To Live’s to Fly: The Ballad of the Late, Great Townes Van Zandt

(Da Capo Press, 326 pages)

TOWNES Van Zandt lived a chaotic life. Too bad the first official biography of his life follows the same pattern.To Live’s to Fly tries hard, but ultimately comes up short in doing anything deeper than just retelling the exploits of Van Zandt’s iconic life full of gambling, wine, women and song.

Under-appreciated in his lifetime by the casual music fan, but revered by musicians as one of the best of his kind, Van Zandt wrote classics made famous by others including Pancho and Lefty d If I Needed You. His songs have been covered by a wide array of artists including Willie Nelson, Bright Eyes and Norah Jones, but his own career was derailed by bad business decisions and self-destructive behaviour driven by his raging alcoholism.

Born to a wealthy Texas oil family, Van Zandt spurned his legacy to cut his chops in the honky-tonks and coffee shops of Texas as a folk singer in the late 1960s. He hit his creative peak in the early and mid-1970s, at the same time the folk music boom was dying, which also hurt his chances for popular stardom.

While author John Kruth relishes retelling all the drunken stories of Van Zandt’s life, his narrative lacks cohesion and organisation. Stories — and particularly quotes — go on too long and often without the proper context. Key people in Van Zandt’s life are either not interviewed, or not pressed on issues that they should be pursued in more depth.

Kruth’s lack of insight or explanation of Van Zandt’s time in mental institutions and how that affected his life and the self-destructive decisions he made is woefully inadequate.

The result is sometimes wildly entertaining and other times frustrating and downright confusing.

Again, not at all unlike Van Zandt himself.

Kruth is at his best in retelling the story of Van Zandt’s final days and hours, which is full of the details that other parts of the book lack. Van Zandt died at home in bed with a flask in his hand at the young age of 52 in 1997.

Ten years later, his legend continues to grow; his music remains popular, even though his recording catalogue is in disarray.

Van Zandt is certainly deserving of a full-length biography. And while Kruth’s work is commendable for its effort, it leaves the reader left wondering whether there’s a better book out there yet to be written.