teve Yarbrough's heartfelt essay about his lifelong love affair with the guitar (see page 64) accompanies a gallery of photographs and paintings depicting the importance of that instrument in the cultural life of our country. Reading the essay, I. The film profiles some of country music's socalled outlaws—Guy Clark, David Allan Coe, Rodney Crowell, Townes Van Zandt, and others—through recording sessions, conversations, and performances held in a wide range of venues. It's intimate and raw and revelatory, and deeply affecting in parts, particularly the scene in Van Zandt's kitchen, with the singer-songwriter interviewing his friend Seymour Washington. After Washington, the son of slaves and nearly 80 years old, reveals the secret to living a proper life (moderation in food and whiskey and gratitude to the Almighty), Van Zandt takes up the guitar and performs the song “Waitin’ Around to Die,” its haunting lyrics of ache and despair moving Washington—who has surely seen it all—to tears.
