1983 Steve & Townes Van Zandt

I recorded Townes VanZandt’s “Pancho & Lefty” for my 1983 Kicking Mule album “Whole World Round”. The postman delivered my first box of vinyl on a hot summer day while I was working in my music shop, Artichoke Music on Hawthorne in southeast Portland. I threw the box in back and opened up for business. Due to the heat it was pretty quiet on the boulevard so when a loud old pickup sans muffler pulled up in front all eyes were upon it. The passenger door opened and who should roll out but Townes himself! He. was in Portland to play the East Ave Tavern and directed to Artichoke for picks and strings which I, of course, gifted him. We talked a bit and as he was leaving, I asked him to wait a minute. I ran to the back, grabbed an album from the box to give him and handed it over with a big THANK YOU for the song. He asked for a Sharpie, tore off the cellophane, scribbled a drawing of a cactus in the desert and wrote “STEVE, THANKS” underneath, signed his name with a flourish and handed it back to me.