Imagine an artist whose songs hit number one on the Billboard charts, like someone who is utterly idolized by Bob Dylan. But now, imagine that same artist living much of his adult life in this tin roofed shack with absolutely no plumbing. Imagine someone who once traded the publishing rights to his first four albums for a mere $20 just to buy heroin. And perhaps most tragically, imagine a legendary storyteller who had almost no memory of his own childhood.

Townsend never played a bass guitar in his life. I don’t think he even owned one. How long do they think he could fake it. Because apparently, the moment he walked into the audition and the rest of the band realized he didn’t even know how to hold the instrument, they threw him out immediately.

• Imagine someone who once traded the publishing rights to his first four albums for a mere $20 just to buy heroin
• He was born John Townes Van Zandt on March 7, 1944, in Fort Worth, Texas
• His family was one of the most prominent families in Texas history
• He wrote some of the most beautiful songs in the American songbook, including Pancho and Lefty and To Live Is to Fly
• His song Pancho and Lefty was later recorded by Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard, and it went to number one