Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Guy Clark has died.
Clark
died Tuesday at his home in Nashville, Tennessee, according to his
manager, Keith Case. He was 74 and had been in poor health, although
Case didn't give an official cause of death.
A
native of Monahans, Texas, Clark was known for such hits as "L.A.
Freeway" and "Desperados Waiting for a Train," and his songs were
covered by Johnny Cash, Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs and many others. In
2014, his "My Favorite Picture of You" won a Grammy for best folk album.
Clark also was a mentor for such future stars as Steve Earle and Rodney Crowell.
We've not left much room for the making of things that matter in this
modern world. For the careful, private passion of handwork and
contemplative creation. Instead of art we've embraced certain
obsolescence, offshore manufacturing, factory farming, and digital
truths that arrive with the half-life of a firefly. Packaging.
And yet the tradition somehow endures: homegrown tomatoes, locally
brewed beer, hand-knit sweaters. Bits of jewelry. And a few careful
songs which still seek to tell private and public truths. At least so
long as Guy Clark and his loose-knit confederation of ornery musicians
keep writing and recording them.
Which makes
My Favorite Picture of You, Clark's first album
of new material in four years, a rare and treasured work, a custom
creation much like the guitars he fashions on a simple workbench
downstairs. It is also, arguably, the most emotional album of his
much-decorated career. Consider the lingering memories of its title
track, the banked fury of "El Coyote," and an incautious number titled
"The High Price of Inspiration." And, alas, "The Death of Sis Draper," a
fictional character about whom Clark and Shawn Camp have been writing
for nearly a decade.
Not that he would admit any intentional coherence. "I don't do theme
records," says Clark with a dry chuckle. "It's just the best ten songs
I've got, that's the way I record."
No matter his long tenure at the edge of Music Row, Guy Clark is
inescapably from Texas. A resolute, elegant man, regardless the
simplicity of his clothes, nor the wear of his 71 years. The elder
statesman of a clutch of gritty, gutty songwriters which includes the
late Townes Van Zandt, Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Lyle Lovett, and
Nanci Griffith. And, of course, the late Susanna Clark, who died June
27, 2012. It is her picture which adorns her husband's new record, the
lasting image of his creative partner who so long ago insisted he quit
his day job, go ahead and write songs. And then did the same.
"That was always my favorite picture of Susanna, probably 30 years
old," he says, with dignity and time buffing the hurt from his voice,
only tenderness left behind. "Me and Townes are in that house, just
drunk on our asses, jerks. And she'd had enough, she walked out that
front door. I think it was John Lomax who snapped that picture. I had it
pinned on my wall, and Gordon [Sampson] came over. We were writing and
he had a list of lines and titles and all that shit that most people
carry around. I was going through it and I hit on this line that said,
'My favorite picture of you.' I turned in my chair and it was right
there in front of me. The lyrics just poured out because all it boiled
down to was describing the picture. We might have written it in one
day."
One day, not twenty minutes.
This is not work that he has to do, not at an age when most men are
safely retired, except that he does. He's written enough songs —
"Desperados Waiting for a Train," "L.A. Freeway," "The Randall Knife" —
to leave a legacy and pay the bills, if that's what mattered.
"It's what I enjoy," he says. "It gets harder, all the time. It
doesn't fall out of the sky, you know. But I have joy doing the work, I
enjoy the creative process. I write and build guitars in the same space,
and I find that one is right brain and one is left brain, and they kind
of feed off of one another. But, I don't know. It's just a way to while
away the time until you die."
An artist, not an auteur. In some circles Nashville's penchant for
co-writing has a bad name. For Clark it is an essential tool. "I just
write 'em one song at a time," he says. "Whoever comes through the door
with a better idea than I've got."
Formidable talents come through Guy Clark's door these days, and have
for years. Shawn Camp, of course, and his long-time guitarist Verlon
Thompson. Chris Stapleton, The SteelDrivers' original songwriter and
vocalist, whose wife, Morgane sings much of the harmony on this record.
Gordy Sampson, from Halifax. Noel McKay from Bandera, Texas. Ray
Stephenson, Jedd Hughes, Rodney Crowell.
"Oh, I don't consider it mentoring," Clark says. "If they're good
enough to sit in a room with me and write…they don't need mentoring, as
far as I'm concerned. I'm not trying to mentor anyone. I just enjoy the
process of co-writing simply because of the give and take, especially
with bright people who are good at what they do."
Clark does not write angry. He writes carefully, shaving off the
unnecessary bits until the story's told. And yet, at the center of
My Favorite Picture of You are two striking topical songs. Angry songs. "Well…I think about that stuff," is all he offers.
"Heroes" was suggested by press coverage of the suicide epidemic
afflicting soldiers returning from the Middle East. "They can't live
with what they did and what they saw," Clark says, an edge to his voice
for the first time. "Where's Woody Guthrie?"
Guthrie comes to the foreground of "El Coyote," a song about a
crooked smuggler of people over the Mexican border. "'El Coyote' was
about a situation that really happened," says Clark. "Something spooked
the driver, and he just pulled over to the side of the road, left 18
workers in the Texas sun, and walked off. Locked them in, and they all
died. I just thought it was something that needed to be addressed. And
Noel speaks really good Spanish, been around that all his life, too. So I
presented him the idea of writing that song, and he was very helpful."
Add into the mix a cover of Lyle Lovett's "The Waltzing Fool," the
song Clark made Tony Brown listen to back when, and the result is a
formidable collection of songs.
A testament to the poetry of carefully wrought songs, and a powerful pleasure.
