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Home , Boats to Build, Bobby Emmons, Dublin Blues, Guy Clark, Homegrown Tomatoes, Jerry Carrigan

’ January, 2016 Beginner s Guide © Tamara Saviano to

Guy Clark with producer and band working on the Better Days album in 1983.

Living one word to the next, one line at a time, there is more to life than whiskey, There’s more To words than rhyme

Guy Clark and Susanna Talley eased Guy often says that Nashville in the the Billboard Hot 100 Chart. into Nashville on a rainy November ’70s was like Paris in the ’20s. And if Kristofferson graced the cover of Look night in 1971. Guy had driven his that is the case, Guy and Susanna were Magazine’s special with rusted junker of a ’63 Volkswagon bus the F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald of the headline: , First from to Los Angeles back to Nashville. The Clarks would come to Superstar of the New Country Music. Only a Houston and now to Tennessee. It was shape the folk and singer- year before, in the fall of 1970, a stoned loaded with everything they owned: a scene in Music City much like the Kristofferson stumbled on his way to the few clothes and dishes, a guitar, Fitzgeralds fashioned the jazz age. stage to accept the Country Music Susanna’s paintings, and all the tools By the time Guy and Susanna Association Song of the Year award for and parts needed to fix the damn thing arrived in Tennessee, “Sunday Morning Coming Down.” if it broke down in the desert. had moved back to Austin and banded There was a new Music City brewing For once there was a little money in the hippies and rednecks together with underground. Outlaw were Guy’s wallet. He had just signed his his rowdy mix of country and rock n’ bubbling up into the mainstream and first publishing deal as a songwriter. roll. Kris Kristofferson’s star Guy was about to become a lion in this The beat up leather also held a scrap skyrocketed in Hollywood. Earlier that modern breed of Nashville Cat. from a burger sack with a partial lyric year Janis Joplin’s hit of Kristofferson’s that read: “If I could just get off of this “Me and Bobby McGee” and Sammi Smith’s version of “Help Me Make It L.A. Freeway without getting killed or caught.” Through The Night” were at the top of

Pack up all your dishes/Make note of all good wishes Say goodbye to the landlord for me/That sumbitch has always bored me Throw out them L.A. papers/And that moldy box of vanilla wafers Adios to all this concrete/Gonna get me some dirt road back street If I could just get off of this L.A. freeway Without getting killed or caught I’d be down the road in a cloud of smoke to some land I ain’t bought.

(Photo at right – Jack Prigg holds infant Guy Clark outside the Clark Hotel in Monahans, , 1942) THE REAL DESPERADO

