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For the Sake of the Song marks the release of the book of the same name from the University of North Texas Press with performances by a wide range of seacoast singers rendering the songs of the legendary Texas songwriter Townes Van Zandt.

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For the Sake of the Song marks the release of the book of the same name from the University of North Texas Press with performances by a wide range of seacoast singers rendering the songs of the legendary Texas songwriter Tones Van Zandt. Edited by Ann Holbrook and Dan Beller-McKenna (founding members of the recent New Hampshire Americana band The Joshua Incident), this volume contains studies of Van Zandt’s music by nine authors as well as one edited excerpt from the published recollection/road journal by Van Zandt’s one time touring-mate Richard Dobson. Just as the book’s ten chapters survey all aspects of Van Zandt’s life and music, this concert features songs from the wide scope of Van Zandt’s career, from his early years as a denizen of the mid 1960s Houston folk music scene—where he shared the stage with kindred spirits Guy Clarke, Jerry Jeff Walker, K. D. Oslin, as well as bluesman Lightnin’ Hopkins—up through his later songs from his last studio album (At My Window, 1987), by which time he had become a living legend among American songwriters.

The performers include some of the seacoast’s busiest roots, Americana, and country singers, all of whom feature Van Zandt’s songs in their repertoire: Scott and Betsy Heron of Green Heron; Whitney Roy of Old Hat String Band; Lindsay Lassonde and Cecil Abels of Gold Plated Door; current Tennessean and seacoast alum Dean Harlem; Exeter songwriter and poet Todd Hearon; Newmarket’s Old Time Dave Talmage; and The Joshua Incident’s Ann Holbrook and Todd Thurlow.