This one got on our radar too late to make it to print, but I didn’t want it to go by without a plug…

The Brass Kings, Ol’ Yeller, Martin Devaney, Bernie King and more are paying tribute to late Texas troubadour Townes Van Zandt at Lee’s Liquor Lounge on Wednesday (9 p.m., $5). It would have been Townes’ 63rd birthday.

If you don’t know who Townes was, that pretty much means you’re a normal human being. But some less-normalgiants of country and rock music have long hailed him as one of the best — and maybeTHE greatest — songwriter of all time, mainly for his knack for eloquently singing about life’s many miseries with a grit in his teeth and a shrug of his head. Those famous fansinclude Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard (who had a hit with Townes’ song “Pancho & Lefty”), Norah Jones (covered his “Be Here To Love Me” on her second disc), the Cowboy Junkies (”To Live Is To Fly,” my personal fave), Lyle Lovett (did three of his songs on “Step Inside This House”) and especially Steve Earle and Alejandro Escovedo (wrote “Ft. Worth Blues” and “Follow You Down” about him, respectively).

Townes tributes are common all over Texas eight years after his death. I think it’s great and fitting that our town get in on the action, too. Clearly, werecognize a great songwriter here when we hear ‘em. Well, except that Zimmerman guy before he left for New York.

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