GARY CLARK JR
Blues, yes, and so much more besides.
In some respects a lot has changed since Gary Clark Jr first began to register on radars outside his native Austin, and those cries of ‘saviour of the blues’ (the label that’s followed him for the past decade) began. He’s now a father of three with his wife, Australian model Nicole Trunfio. Their family home is a beautiful 50-acre horse ranch in Texas. Last year Clark, Trunfio and their kids starred in a campaign for menswear designer John Varvatos. And yet his whole artistic ethos appears remarkably unchanged, even if his musical style and approach to the blues has evolved deftly, compellingly. Clark saw the creative path unfolding before him at an early age, and has not allowed himself to be diverted from it.
It’s the same focus that saw him turn down offers of record deals in his early 20s, when most of his contemporaries would have snatched at the first one on the table. It’s the same confidence that saw him get on stage as an unknown in the midst of Eric Clapton’s all-star lineup at the 2010 Crossroads Guitar Festival and instantly make an international name for himself.
“That was a moment when I was like, okay, it’s all been worth it for those guys to say: ‘That was pretty good.’ That’s all I needed. To get up there and have Keb’ Mo’, Eric Clapton, Robert Cray – guys I grew up watching – be complimentary, was a turning point. I figured I was making the right decision sticking with this.”
At this time he signed a major deal with Warner Bros. “It was perfect timing,” he says.“Twenty-six years old, okay, it’s time to go now: go be that man that my pops told me to be; get out of here, go do something!”
While most artists naturally resist being boxed into a specific corner, the blues has become something of an exception to that rule, with many blues players keen to stay somehow ‘true’ to its roots, even if that means rejecting the chance to spread their wings creatively. This despite the fact that so many blues greats have explored a huge range of musical styles, from Clapton’s reggae excursions to BB King’s penchant for country, and Jack White mixing early blues with cutting-edge tones.
If Clark’s approach echoes anyone’s, it’s that of the former White Stripes founder, in that it reaches so far beyond the conventional cornerstones of the blues that it’s sometimes a stretch to call it blues at all. Or at least not in the way purists would think of it. Last year his third studio album, This Land, stirred blues with garage, soul, funk, pop, R&B and more into a fierce, unabashed cocktail of music and politics.
“I remember once talking to [southern indie-soul maverick] Cody Chesnutt, and I was telling him I was having this struggle about playing straight-ahead blues,” he said in 2015. “I had these demos that were soul, funk and R&B-ish, you know? He just said: ‘You just gotta put it out, man. What good is it doing sitting there getting dusty? You gotta put it out and be true to who you are.’ And I really took that seriously.”