonica once again. Basically, it ranks among my favourite songs of all time and is definitely a highlight.

Snake Mountain Blues, as the title may suggest, is easily the most up-tempo, bluesy (oddly enough) song on show here, and adds another pretty interesting angle to the album as a whole. My Proud Mountains, on the other hand, steers the album back in the direction of the country-folk crossover sound that dominates it, with its use of simple, folky chord progressions and country slide guitars to add to the sonic picture. Not quite as interesting as most of the album, but a good number nonetheless. To wrap things up, Why She's Acting This Way serves as a superb way to sum up what kind of album I've just spent talking about - a superb little folk song with the added touches of what sounds like a church organ and the flute to give off an interesting juxtaposition of sounds working so well together. Again, as with the rest of the album, the lyrics are brilliance on a stick too, opening with this little nugget...

It's what makes this album so worthwhile and leaves it in among my favourite ever country albums for sure. While it certainly sounds a lot more like folk so isn't traditional by any means, with its very forward thinking, sort of proto-gothic Americana vibes, if you go by defining country music as something that speaks for and of the country and has the right kind of vibe about it, here's another classic country album for you. Definitely something that fans of gothic Americana and lo-fi folk in general, not to mention those who like a good dose of melody in their music, would really enjoy. Couldn't recommend it enough.