Together At the Bluebird Café / Together At the Bluebird Cafe

First, there is the surface content of this concert recording from September 13, 1995: three of the most talented and innovative songwriters in Texas history perform acoustically in the intimate haven of Nashville’s beloved Bluebird Café. Secondly, but perhaps more crucially, there is the subtext: Clark, Earle and Van Zandt share a fraternal history that eliminates the boundaries between friendship, collaboration, and songwriting craft. This recording gives the listener an opportunity to witness three old friends trade tunes with each other as if it were 1975 again, and they were hungry youngsters communing at Guy Clark’s kitchen table. The songs played are among the best these three giants ever wrote, but the between-song introductions are at least as important as the music. They give you some sense of the ragged warmth and deep respect these men had for each other, and each other’s art. It might not be the sharpest playing of their career (Van Zandt’s voice is haggard, and he would die little more than a year later), but it captures their art in a state of unparalleled emotional candor.