Thursday Throwback is a weekly colour scheme inspired by an iconic album cover of yesteryear. This week’s throwback is the 1969 album “Townes Van Zandt” by Townes Van Zandt. The colours are as follows:
| Colours | HEX | RGB | HSB | CMYK | LAB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colour 1 | #4D8C8C | 77, 140, 140 | 180, 45, 55 | 44, 0, 0, 45 | 54, -20, -6 |
| Colour 2 | #9FA6A0 | 159, 166, 160 | 129, 4, 65 | 4, 0, 3, 34 | 67, -3, 2 |
| Colour 3 | #1F590F | 31, 89, 15 | 107, 83, 35 | 65, 0, 83, 65 | 32, -33, 34 |
| Colour 4 | #403E26 | 64, 62, 38 | 55, 41, 25 | 0, 3, 40, 74 | 25, -3, 15 |
| Colour 5 | #D9CAAD | 217, 202, 173 | 40, 20, 85 | 0, 6, 20, 14 | 81, 0, 16 |
“Townes Van Zandt” marks the third studio album from the renowned American singer-songwriter of the same name. Released in September 1969 under Poppy Records, this album features re-recorded versions of four tracks from his debut 1968 album. Notably, it includes “Waitin’ Around to Die”, which holds the distinction of being the first song ever penned by Townes Van Zandt.
The record “Townes Van Zandt” was crafted at the esteemed Bradley’s Barn, a well-known country music recording studio situated on the outskirts of Nashville. The album highlights Van Zandt’s poetic lyricism and his characteristic uncomplicated fingerpicking technique. Intriguingly, it also features reinterpreted versions of four songs from his inaugural album, “For the Sake of the Song”. This choice was predominantly influenced by Van Zandt’s discontent with the production methods employed in the original recordings.
In 2019, on the 50th anniversary of the album, journalist Mark Lager wrote in Vinyl Writers online magazine that the self-titled album, along with Van Zandt’s previous album “Our Mother the Mountain,” was the strongest of his entire career. This was due to the fact that both albums contained compositions written solely by Van Zandt himself. It is worth noting that his later albums often featured multiple covers of older blues and country singers.
The cover photograph in the kitchen of Poppy Records artwork designer Milton Glaser was taken by Sol Mednick. When comparing the album cover to the one that adorned Van Zandt’s previous album, musician and biographer John Kruth made the following observation.
“Where his black eyes once glared so hard you might’ve wondered if he shattered the photographer’s lens, Van Zandt now appears withdrawn…Here he sits resigned, head in hand, in a perfectly painted kitchen where everything is neatly arranged, as in a doll’s house.”As a result, some fans refer to Townes Van Zandt as The Kitchen Album.
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