Let him roll

Minnesota, told him he wanted to make a film about the new batch of young, outlaw singer-songwriters living in Nashville in the early-to-mid 1970s. Clark, 33 then, had moved to Music City in 1971 after landing a publishing deal. His songs bore little resemblance to the soulless, assembly-line country records Nashville had become known for. He was from West Texas, and though he’d lived all over, it was the like-minded musicians he met on the Houston scene who would remain his closest friends, chief among them Townes Van Zandt. In Christmas ’75, when work on the lowbudget documentary began, Clark – one album into his recording career – and his wife Susanna were living in a house in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Their kitchen – you’ll recognise it if you’ve seen the movie – became a gathering place for lesser-known musicians to eat, drink, pass the jug and take their turn playing their latest songs. Guests would include Van Zandt, Rodney Crowell, who was just back from touring in Emmylou Harris’s Hot Band, and an intense, skinny teenager with a guitar named Steve Earle. Alvar Stugard’s Nagra portable reel-to-reel captured the sound with such fly-on-the-wall intimacy and raw honesty, you feel like you’re there in the room. The crew also filmed in Austin, Texas and in an assortment of locations, including a diner full of old-timers, and a prison where David Allan Coe – dressed like you might not want to be dressed around a lot of deprived male inmates – picked and sang. There can be few scenes in any music film more moving than the one shot in a trailer park where Van Zandt plays a haunting, solo Waitin’ Around To Die, watched by an old black neighbour and drinking buddy whose face melts in tears at the words. It’s one of two Van Zandt songs (the other is Pancho & Lefty) on this lovingly assembled reissue: 26 tracks, six dialogue snippets and 20 songs brimming with intelligence and craftsmanship. There’s one apiece from Larry Jon Wilson and John Hiatt (One For The One); two from Coe, Gamble Rogers, Crowell (Bluebird Wine) and Steve Young (Alabama Highway); three from Steve Earle (Elijah’s Church; Mercenary Song; Darlin’ Commit Me). Clark, however, gets top billing with five, including three written during his first year in Nashville: Old Time Feeling, LA Freeway, and Desperados Waiting For A Train. A very fine double album – and with its lengthy linernotes a great companion piece to one of the classic films about music.

Music from the legendary 1976 Americana documentary featuring the late Guy Clark. By Sylvie Simmons.