When Guy’s dad, Ellis, joined the Army during WWII, Guy and his mother Frances lived at the Clark Hotel with Guy’s paternal grandmother, Rossie, and her wildcatter boyfriend, Jack Prigg. “Jack was a great painter of pictures and teller of stories; but, of course, you never know whether to believe him or not. He thought it was the funniest thing in the world to tell somebody a big one and they’d believe it,” Frances Clark said. Highway 80 cross the Texas “From the time I got Guy home from the hospital Jack would come in to see him sand, makes a little stop everyday. Here’s this little scrap lying in his crib looking around and Jack leaning called monahans over petting him, grabbing his toes. ‘Well, hello, little Jack.’ The first time Guy went Guy Charles Clark was born in Cloaked behind a pretty face, out with Jack, Ellis’s mother and I came Monahans, Texas on November 6, warm demeanor and a prosthetic leg, back to the hotel and Jack and Guy were 1941. Although bleak and Rossie Clark was a tough broad. By gone. She was about to have a fit. When monochromatic, there is still the time she was 30 years old in 1926, they finally came back, she was just raising something irresistible about she had endured a brutal childhood leg hell with Jack. ‘Where have you been with Monahans. It still feels like the old amputation on the family’s kitchen the baby?’ Jack said, ‘Well, I wanted him West here, and one can easily table, demoralizing poverty during the to see the drilling rig.’ What he wanted to recognize how the town and its great depression, and a taxing life as a do was to take Guy out there and show characters, including Guy’s own single mother in the hot West Texas him off to the crew. Jack Prigg was the family, so profoundly influenced the dust bowl. nearest thing to a grandfather my children narratives of songs including During prohibition, Rossie hid her ever had. Jack took it upon himself to take “Desperados Waiting For A Train,” illicit whiskey outside the back of Guy for haircuts and all that kind of stuff. “New Cut Road,” Texas 1947,” “Rita Clark’s Lunch in a rusty water meter He took him to the barbershop and the Ballou,” “Lone Star Hotel,” and box buried in the sand. Legend has it cowboy movies and the wading pool.” “Crystelle.” that the hard-nosed local sheriff, Irby “Texas has always had that distinct Dyer, had a soft spot for Rossie. Dyer I'd play the Red River Valley valor,” Guy says. “You know, it’s had a dependable reputation for And he’d sit in the kitchen and cry where Davy Crockett and Sam busting bootleggers and bank robbers Run his fingers through seventy Houston went from Tennessee. but most of the time he kept his years of livin’ People from all over the south deputies away from Rossie and turned And wonder, “Lord, has every well hammered signs on their doors that a blind eye to her undercover liquor I’ve drilled run dry? said G.T.T., Gone to Texas. business. We were friends Whenever someone would go bust or Although, there was that time Me and this old man had enough of where they were living, Rossie served pitchers of gin and Like Desperados waiting for a train they’d put a sign on the door and head whiskey at a local dance. Dyer and his Like Desperados waiting for a train to Texas. Romantic notions about deputies raided the party. As Rossie He’s a drifter and a driller of oil Texas have been going on since was pouring the liquor down the sink wells Coronado and the seven cities of gold. with running water, Dyer attempted An old school man of the world It’s hardscrabble land but it has that to put the plug in the sink to keep the He let me drive his car independent spirit about it. In first evidence while Rossie fought him off. When he’s too drunk to grade, all school kids in Texas get a They both ended up drenched in And he’d wink and give me money comic book that’s covered like a Texas whiskey and water. In the end, there for the girls flag with drawings and cartoons of the was no proof for the beleaguered history of Texas and you’d carry that sheriff. *** book with you everywhere.”

THE SOUTH COAST OF TEXAS is a thin slice of life It’s easy to see why Ellis Clark When Sputnik orbited the earth on picked Rockport as the place to raise October 4, 1957, Guy and his his young family after he finished law classmates watched from a pep rally in school. The sleepy fishing village on downtown Rockport. Right after his is a far cry 16th birthday, Guy joined the Fulton from the heat and dust of West Volunteer Fire Department. All the Texas. The first time Ellis came to Clark kids participated in the Rockport, he spotted a dog lying on a Christmas pageant at church. road that split around a windswept Guy blossomed into a leader, was oak tree. He said to his family: “A popular with his classmates, and town where they build roads around strived to be the best in all that he the trees and a dog can safely lie on pursued. As captain and center, Guy the street is the place I want to live.” led the football team. He played guard The Clark family settled into the in basketball, ran the 100-yard dash routine of small town life on the and threw discus in track and field. He Texas coast.The post-WWII 1950s presided over the junior class as was a time of American prosperity president, acted in school plays, and and “Leave It To Beaver” took piano lessons from Tilly Fry. Guy wholesomeness. Guy was a clean-cut, illustrated section pages for the Working in Rob Roy Rice’s shipyard all American boy from a solid, yearbook with quoted passages from left an indelible print on Guy’s life as a middle-class family. Ellis and Frances poems by Henry Wadsworth songwriter and guitar builder. During Clark ascended to positions of Longfellow, George Wither and Walt World War II, the shipyard built mine influence in the community. Whitman. sweepers and big wooden PT boats. It was Ellis joined the Lions Club and In the fall of 1958, Ellis took on a set up with machinery from the 1930s— cooked for the annual July fourth young law partner named Lola giant band saws, planers and industrial Lions Barbecue party. He gave law Bonner. At a party at the Clark home, sized woodworking equipment. The 70- advice to the local fisherman in Lola played Flamenco guitar and sang year-old Rice had been trying to sell the exchange for the day’s catch and Mexican songs. Guy had never seen place since 1957, not wanting to make advised local government on town anything like it and he was hooked. It expensive repairs to the old equipment matters. Frances hosted extravagant was the beginning of a beautiful and wishing to get out of the business to parties, loved doing it and invited friendship and made a profound retire. Good thing for Guy Clark that everyone. She cared deeply about impact on Guy’s life. Guy learned his Rice was unable to sell as it gave Guy appearances, craved attention and first chords on the guitar in the garage three summers to work for Rice, longed for respect and admiration. apartment that Lola rented from Dean scrubbing the algae from the bottom of To Frances, raising enlightened and Steele at 1109 North Broadway. shrimp boats and helping the carpenters. accomplished children with good Lola took Guy to gatherings at “It influenced me as much as anything manners was paramount. She George and Gloria Hill’s beach house I’ve been through in my life,” Guy says. “I immersed herself in arts and culture on Water Street where her friends really got on with the carpenters. Boats and encouraged the children to do the would pass the guitar around and are built square with the world and same. trade songs. watching them build a 70-80 foot wooden The Rockport Pilot reported the “I was just captivated by it,” Guy shrimp boat out of the water was comings and goings of the family. The says. “Hondo Crouch, the founder of fascinating to me.” Clarks hosted a New Year’s Day in Luckenbach, was there along with his 1957 party for 150 guests to show off sister. There were rich doctors and I’m gonna build me a boat their new home at 305 4th Street in lawyers from the Hill Country and With these two hands Fulton. The same year, Guy read Houston. They were singing mostly It’ll be a fair curve poetry for the Invitational Speech old cowboy songs. It was far out. From a noble plan Tournament and won a prize at the After that I went and bought a Let the chips fall where they will science fair for his hydrogen Mexican guitar and asked Lola to show Cause I’ve got boats to build generator. He joined the Explorer’s me how to play it. I was hungry.” *** *** club and the Boy Scout Troup 49.

