Guy Clark and Me... — Vinyl Magic

What Guy tried to do when he got here, was take the values of literature and poetry and put them in song. He didn’t want to just write a hit, he wanted to write something that had real intrinsic value, to wrestle with the human condition and come up with new ways of talking about it that would make people listen.
Rodney Crowell
It's what I enjoy. 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.
Guy Clark

***Old No. 1*** back cover, liner notes by Jerry Jeff Walker

They’d always make room and pull out guitars, and Guy’s first question would be ‘What are you working on?’ Half songs were important. It was like a salon that way. The confidence you’d take playing a half song in that setting would give you the strength to finish it. ‘Till I Gain Control Again’ is one of my songs that that happened with.

Rodney Crowell

It’s flattering, I guess, but you can’t make a f—ing living being a songwriter’s songwriter.
Guy Clark

The first time I saw Guy Clark, he was performing in Philadelphia at the Tin Angel in November, 1995. A small club, the Tin Angel has a downstairs bar/restaurant and an upstairs listening room with seats for maybe 100-125. Guy was touring with his friend (and best man at his 1972 wedding), fellow singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt. Guy once described their relationship, "We were friends for like 35 years. We started writing at just about the same time, right when I met him, and we were as close as you could be ever since then. The quality of his work was, to me, breathtaking. It was approaching literature--it was literature as far as I'm concerned. His songs always worked on paper, not just as songs. The place he was coming from still astounds me."

As compelling a writer as Townes Van Zandt was, Guy Clark was equally talented. Over his forty year career, Guy's songs have been covered by Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Rosanne Cash, Emmylou Harris, and even Jimmy Buffett. The first song Guy wrote, "Step Inside This House", he never even bothered to record. When asked why?, in his self-deprecating way, Guy said, "It was just the first song I ever wrote. I didn’t think it was that good." Lyle Lovett, no slouch as a songwriter, thought so highly of the song, he not only recorded it but named his 1998 album Step Inside This House. Before performing it live at Austin City Limits, Lyle said, "This is the first song that Guy ever wrote, which is just incredible.... that this could be anyone's first song...well.. just isn't fair."

If Johnny Cash was the Man In Black, then Guy Clark was the Man in Denim. Every time I saw him, he was wearing a blue denim shirt. His wife, Susanna, a talented songwriter and painter, immortalized his denim shirt with her painting on the cover of his first album, Old No.1. Susanna also painted the album cover for Willie Nelson's Stardust (1978). Guy explained, "She always said she talked Willie into making Stardust. Supposedly she told him, ‘You ought to do a record of old standards,’ and he said okay and asked her to paint the cover. So she got a bunch of books with pictures of stars and came up with that painting. She always said that if you connect the dots, it reads ‘F— Ol’ Waylon.’ "

***Stardust*** (1978) Susanna Clark painting, connect the dots!

In the 1970s Nashville, Susanna and Guy essentially ran a salon for songwriters, which emerging talents like Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle and more established stars like Emmylou Harris and Mickey Newbury frequented. They would trade songs, stories and substances around the Clark dining room table while honing their craft. Many of these artists participated on Guy's recordings. In fact, Steve Earle's first professional gig was playing bass in a Guy Clark touring band, and Steve's first appearance on vinyl are his background vocals on Old No. 1.

At the Tin Angel, Guy Clark was touring in support of his recent release, Dublin Blues (1995). Guy came out first and played a set which included "Desperados Waiting For A Train", "Dublin Blues","L.A. Freeway" and "Randall Knife", a heart wrenching elegy written to his father. It was a mesmerizing performance and his son, Travis, accompanied him on bass. A masterful storyteller and songwriter, Guy disdained the term "craftsman." He once said, "Yeah. That’s not really my favorite tag... But, hopefully it approaches art, you know? I mean, there is a certain amount of craftsmanship once you get a little inspiration, and figure out something to write about — it takes work to wrangle the words around. So it’s some of each … I just like wrangling words around. I like the process."

