With the market flooded with all-too-often mediocre singer-songwriters, it would be very easy to overlook Townes Van Zandt. But it would be a mistake, because Townes is one of the very best. Unfortunately, he's saddled with a record company whose distribution is so poor that even in a city the size of Chicago, as I discovered, you're going to have to work to find his albums. In a time when mind-blowing-ear-damaging-stomach-turning led balloons dominate a rapidly decaying rock scene, Townes' quiet, unassuming voice and guitar come across like a fresh prairie breeze. And if there were any justice in this world, he'd be a star, not just the property of a tiny band of followers who count his records among their most prized possessions.

His roots solidly in the folk tradition, Townes' songs are evocations of the American earth; deeply loving, free of fashionable sneers, yet almost oppressively sad. I can't imagine a better song about what America has come to than "St. John the Gambler" (on Our Mother the Mountain) whose inspiration apparently was that old cowboy song "Roving Gambler," about an innocent young girl who leaves her mother to follow a freewheeling American gambler. But in Townes' song the gambler turns out to be the devil and the girl dies abandoned in a mountain blizzard.

Stumblin' to her death

She heard his laughter ride down from the mountains

And dance with her mother's tears

To a funeral drone of calico

'Neath a cross of twenty years.

A beautiful and scary song.

On the other hand there are "I'll Be Here in the Morning," "Colorado Girl," and "My Proud Mountains"–gentle celebrations of rural America without an Okie from Muskogee anywhere to spoil the scenery. And some of the prettiest love songs you've ever heard–"Quicksilver Daydreams of Maria," "Why She's Acting This Way," "Second Lovers Song."

Townes has been singularly fortunate in having as producers some of Nashville's best–notably Jack Clement, Jim Malloy and Kevin Eggers, whose generally simple, tasteful arrangements serve to augment rather than to drown out Townes' excellent melodies. The usual backing is guitar, dobro, bass and harmonica with fiddle and recorder making occasional appearances. Sometimes a string section gets tacked on–unnecessarily, in my opinion, but as such arrangements go they aren't bad.

Townes has his faults, too. Some of his earlier songs, especially "Be Here to Love Me" and "She Came and She Touched Me," where his usually delicate, understated images go completely awry, rank with the worst of the later Phil Ochs. But it's easy enough to forgive him because when he's good–as he usually is–he's so especially good.

Surprisingly, the singer Townes reminds me of most is Merle Haggard. He and Haggard share an obsession with the decline of the countryside and the end of a way of life that defined the America we always have known. Haggard's response is bitter, accusing, violent; Townes' is sad, regretful, gentle. You choose your spokesman and you take your choice.

In any case. Townes Van Zandt is mighty line. I hope you let him sing you back home. (RS 79)

JEROME CLARK