All we are is what we’ve been, I think about Fannin Street now and again

The mid 1960s marked a period of John Avery Lomax, Jr., hosted open upheaval in the country and Houston, hootenannies once a month. By the Texas was no exception. The war mid sixties there was a push to do babies appeared as architects of the more. They added a “hoot” to one of counter culture, with new ideas and the bi-monthly Tuesday meetings at philosophies about civil rights and Linkwood Park Community House freedom. Some of them, including in addition to regular hoots on Guy Clark, struggled between the Peter Gardner, half of the New York folk Sundays, which were often in idealized version of America cultivated partnership with the Jewish duo The Gardners, with his ex-wife by parents and the new reality of the Isabelle, remarried, moved back to Texas, Community Center. Along with the fight for civil rights and rebellious skinny young white kids, bluesmen and hosted a folk radio show on KHOU, attitude about the war in Vietnam. University of Houston’s radio station. Mance Lipscomb and Lightnin’ Sam The Montrose district in Houston was Hopkins often played the Sunday Once a week, Gardner recorded the show a center for the burgeoning counter at the home he shared with his new wife. It hoots. The Houston Folklore Society culture movement and folksingers became an important open mic night for proudly declared the word came together at the scene. “hootenanny” was coined by Texas folksingers. By 1964, 22-year-old Guy Clark Guy remembers meeting Townes Van Jim Lewis, a 1930s era entertainer, was trying to figure out where he and said that and Zandt for the first time at the Gardner’s belonged and what he wanted to do. house. The friendship was immediate. Guy Pete Seeger learned the term from released his third studio Lewis. heard Van Zandt sing a couple of songs and album that year, The Times They Are a knew that this was someone he wanted to “ was always at Changin’, and the title track could have Herman Park and we’d sit around in be around. been Guy’s theme song. To Guy, “Townes was complicated,” first wife the summertime, just twenty or Dylan was a descendent of the beat thirty people in circles singing Fran Lohr says. “When he was sober, you poets he loved. Lawrence never met a kinder, more affectionate, songs,” Guy says. “He didn’t play any Ferlinghetti’s A Coney Island of the Mind instrument, he would just stand up more loving person. He wore his heart in was one of Guy’s favorite books and his songs. He wrote ‘I’ll Be Here In The there and sing a cappella. Or he had Bob Dylan was putting that kind of one little act where he would do a Morning’ right after we found out Townes poetry to music. couldn’t join the service because of his prison work song and bring a fucking Dick Clark and American Bandstand log with him and an ax and sing psychiatric treatments. Townes always moved from Philadelphia to the ABC while he was chopping wood. It needed something to hold on to. I always Television Center in Los Angeles. felt like his relationship with Guy was so really far out, because all I knew Season seven included performances about was Josh White and strong because Guy was stronger than by the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, him.” traditional black folk songs. He Fabian, Little Richard, , turned me on to Leadbelly and “Townes was bound and determined to , Sam Cooke, Marvin have the blues,” Guy says. One of the first Lightnin’ Hopkins, extremely Gaye, and tributes to and primitive, extremely subtle stuff. songs he wrote was ‘Waitin’ Around to . But it was the short Die.’ I heard that and it was one of the And it certainly made a difference in lived ABC variety show Hootenanny, my life to have it presented to me main reasons I started writing. It was so hosted by Jack Linkletter and featuring literate, you know, and yet music. I can’t that way, that’s one of the most performances by The Journeymen, fortunate things you can imagine, be Townes, but I can write using the same The Limeliters, the Chad Mitchell approach, the same the care and respect that formative part of learning about Trio, Judy Collins, and whether Josh White really played the Townes took with writing. You never get that was a reflection of, and influence over the fact that you can’t beat Townes, blues or if Lightnin’ Hopkins really on, what was happening in Guy’s but you can aspire to the same quality of played the blues.” *** Houston circle. work in your own humbled and whispered Traditionally, the Houston way.” *** Folklore Society, lead by folk historian

