THE Old Quarter was not a salubrious venue. “It was downtown Houston, which was in ruins,” recalls Rex “Wrecks” Bell, who founded the bar in 1965 after a stint in the navy. “There were winos everywhere. It was forgotten, very downtrodden. We were two blocks from the county jail. And there was a strip club. I literally had to get the winos off the steps. I loved them, but I couldn’t let them in. Townes would go out and spend as much time with them as he would inside.”
Wrecks first met Townes Van Zandt when they shared a bill at another Houston folk venue, Sand Mountain, where the strongest drink was coffee. “Townes said to me, ‘Do you drink?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He opened the window and he had a gallon of wine on a rope. That rebellious act solidified our friendship. Later on, I opened the Old Quarter. All of a sudden, I had two wine bums and drunks at the end of the bar. It was Townes and Guy Clark. We were accidentally thrusted into songwriter royalty.”
A ratty bar in a ruinous neighbourhood, it earned its place in music history with the release in 1977 of.Live At The Old Quarter, Houston, Texas, a record that vividly captures the wild charisma of Townes Van Zandt. The record was not a hit, in line with all previous Townes Van Zandt releases. But by placing the singer on stage in Texas on a hot night in July, it succeeded where six studio albums had not; providing a sympathetic backdrop for his quicksilver poetry.
When..came out there had been a gap of four years since Townes’ previous album. It’s fair to say there had been no clamour in the interim. The things that made Townes’ music unique also made him hard to categorise. He was a poet as much as a songwriter. He was inspired by
