The well-known country Singer, Guy Clark passed away today. He was 74 years old. Guy Clark was awarded a Grammy for his 2014 folk album, My Favorite Picture of You and was also an inductee of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Clark, though he recorded 13 albums, gained more fame composing songs that notables of popular music would sing: Cash, Kristofferson, Buffet, Emmylou Harris, and many others. Clark’s most popular tunes included “Desperados Waiting for the Train”, “L.A. Freeway”, and “That Old Time Feeling”.
Born in the small town of Monohans, Texas, on Nov. 6th, 1941, Guy fiddled with college and the Peace Corps, and did a short stint in Los Angeles, before he ended up opening a guitar shop in Houston. Not long there in the early 70’s he moved with his wife Susanna to Nashville. There Johnny Cash was the first major Nashville singer to record Clark. Guy played at nightclubs and coffee shops, and rubbed elbows with Townes Van Zandt, and Jerry Jeff Walker. Perhaps, The Tennessean’s description of Clark as the “gravel voiced troubadour” who developed a wide catalogue of “works that expanded the literary possibilities of popular song” is most fitting.
CNN reports Clark saying of songwriting, “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 one another. But I don’t know. It’s just a way to while away the time until you die.”
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