There ain’t no money in poetry That’s what sets the poet free I’ve had all the freedom I can stand

Only a few blocks separated announce that he and Susanna were Sunbury Dunbar’s Music Row tying the knot and they wanted Townes offices from the storied Columbia to be the best man. On January 14, 30- Studios down the street, where Bob year-old Guy Clark and 33-year-old Dylan had recorded his Blonde on Susanna Talley returned to Mickey Blonde and Nashville Skyline albums. Newberry’s houseboat with Townes in Now, Guy Clark was here, working tow. Susan Newbury baked a cake. Guy as a professional songwriter at 1204 carried the weed, Townes brought 16th Avenue South. He was paid an vodka. Mickey piloted the boat out of advance of $75 a week to write Old Hickory Lake eastward up the Guy Clark songs that Sunbury Dunbar would Cumberland River to Sumner County. Discography pitch to singers to record. It may not The five friends left the boat and caught be much of a living yet, but it was a a taxi to the county courthouse where 1975 Old No. 1 (RCA) start. Judge J.C. McMahan married Guy and 1976 Texas Cookin’ (RCA) The counter culture generation Susanna. 1978 Guy Clark (Warner Bros.) continued to change popular Guy, Susanna and Townes retreated 1981 South Coast of Texas (Warner culture, and country and to the cheap little rental house at 1307 Bros.) was no exception. The Nitty Gritty Chapel Avenue in East Nashville. 1983 Better Days (Warner Bros.) Dirt Band, who’d had a huge hit Together they had found an old 1989 Old Friends (Sugar Hill) with ’s “Mr. mattress dumped behind a nearby 1992 Boats to Build (Asylum) Bojangles,” bridged the generation grocery store and dragged it home. 1995 (Asylum) gap with Will The Circle Be Unbroken, Townes tossed his sleeping bag on top 1997 Keepers (Sugar Hill) Live album a lively three-album set recorded of the mattress next to Susanna’s easel 1999 Cold Dog Soup (Sugar Hill) with paragons of country music. The in the second bedroom. An omen of 2002 The Dark (Sugar Hill) Byrds’ celebrated Sweetheart of the what was to come, the threesome spent 2006 Workbench Songs (Dualtone) Rodeo album showcased an the wedding night together and Townes 2009 (Somedays the Song Writes You expressive blend of folk and lived with Guy and Susanna for eight (Dualtone) country. Gram Parsons joined the months. 2011 Songs & Stories (Dualtone) Live Flying Burrito Brothers for two In the spring of 1972, Jerry Jeff album cosmic folk records before stepping Walker breezed through and stopped to 2013 My Favorite Picture of You out solo. Carole King and James visit Guy, Susanna and Townes. Guy (Dualtone) Taylor each rolled out luscious folk played Jerry Jeff a couple of new songs, pop albums Tapestry and Sweet Baby “L.A. Freeway” and “That Old Time James. Townes Van Zandt had Feeling.” Walker recorded both songs song highlights released four albums of his own for his self-titled Decca release. exotic compositions since he and Meanwhile, Rodney Crowell left his “Boats to Build” Guy had met in Houston. Although a home in Houston and moved to “The Cape” name for the genre didn’t exist yet, Nashville. He found a job bussing tables “Desperados Waiting for a Train” what would come to be known as at the TGI Fridays restaurant on Elliston “Dublin Blues” Americana music simmered on the Place and moved to an old house with a “” back burner waiting for the wrap around porch on Acklen Avenue “L.A. Freeway” Countrypolitan sounds of Tammy in Hillsboro Village, an artistic and “My Favorite Picture of You” Wynette, Ray Price, bohemian neighborhood on the south “Randall Knife” and Lynn Anderson to fizzle out. side of Vanderbilt University. “Rita Ballou” Townes Van Zandt blew into Crowell’s roommates were fellow “She Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” Nashville the second week of Texan and Skinny “Stuff That Works” January in 1972. He had been in Dennis Sanchez, the six-foot-seven, “Texas 1947” New York until Guy called to 125-pound Mexican upright bass player “Texas Cookin’”

