GUY CLARK, “The King Of
The Texas Troubadours,” is honored with a new 19-Track Compilation due March 3
Guy
Clark: Best of the Dualtone Years spotlights 16 of Clark’s finest songs
along
with three previously unreleased tunes
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — One of the most revered songwriters of the
past 50 years, Guy Clark created an enviable catalog of
songs. Country music giants from Johnny
Cash to Kenny Chesney all recorded his tunes. The New York Times hailed him as “the king of the Texas
troubadours,” while NPR’s All Things Considered declared that “if you want to learn
how to write a song — one that's built to last, with vivid characters and
images that plant you squarely inside a scene — listen to Guy Clark.”
Clark, who passed away on May 17, 2016, made over a dozen
critically acclaimed albums, with Dualtone Records the home of his final
recordings. The new
retrospective, Guy Clark:
Best of the Dualtone Years, due
out on March 3, 2017,
draws upon his last three studio releases: Workbench
Songs (2006), Somedays The Song Writes
You (2009)
and My Favorite
Picture of You (2013).
Each track delivers a master class in songwriting. “El Coyote” and “Rain in
Durango” exemplify Clark’s richly evocative way with storytelling. “The Guitar”
reveals his amazing gift for taking an ordinary situation (buying a pawn shop
guitar) and transforming it into a magical experience. An old “Polaroid shot”
serves as the jumping off point for his profoundly poignant love ode “My
Favorite Picture of You” and the simple image of “cornmeal on a dance-hall
floor” wonderfully sets the scene in the sweet romance “Cornmeal Waltz.” Then
there are songs like “Maybe I Can Paint Over That” and “Hemingway’s Whiskey,”
which offer wise, wry ruminations on the creative process.
Best of the Dualtone Years holds the added treat of introducing a trio of previously
unreleased songs. These demo tracks — “Just to Watch Maria Dance,” “The Last
Hobo” (co-written with Hal
Ketchum) and theMarty Stuart collaboration “Time” — are a welcome
gift to longtime Clark fans and newcomers alike.
Rounding out Best
of the Dualtone Years is
a selection of songs from 2011’s live CD, Songs
and Stories, including such classic Clark songs as “The Randall
Knife,” “The Cape” and “Homegrown Tomatoes” along with his two most famous
tunes, “L.A. Freeway” and “Dublin Blues,” which have become Americana
standards.
“L.A. Freeway” was the song that first brought Clark to
prominence. Inspired by Clark’s ill-fated stint living in Los Angeles, the tune
became a hit for Jerry
Jeff Walker in 1972, and
ignited Nashville’s attention to this Texas-born and -bred singer-songwriter.
Clark’s solo debut, 1975’s Old
No. 1, brought
universal praise from critics and his peers. Many Nashville stars — Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson and Alan Jackson,
to name a few — started digging into Clark’s song trunk. Bobby Bare road “New Cut Road” high into the
charts and Vince Gill took “Oklahoma Borderline” into
the Top Ten of Billboard’s
Hot Country chart. “Desperados Waiting for a Train” was a success for Jerry Jeff Walker in the ’70s and the Highwaymen
in the ’80s. Clark’s list of #1 hits includes covers by Ricky Skaggs (“Heartbroke”), Steve Wariner (“Baby I’m Yours”) and Rodney Crowell (“She’s Crazy for Leavin’”). Lyle
Lovett, who recorded Clark’s “Step Inside This House,” proclaimed that Clark’s
“ability to translate the emotional into the written word is extraordinary.”
While Clark himself never reached high in the charts with his
songs, his music was rewarded in other ways. He garnered his first Grammy
nomination in 1998 for his record Keepers,
and every one of his Dualtone studio albums earned Grammy nominations, with My Favorite Picture of You winning in 2014. Clark was inducted
into the Nashville
Songwriters Hall of Fame in
2004 and the Austin City
Limits Hall of Fame in
2015. He received the Americana
Music Association's Lifetime
Achievement Award for
Songwriting in 2005 and the American
Country Music’s Poet Award (with Hank Williams) in
2013.
In October, a Guy Clark biography Without Getting Killed or
Caught: The Life and Music of Guy Clark(Texas A&M University
Press) was published to universal praise. The book’s author, Tamara Saviano,
a longtime music journalist and publicist who also produced 2011’s This One’s for Him: A
Tribute to Guy Clark (a
Grammy nominee and Americana Music Association’s 2012 Album of the Year), is
currently making a documentary that further explores Clark’s life and work. So
while Clark may no longer be with us, his songs and stories — as Best of the Dualtone Years bears out — remain very present and
very powerful.
Listen now! NPR Music premiered the previously unreleased track
“Just to Watch Maria Dance": http://n.pr/2ggmmhC
“Just to Watch Maria Dance": http://n.pr/2ggmmhC
