The best music documentary ever made: Heartworn Highways

For it is just that, the best documentary about music I have ever seen! It looks like a home movie, you feel like you get insight into a world long gone and you feel like looking into a world just for the invited.

It is up on YouTube , so catch it before it gets taken down (or better, buy yourself a copy so you can see it as often as you want).

Heartworn Highways is made by James Szalapski whose vision captured some of the founders of the Outlaw Country  and Singer/Songwriter movement in Texas and Tennessee in the last weeks of 1975 and the first weeks of 1976. The film was not released theatrically until 1981.

Highlights for me: The visit to Townes Van Zandt’s caravan and the Christmas party at Guy and Susanna Clark (especially Steve Earle singing Mercenary Song).

Heartworn Highways (full movie):

A Complete List of Songs Performed in Movie:

Guy Clark – “L.A. Freeway”
Larry Jon Wilson – “Ohoopee River Bottomland”
David Allan Coe – “Keep on Trucking”
Big Mack McGowan & Glenn Stagner “The Doctor’s Blues”
Guy Clark – “That Old Time Feeling”
Townes Van Zandt – “Waitin’ Around to Die”
David Allan Coe – “I Still Sing the Old Songs”
Barefoot Jerry – “Two Mile Pike”
Rodney Crowell – “Bluebird Wine”
Steve Young – “Alabama Highway”
Guy Clark – “Texas Cooking”
Gamble Rogers – “Black Label Blues”
Peggy Brooks – “Lets Go All the Way”
The Charlie Daniels Band – “Texas”
David Allan Coe – “Penitentiary Blues”
David Allan Coe – “River”
Steve Earle – “Elijah’s Church” (partial)
Ensemble – “Silent Night”

Townes Van Zandt – Pancho & Lefty (extra on the dvd):

The documentary covers singer-songwriters whose songs are more traditional to early folk and country music instead of following in the tradition of the previous generation. Some of film’s featured performers are Guy Clark,Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle, David Allan Coe, Rodney Crowell, Gamble Rogers, Steve Young, and The Charlie Daniels Band. The movie features the first known recordings of Grammy award winners Steve Earle and Rodney Crowell who were quite young at the time and appear to be students of mentor Guy Clark. Steve Earle was also a big fan of Van Zandt at the time.

Steve Earle and Rodney Crowell – Stay a Little Longer (extra on dvd):

The beginning of the movie shows Larry Jon Wilson in a recording studio shortly after he had been woken up for the movie after having been partying all night after a gig into the morning. The film maker goes to Austin and visits Townes Van Zandt at his trailer (At what is now 14th and Charlotte in the Clarksville neighborhood of downtown Austin) and his girlfriend Cindy, his dog Geraldine, Rex “Wrecks” Bell, and Uncle Seymour Washington (born 1896; died 1977) at his place, who is also called “The Walking Blacksmith”, and who gives his great worldly advice to the viewers and represents a very important aspect of the atmosphere that these songwriters living in the South are surrounded by and involved in.

Steve Earle talks about Clarksville, Townes, and Heartworn Highways:

Steve Earle – Mercenary Song (Extra on the dvd):

The movie shows Charlie Daniels completely fill a big high school gymnasium. Then the camera man, sound recorder and director join David Allan Coe and film him playing a gig at the Tennessee State Prison where he admits to being a former inmate and tells a story of being there and seems to bring out friends of his onto the stage who still are inmates there and they perform a gospel number “Thank You Jesus” that they used to sing in the yard. The end of the movie shows a drinking party that starts Christmas Eve and ends sometime Christmas Day at Guy Clark’s house in Nashville with Guy, Susanna Clark, Steve Young, Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Jim McGuire (playing the dobro), along with several other guests. Steve Young leads the group in a rendition of Hank Williams’ song “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” and Rodney Crowell leads everyone in “Silent Night”.

Guy Clark – Country Morning Music (Extra on dvd):

Richard Dobson – Forever, For Always, For Certain (Extra on dvd):

David Allan Coe – Thank You Jesus (DVD Extra):

– Hallgeir