COUNTRY SQUIRE
Hee Haw star was highly regarded for his musical skill and versatility
Although headlining the cornpone TV musical variety show Hee Haw for nearly a quarter century made country musician Roy Clark a household name as a guitar picker and comedian, the instrumentalist and singer was also highly regarded among professional musicians for his skill and versatility.
Clark often performed with the banjo, fiddle or mandolin, but he was best known for his brilliance on the guitar in both country and classical styles. Flashy and quickfingered, he was as adept on such flamenco standards as Malagueña as on country-pop songs like Yesterday When I Was Young, written by French singer Charles Aznavour.
Clark died Thursday due to complications from pneumonia at his home in Tulsa, Okla., his publicist said. He was 85
Starting in 1969, Clark was Hee Haw host or co-host for its entire 24-year run, with Buck Owens his best-known co-host. The country music and comedy show’s last episode aired in 1992, though reruns continued until 1997.
“Hee Haw won’t go away. It brings a smile to too many faces,” he said in 2004, when the show was distributed on VHS and DVD for the first time.
Clark’s musical skills brought him gigs as guest performer with many top orchestras, including the Boston Pops. In 1976, he headlined a tour of the Soviet Union, breaking boundaries that were usually closed to U.S. citizens and helping to introduce country music to an audience behind the Iron Curtain.
And of course, he also was a member of the Grand Ole Opry.
His hits included The Tips of My Fingers (1963), Yesterday When I Was Young (1969), Come Live With Me (1973) and Honeymoon Feelin’ (1974). He was also known for his instrumental versions of Malagueña on 12-string guitar and Ghost Riders in the Sky.
He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2009, and emotionally told the crowd how moving it was “just to be associated yourself with the members of the Country Music Hall of Fame and imagine that your name will be said right along with all the list.”
In his 1994 autobiography, My Life in Spite of Myself, he said Yesterday When I Was Young had “opened a lot of people’s eyes not only to what I could do but to the whole fertile and still largely untapped field of country music, from the Glen Campbells and the Kenny Rogerses, right on through to the Garth Brookses and Vince Gills.”
Clark was guest host on The Tonight Show several times in the 1960s and ’70s, subbing for Johnny Carson when it was rare for a country performer to land such a role, and he also played two recurring characters on hit TV sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies, as businessman Roy Halsey and Roy’s mother, Myrtle.
Clark’s fans included not just musicians, but baseball great Mickey Mantle. The Yankees outfielder was moved to tears by Yesterday When I Was Young and for years made Clark promise to sing it at his memorial — a request Clark granted when Mantle died in 1995.
Beginning in 1983, Clark operated the Roy Clark Celebrity Theatre in Branson, Mo., and was one of the first country entertainers to open a theatre there. Dozens followed him.
He was a touring artist as late as the 2000s. Over the years, he played at venues around the world: Carnegie Hall in New York, the Sporting Club in Monte-Carlo and the Rossiya Theatre in Moscow.
Roy Linwood Clark was born in Meherrin, Va., on April 15, 1933 and received his first guitar as a Christmas present when he was 14. By 15, he was playing in his father’s square dance band.
In the 1950s, Clark played in bands in the Washington, D.C., area. In 1960, he got the chance to front the band of country singer Wanda Jackson. He also performed regularly in Las Vegas. He got his first recording contract, with Capitol Records, in 1962.
By 1955, he was a regular on Jimmy Dean’s TV show Town and Country Time. Dean, who valued punctuality among musicians in his band, the Texas Wildcats, fired Clark for habitual tardiness, telling him, “You’re the most talented person I’ve ever fired.”
When Dean was tapped to host The Tonight Show in the early 1960s, he asked Clark to appear, introducing him to a national audience for the first time.
In 1997 he released Roy Clark’s Christmas Memories.
Clark and Owens worked together for years, but they had very different feelings about Hee Haw. Owens, who left the show in 1986, later referred to it as a “cartoon donkey,” one he endured for “that big paycheque.”
A source of comic relief as well as musical flair on Hee Haw, Clark played alongside musicians including Owens, banjo player Grandpa Jones and singer Kenny Price, with whom he formed the Hee Haw Gospel Quartet. He also performed with members of the program’s Million Dollar Band, a supergroup that featured such artists as guitarist Chet Atkins, pianist Floyd Cramer, saxophonist Boots Randolph and fiddler Johnny Gimble.
Clark told The Associated Press in 2004 that Hee Haw was like a family reunion.
“We became a part of the family. The viewers were sort of part owners of the show. They identified with these clowns, and we had good music.”
Clark said the hour-long program of country music and corny jokes capped off his career.
“This was the icing on the cake. This put my face and name together.”