What were Townes musical influences/favorites?
There are many interviews where Townes was asked this question, and usually he mentions Lightnin’ Hopkins, Hank Williams, and Bob Dylan, among others. Here is one fairly recent (1991) answer by Townes: “Up until Elvis hit, which was when I was about 9, it had been totally Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell and Roy Acuff. I used to hear it on my dad’s radio as he would drive up and down from oilfield to oilfield. Then Elvis hit and Ricky Nelson and Jerry Lee and Chuck Berry. Seeing Elvis Presley on the Ed Sullivan Show was the starting point for me becoming a guitar player. My sister had two or three of her girlfriends over to watch it, and they were screaming, and I was just a little kid, barely allowed in the room. I just thought that Elvis had all the money in the world, all the Cadillacs and all the girls, and all he did was play the guitar and sing. That made a big impression on me. As I got older, I would search for things to listen to as opposed to listening to whatever was being p
