David Broza
Night Dawn: The Unpublished Poetry of Townes Van Zandt
(S-Curve, 2010)

David Broza has guts. Writing melodies for the unpublished poetry and lyrics Townes Van Zandt left behind would be a daunting task for any songwriter. Van Zandt has a rabid cult following, so anything Broza does to shape these remnants is going to piss someone off. If he tries to write the same kind of linear, minor-key melodies that Van Zandt excelled at, he’ll be dismissed for his lack of vision, but if he chooses to go his own way and graft his own personality onto the lyrics, he’ll be accused of messing with Van Zandt’s singular compositional style.

Given the album’s subtitle, it’s impossible to approach this record with a completely open mind. Van Zandt’s ghost and enigmatic persona will haunt these tunes no matter how much of his own music and personality Broza brings to them. It’s a lose/lose situation. That said, for the most part, Broza manages to strike a balance between his own jazzy style and Van Zandt’s haphazard approach. There are several tunes here that have the Van Zandt persona shining out of them; some make a valiant but failed effort to evoke the muse, and a few don’t go anywhere at all.

The main thing that strikes me on first listen is Broza’s tendency to over-sing. He has the feel of an entertainer more than a folksinger, and it often clashes with the material. On the intro to “The Deer”, which has one of the stronger lyrics on the record, he scats for a few bars with ululations that sound both Middle Eastern and Native American. It’s out of character with the rest of the tune, a hopeless lyric in the best Van Zandt style. Broza redeems himself with the descending guitar line he wrote for the song’s punchline, which intensifies a feeling of loss and regret. For “Night Dawn”, Broza wrote a subtle Van Zandt-like melody, and the lyric is steeped in mortality. The guitar work is a little busy for my taste, but it’s a solid tune.

“Harms Swift Way” is another winner, with an evocative Van Zandt-style melody and forlorn lyrics full of the bewildered pain that marked Van Zandt’s best writing. Broza’s melody is a perfect complement, with its hint of reggae syncopation. “Untitled” is a folk ballad with a simple tune. Van Zandt wrote about half a dozen of them while he was alive, tunes that sound like Appalachian variants of traditional English love songs. Broza gives this one an almost whispered reading that suits its understated nature. “Long Ball Hitter” is a nonchalant blues track that brings to mind Van Zandt’s “No Deal”, a slight, but enjoyable tune highlighted by snappy, acoustic piano fills.

There are a few tunes that don’t quite make it. The jazzy “Old Satan” and “Jeanine” have slight lyrics and forgettable melodies, “Carolina” has clichéd lyrics, and “Soul to Soul” is a folk-pop tune that sounds more like James Taylor than Townes.

Broza met Van Zandt once, about three years before he died, at a songwriter’s circle in Houston. When Van Zandt’s widow got in touch with him after Van Zandt died and told him he’d left him a shoebox full of unfinished lyrics, he was as puzzled as anyone. It’s taken Broza 10 years to write the music for these pieces, and while the results are mixed, the best songs are full of the skewed humor and oblique poetry that made Van Zandt’s writing so unique. To paraphrase Merle Haggard: “It ain’t Townes, but it’s not bad.”

Listen: Various Tracks [at NightDawn.DavidBroza.net]

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