His lyrics are well chosen and well wrangled:

If I can just get off of this LA freeway
Without getting killed or caught
I'd be down that road in a cloud of smoke
For some land that I ain't bought bought bought.
"L.A. Freeway"
So take me to a bar room, driver
Set me on a stool
If I can't be her man
I'm damned if I'll be her fool
"Broken Hearted People"
I'd play the Red River Valley
And he'd sit out in the kitchen and cry
And run his fingers through seventy years of livin'
And wonder, "Lord, has ever' well I've drilled run dry?"
"Desperados Waiting For A Train"
And that old time feelin’ draws circles around the block
Like old women with no children, holdin’ hands with the clock
And that old time feelin’ falls on it’s face in the park
Like an old wino prayin’ he can make it ‘till it’s dark.
"That Old Time Feeling"
Standin' on the gone side of leavin'
She found a thumb and stuck it in the breeze
She'll take anything that's goin' close to somewhere
She can lay it down and live it like she'd please
"She Ain't Goin' Nowhere"
I wish I had a dime for every bad time
But the bad times always seem to keep the change
You been all alone, so you know what I'm sayin'
So when all you can recall is the pain
“Anyhow I Love You"

Between sets, I went back stage to see Guy. There was no formal dressing room, so I just swept aside the curtain and walked in. Guy was sitting in an easy chair, cradling a guitar. I thanked him for his set and he signed a couple of albums. When I handed him Old No.1, I asked him if he still had the painting. "Yes, and I think I still have the same shirt," he said with a wry smile. "Are you still painting?" I asked, as I handed him Old Friends with his self portrait adorning the cover. "Yes. I keep working on things." came the genial reply. It was a brief chat but in character with his dry humor and laconic nature.

Ten years later, I saw Guy again at The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. He participated in a songwriter's circle, as he did for several years, with Steve Earle, Joe Ely, and his sometime accompanist Verlon Thompson. Each artist took turns playing and it seemed a recreation of his Nashville salon days, with the omnipresent cigarettes but minus the booze and drugs. At least, as near as I could tell. Steve Earle introduced his brilliant "Tom Ames' Prayer" with, "Guy won't let me play a show if I don't do this song." Then Steve tore into a blistering version while Guy watched and nodded approvingly. They told stories, shared some brilliant songs and gave a glimpse of their creative and songwriting process.

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass backstage passes 2005/2006 - thanks Jonathan and Billy!,

At the end of his career, Guy won a Grammy for Best Folk Album in 2013 for My Favorite Picture Of You. It was a well deserved win after four unsuccessful nominations. The album cover depicts Guy holding a Polaroid snap shot of his beloved wife and soul mate Susanna ("I got a tattoo of her name right through my soul." he sang in "Stuff That Works"). Guy explained the back story, "It was in front of John Lomax's house, probably in the late Seventies or early Eighties. Townes and I were in the house, just drunk on our asses being jerks, and she had finally had enough. She put on her coat and walked out the door. I remember it being cold. And somebody snapped that picture. From the moment I saw it, that was my favorite picture of Susanna, and always has been. It says everything. Boy, she's absolutely beautiful – beautiful – and in an experienced kind of way in that picture. And she's so pissed off. It's in her eyes, and her stance. Stuff only I would see, maybe. But that picture always reminded me of Susanna." As she lay dying of cancer, Guy sat on the edge of her bed and played her the title song. He recalled, "She said she liked it, I guess. Whenever I wrote about her, she was always . . . I don’t know if ‘touched’ is the right word, she was always flattered. Usually she said, 'Well, it’s about time.' ”

***My Favorite Picture Of You*** (2013), Grammy winner

Sadly, Guy couldn't tour on the heels of his recent Grammy acclaim, the years of hard living had taken a toll, and he struggled in declining health until he passed away May 17, 2016. But he left behind a legacy of songs, performances and words. Guy Clark, a master word wrangler. Like Townes, his songs always worked on paper and on stage.