Guy Clark gave country music its heart
Songwriter who influenced generations of artists dies at 74
Guy Charles Clark, the gravel-voiced troubadour who crafted a vast catalog of emotionally charged, intricately detailed works that illuminated and expanded the literary possibilities of popular song, died early Tuesday in Nashville after a long illness. He was 74.
Clark, a Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer and author of 13 compelling studio albums, had been in declining health for years, including a lengthy cancer battle.
Born in Monahans, Texas, on Nov. 6, 1941, Clark was a Nashville songwriting fixture for more than 40 years. His songs were recorded by Johnny Cash, Ricky Skaggs, Rodney Crowell, Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill, Brad Paisley, Alan Jackson, George Strait, Bobby Bare, Jimmy Buffett, Kenny Chesney, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and legions of others.
Clark and his wife, Susanna, were ringleaders in a Nashville roots music circus that included luminaries such as Harris, Cro- well, Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle, Mickey Newbury, Billy Joe Shaver and many more.
Clark, the son of a lawyer, was raised in dusty west Texas and moved to the Gulf Coast town of Rockport, Texas, at 16. In the late 1960s, he headed to Houston, where he played Bob Dylan- inspired folk music on a club circuit that included contemporaries Van Zandt and Eric Taylor as well as blues legends Lightnin’ Hopkins and Mance Lipscomb.
He spent time in San Francisco and Los Angeles, inspiring later songs Madonna w/ Child ca. 1969 and L.A. Freeway, before signing with publisher Sunbury Music and moving to Nashville in 1971. By the time his debut album,
Old No. 1, was released, Clark, just 24, was a local icon, an arbiter of taste and song sensibility, and a vodka-fueled sage. He maintained those reputations through the remainder of his life.
Johnny Cash was the first major Nashville country music figure to record Clark’s songs, in the mid-1970s. Bobby Bare had a top 20 country hit in 1982 with New
Cut Road, and Clark’s Heartbroke became a No. 1 country single for Ricky Skaggs later that year. Clark later co-wrote No. 1 song
She’s Crazy for Leavin’ with Crowell as well as top 10 country songs for Vince Gill ( Oklahoma
Borderline), John Conlee ( The Carpenter) and Steve Wariner ( Baby I’m Yours). His own recordings did not fare as well on the country charts.
He lived his professional life quietly creating in workrooms and playing to supportive audiences in clubs and small theaters.
Clark earned Grammy nominations for two of his studio albums, and the two-disc, multiartist album This One’s for Him: A
Tribute to Guy Clark also was nominated for a Grammy. It featured contributions from Lyle Lovett, Shawn Colvin, Harris and John Prine, Patty Griffin, Kristofferson and others.
Like his early Nashville fan Cash, Clark conveyed strength and endurance, even at his frailest and most transitory.
“Something else that’s important,” he told musicologist Ben Sandmel in 1992, “is dignity. ... I’ll bet that when you’re dying, you’re not going to think about the money you made. You’re going to think about your art.”