Gosh, Yes. That was another, he is not a musician, but he lived in Atlanta. He has family in Jack- sonville, Florida. John Sayles he is still out there.
In the summer of 1995 when I lived in
Atlanta, I was a huge, huge Townes Van Zandt fan. I went down to Blind Willies and I knew the owner, his name was Eric and he said, “Hey James, are you here to see Townes?” I said yeah, and no one was there. He said, “Man, you should like go back there and say hey to him.” And I was like “Oh, Hell no! I've heard the stories.” I was Nah, man, that’s cool.” He was like, “No, Man, come on man, go on back there,” and I went back to this little dressing room and there is Townes Van Zandt sitting on this metal folding chair like, just strumming on his guitar. I said “Hey Townes, My name is James and Eric said it would be okay to come back and say hey to you.” He looked up and said, “Oh yeah? Well you’d better go get him.” And I was like, “You know what, I'm not supposed to be here,” and sorta turned to go and he was like “Hey” and I turned around he’s like “I was just kidding, come back.” And he handed me a flask, Townes Van Zandt handed me his flask… Of course, I took a jaw full. I said “damn, what is that, SkullCap?” He said “Vodka.” And I sat down next to him, and Buffalo, he was drawing in my notebook and what he drew it’s like a cactus, which ended up being one of his last album covers, called Road Songs so I asked him all kinds of stuff like “Doesn’t it bother you that people that are much less talent than you are out there?” And he said, “Well you know, I never really wanted to be a star.” Well the following year, to the month, July of ‘96, Townes comes back and I go down to Blind Willies, the place is packed, I mean it's like a resurgence- and he died five months later on Hank Williams birthday in 1997, January 1, 1997, and I re- member reading all these reviews, from peo-
ple who 14 to 16 months earlier wouldn’t even have touched it and it just pissed me off. That one was published, gosh I can’t remember, maybe the Creative Loafing. I remember someone asked me, a reputable magazine, asked me who is the hell is James Calemine and who is Townes Van Zandt? I was like “never mind.” That was a big one.
No doubt. And then you interviewed our mutual friend Kirk West. Yeah, Kirk West What an eye he has.
A great photographer. Yeah a great photographer, I knew him in the days where I wrote for Hittin’ the Note. This new photography book that he has should be really interesting, ‘cause it’s all blues guys, I love Kirk.
Yeah I do too. He worked all those years for the Allman Brothers Band, and the first big book he released, Les Brers, is just a perfect book for Allman fans. So true. You know, I was just thinking. I think there are 18 stories in this book and eight of the people are now gone. Colonial Bruce Hampton, The Georgia Sea Island Singers, they're gone, The Georgia Sea Island Singers were hugely influential. They were from here. Alan Lomax said that the home of the Ameri- can song comes from the Georgia coast, and I thought Shit!
I’m glad you mentioned Colonel Bruce, cause I was blessed to get to be really good friends with him and of course you knew him too. His death was sad but it was also just amazing and so very Col. Bruce to exit the way that he did. At the end of a show surrounded by friends, celebrating his 70th birthday, singing “Turn On Your Love Light.” I was like, wow. how much better can it be if you gotta go.
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