Gotta love Townes Van Zandt, and particularly the news that a previously unreleased collection of songs titled Sky Blue will be released via Fat Possum on the 7th March (which would have been his 75th birthday).

The recordings were made in early 1973 with the late Bill Hedgepeth, a journalist, musician, and most crucially a close friend of TVZ. The singer-songwriter was splitting his time between Texas, Colorado, and a shack outside Franklin, Tennessee: an itinerant life that informed many of his most famous and beloved tunes. Throughout his life he would often return to Hedgepeth’s home studio in Atlanta, later with family in tow, to record, re-work, and experiment with new songs as well as some of his most iconic.

In addition to a handful of old favourites, Sky Blue also includes two new songs that have never been heard before – All I Need and Sky Blue. There are early, raw versions of Pancho & Lefty and Rex’s Blues, covers of songs by Richard Dobson and Tom Paxton, a smoky version of Blue Ridge Mountain Blues and a scarred and scarring interpretation of Hills of Roane County, an East Tennessee murder ballad from the 1880s that was popularized by Tony Rice.

You can stream All I Need below.