Townes Van Zandt News

WEDNESDAY: Lazlo Lee and the Motherless Children bring their bluesy garage-rock to the Metro Gallery with the Expotentials .

There was a lot of bicuspid-gnashing and phalange-wringing this year as people tried to figure out some way forward from the whole sue-the-pants-off-Grandma or all-music-should-be-free dichotomy.

LEITH FOLK CLUB, THE VILLAGE, EDINBURGH *** DESPITE his distracting nominal resemblance to a certain Scottish ex-Skid turned angry middle-aged filmmaker, Richard Dobson is a veteran Texan troubadour based in Switzerland.

Folk fans can't go far wrong seeking out nights like tonight, promoted by purveyors of all things folky The Local and hosted at London's little slice of Nashville, The Luminaire .

AUSTIN, Texas-based singer/songwriter Danny Schmidt - who plays Miss Peapod's, Penryn, on Friday - is an authentic timeless troubadour in the tradition of Townes Van Zandt, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Dave Carter.

Of all the mythologized outlaw singer/songwriters who bubbled out of the Texas in the 1960s and '70s, Townes Van Zandt's tall and romantically dark shadow exerts the strongest gravitational pull.

Coming up as a journalist, I was encouraged to read as much as I could, to learn how to tell a story well.

If there's one guy who has become almost synonymous with Texas, it's Lyle Lovett.

Recording artist Lyle Lovett can talk for hours about the musicians he respects and attempts to emulate; men like Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark.

Ontario folk-rockers Attack In Black say they're going to road-test a few new tunes when they hit Fredericton as part of their fall tour.

Lyle Lovett Natural Forces ****Lovett's first album in two years brims with Lone Star brio, as the Klein native pens a few fresh tunes and leans on creative compatriots like Robert Earl Keen for inspiration.

Archival label Legacy Recordings has a pretty deep vault to draw music from, with access to both the historic Sony catalog as well as BMG's impressive stash .

The Bearsville Theater in Woodstock tonight will host a concert by alt-folk-rocker Steve Earle.

The Rose Hotel After more than 20 years of delighting live audiences, Robert Earl Keen has become a highly respected Texas singer-songwriter. So naturally he does a rock album next.

Steve Earle is bringing Townes to Winnipeg. The acclaimed singer-songwriter will play the Burton Cummings Theatre Jan.

While Beyonce and Billy Gibbons have undoubtedly sold more records, we're betting that neither of them have written anything that will endure as long as Townes Van Zandt's "Pancho and Lefty," "To Live's to Fly," or "If I Needed You," or any one of a dozen or so others.

This program originally aired in Richmond, VA on WRIR-LP 97.3 FM and on www.wrir.org from 9-11 PM EST.

Despite the fact that Portland, Ore. folk singer Alela Diane told us this year that she fell into music accidentally , it seems she's really getting the hang of it.

In January 2007, former Verbena guitarist Scott Bondy recorded and mixed a record in an upstate New York barn, creating what would eventually become American Hearts , his debut solo release under his birth name, A.A. Bondy .

Be Here to Love Me , by Austin-based filmmaker Margaret Brown, documents the life of Texas singer/songwriter Townes Van Zandt through a series of interviews with family and friends along with his own home footage.