From my younger days, when I drank quite a bit, Jerry Jeff was one of my favorites, even though he's actually a New Yorker that moved to Texas. As to native Texans, I've always had a soft spot for Lefty Frizzell. I wrote a small piece about the music video from Pancho and Lefty on my blog, where I write things when I have time (which hasn't been often, lately). It's http://www.randomneuralfirings.com at the bottom of the page, and mentions Lefty, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, and a little bit about the old Texas music scene. You might find it interesting. Or not.
Cool! Yeah, I liked it. Neat memory. I can just picture all you described.
I wasn't familiar with Townes Van Zandt, unlike so many of my compadres. I *should have been,* as we were in the same "scene" here in Houston - but I wasn't a follower and didn't know him, only *of* him.
So, I never knew the backstory on Pancho and Lefty and always kind of wondered. Heh, I also have never seen the music video (or anything that was ever on MTV), so have only my mental images suggested by the song. Because of that, people are always describing things to me about songs, that don't jibe at all with what I conjured up as I listened, lol.
I always kind of pictured them like Butch and Sundance, a little bit, one Mexican, one a cowboy, with some of the imagery of Seven Spanish Angels mixed in. Out in the desert in a place like Boquillas, MX, a ghost town with a bar and no one else around, hiding from the federales.
If you'd have met Merle, you would've liked him. I did - he was much nicer than I expected and also quite shy, I thought.