Townes Van Zandt gravesite

Townes Van Zandt is widely regarded as one of the finest songwriters America has ever produced. Songs like Pancho and Lefty, To Live Is to Fly, If I Needed You and Waitin' Around to Die have become standards, covered by everyone from Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard to Steve Earle and Emmylou Harris. His writing was spare, devastating and deeply poetic — the work of a man who lived hard and felt everything.

Born into a wealthy Texas oil family in 1944, Van Zandt turned his back on privilege to pursue music. He spent decades on the road, battling addiction and mental illness while producing some of the most achingly beautiful songs in the American canon. He died on New Year's Day 1997, aged 52. Steve Earle famously said he would stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in his cowboy boots and tell him that Townes Van Zandt was a better songwriter — and meant it.

Van Zandt is buried at the Dido Cemetery, a small rural cemetery on Morriss Dido Newark Road outside Fort Worth, Texas. His gravestone is modest and unadorned — fitting for a man who never chased fame. Fans often leave guitar picks, coins and handwritten notes at the grave.

The cemetery is in a rural area north of Fort Worth. It is freely accessible and open during daylight hours. It is a quiet, reflective spot — exactly the kind of place Townes would have appreciated. If you are making the trip, take some of his music with you for the drive out.