Lucinda, Townes, and the Songwriting of Place

The excerpt below was taken from a recent American Songwriter piece highlighting Lucinda Williams and, more specifically, the influence of songwriter Townes Van Zandt on her and her development as an artist.

His love songs were very romantic, very beautiful. I loved [their] earthiness. He had an obvious sense of place. Oftentimes, he’d have references to different parts of the country, like his song “Snowin’ on Raton.” I’ve done that a lot in my writing. He wrote a lot about cities and towns and rivers, and he used a lot of that imagery. When you heard Townes, you knew it was him. He had a way of writing very simply and sparingly, and yet being very evocative and effective. That’s one of the things I’ve strived to do over the years in my writing.


Image of Townes Van Zandt, stolen from AmericanSongwriter.com

People often reference places in songs, but evoking a sense of place is more than mere mention of some street corner or lonesome road. It is more like painting with words the textures of a landscape, evoking the visible and the invisible, the seen and the sensed, the magic and mystery of some special place.

Are there songs (or songwriters) that evoke a special sense of place for you?  For me, artists such as Tom Waits and the Drive-By Truckers exemplify these qualities. Who else?