Description
Label Review.
Guy released three studio and one live album for Dualtone between 2006-2013. This collection selects tracks from those plus some unreleased cuts.
Our Overview.
Guy Charles Clark (Born in Monahans, Texas 1941-2016), 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. 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. 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.
“With the young writers, I pretty much have my way with the lyrics, the final say, but even then there are things that come out of their mouths that wouldn’t have come out of my mind,” he said. “I enjoy sitting at a table and wrangling with words. I find that inspiring, and I learn from these people.”
Over the past decade, Guy was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award for songwriting by the Americana Music Association. “People come up and say, ‘What was it like back then?’” he told The Tennessean in 2013. “Well, how would I know? I was (messed) up. I don’t remember. Things changed, and you’ve got to be true to yourself. You’ve got to do the work. But when someone asks what that was like... it was like yesterday.”
Guy earned Grammy nominations for two of his studio albums, and the two-disc, multi-artist “This One’s for Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark” album was nominated for a Grammy. The latter album featured contributions from Lyle Lovett, Shawn Colvin, Emmylou Harris and John Prine, Patty Griffin, Kris Kristofferson and others. “This One’s For Him” won the Americana Music Association’s album of the year honour.
By the time he arrived at Dualtone, he was already a legend for his exacting song craft that elixired truth tempered with compassion, grounded by vivid detail. The Best Of The Dualtone Years a celebration of Guy's albums recorded under the Dualtone moniker.
“The patron saint of an entire generation of bohemian pickers, Guy Clark has become an emblem of artistic integrity, quiet dignity and simple truth,” wrote Robert K. Oermann. So let this wonderful man transport you in his words of poetry and song and enjoy every “pickin’” moment.