who had played with Guy in a string band In August, 1974, Lipskin took in Los Angeles and followed Guy to Guy into RCA’s famous Studio A to Nashville. Word got around that the house record his first album. For the on Acklen was an all-night hang. After the tracking sessions, Lipskin hired the bars closed, the porch became the stage Memphis Boys, a group of studio and the Crowell/Dobson/Sanchez house musicians put together by producer was the place to be for late night picking at his American parties. Studios in Memphis. The band “The hierarchy of that scene that I felt included Bobby Emmons on organ, so lucky to have fallen in, it was…Mickey Bobby Wood on piano, Mike Leech Newbury had a place on the lake, a on Bass, Reggie Young on guitar. houseboat on the lake. You rarely saw Collectively, the musicians were Newbury, but when you did, it was like a part of the inner circle on visit from the king,” Crowell says. “And important sessions: Multiple then there was Townes, who was this albums with Elvis Presley; Dusty satellite, who revolved around Guy and Springfield’s , Susanna. Townes was a version of the Dionne Warwick’s self-titled Wandering Troubadour or the Ramblin’ album, and other influential works Jack character. When Townes came into out of Memphis. For drums, town he would generally be kicking Lipskin brought in Jerry Carrigan, . Word would get around that part of the famed Muscle Shoals Townes is coming into town and then rhythm section.

we’d all gather around at Amy Martin’s Although Lipskin and RCA label Guy Clark carriage house in Hillsboro Village. The chief liked the album first day or so, we’d all wait downstairs and wanted to release it, Guy hated Grammy while Townes was upstairs at Amy’s place. it and threatened to change his We’d all be out sitting around a picnic name and leave town if they put the nominations table with guitars in hand waiting for album out. Townes to come down – waiting for him With the budget blown and 1985 Best Country Song – to get over the Jones and junk. That was nothing to show for it, Guy was in “Desperados Waiting for a Train” just ‘a movable feast,’ to quote a pickle. He turned to his friend, Hemingway. These characters orbited audio engineer Neil Wilburn. 1989 Best Contemporary Folk Guy. Guy was the moon, and then Guy Wilburn had been a staff audio Album – Old Friends was the sun and Susanna was the moon, engineer at Columbia’s famous and rest of these artists, in some form of Quonset Hut, where he controlled 1997 Best Contemporary Folk development, would orbit around Guy. the sound on important albums Album – Keepers People just followed Guy around. He including Leonard Cohen’s Songs invited me to hang and pay attention and From A Room and Songs of Love and 2006 Best Contemporary sometimes would tell me ‘Just shut up and Hate; Dylan’s Nashville Skyline; Folk/Americana Album – Workbench learn.’” Johnny Cash At San Quentin; and the Songs In his first RCA Records press Byrds Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde among biography Guy Clark is described as “a others. 2007 Album of the Year – (as guest songwriter’s songwriter in the country- Guy and Wilburn took over artist) These Days – flavored Austin-Nashville bag.” RCA Studio B, cobbled together The convoluted sentence proves that demos and work tapes, and called 2010 Best Contemporary even back in the mid seventies, the in favors from friends to make the Folk/Americana Album – Somedays Nashville music business did not know album we now know as Old No. 1. The Song Writes You what to do with Guy. It became an instant classic, and RCA’s A&R producer Mike Lipskin set Guy Clark on a path to become 2013 Best Folk Album – My Favorite signed Guy to the label with the condition one of the most legendary Picture of You (WIN) that Lipskin would produce the album, songwriters of our generation. using Memphis musicians instead of the END more traditional Nashville country approach.