Artist · chart history · #406 in indie & aaa artist polls
Townes Van Zandt
Solo artist Fort Worth United States
Townes Van Zandt is an artist from Fort Worth. Townes Van Zandt has 18 chart appearances on 10 radio countdowns from 5 stations on RockLists, spanning 2001–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Pancho & Lefty”, which appears on 7 lists with a best position of #235. The station that charted Townes Van Zandt most often is The Colorado Sound (Fort Collins–Denver, CO), with 5 appearances.
Townes Van Zandt spent most of his life on the road, drifting between bars, folk clubs, colleges and festivals and sleeping in motel rooms or on friends' couches, and he left behind songs sadder and more beautiful than almost anyone's: "Pancho and Lefty", "If I Needed You", "Waitin' Round to Die", "To Live's to Fly". A Fort Worth native born in 1944, he was a formidable fingerpicker early on, and his writing married a bleak, melancholy streak to lines of real poetry.
The life was rough. He fought a long war with alcohol and drugs, and doctors found he had bipolar disorder, and as a young man, insulin shock therapy wiped out much of his long-term memory. When Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard took "Pancho and Lefty" to number one on the Billboard country chart in 1983, it was Townes's song that everybody heard, just not his voice.
He died on New Year's Day 1997, at 52. The 2000s finally caught up with him: two books, the documentary Be Here to Love Me, and a flurry of magazine pieces. Texas Rain: The Texas Hill Country Recordings, from 2001, carries his own "Pancho & Lefty". In 2007 the Americana Music Association gave him its President's Award.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Townes Van Zandt on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pancho & Lefty | 7 | #235 | – | – | |
| 2 | If I Needed You | 3 | #452 | – | – | |
| 3 | Colorado Girl | 1 | #200 | – | – | |
| 4 | Dead Flowers | 1 | #278 | – | – | |
| 5 | Come Tomorrow | 1 | #524 | – | – | |
| 6 | Snowin' On Raton | 1 | #533 | – | – | |
| 7 | To Live Is to Fly | 1 | #1436 | – | – | |
| 8 | Highway Kind | 1 | #1746 | – | – | |
| 9 | Tecumseh Valley | 1 | #1874 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Comments
Log in or create a free account to join the conversation about Townes Van Zandt.
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts.