Guy Clark Albums (13)
'Live from Austin TX'
Release Date 1/23/2007
Tracks 15
Label New West
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What The Critics Say
Guy Clark is a fine singer and a masterful live performer, but he's a songwriter first and foremost, and the best thing about seeing the man on-stage is hearing him wrap his vocal chords around his beautifully crafted stories, which he relates with a sense of depth and detail no one else can quite match. Live from Austin, TX isn't the first or the best live disc from Guy Clark (that honor in both categories goes to 1997's Keepers), but it does capture about an hour of Clark delivering 14 of his songs for an appreciative audience in his home state, with low-key but effective backing from violinist Stuart Duncan and bassist Edgar Meyer, and it documents Clark in great form. On this set, recorded during a taping of the television show Austin City Limits, Clark is a smart enough showman to throw in a few crowd-pleasers, such as his minor hit "Homegrown Tomatoes" and its sibling "Texas Cookin'," but for the most part he doesn't shy away from the deeper and more personal material in his catalog, such as "Randall Knife," "Immigrant Eyes" or "Texas 1947," and here you can hear the common thread between them. Clark's songs are made of the stuff of human lives and whether they aim for laughter or tears, they speak of emotions that most everyone has confronted at one time or another, and in language that is both artful and straightforward. There aren't a lot of artists who can write like Clark, and fewer still who can share their songs with the same simple eloquence; if the opportunity to see him work his magic in person doesn't present itself often enough for you, this disc will serve as a fine reminder until he arrives in your town again, and it's a welcome souvenir for those who do get to hear him in person on a regular basis. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Clark's easygoing, front-porch delivery benefits from the intimate setting provided throughout The Dark. With plenty of space around the instruments and no production clutter in the way, the essence of each song conveys clearly as well. Surprises are few, and perhaps the least-surprising aspect of this set is that it is as well-crafted as one has a right to expect from Clark. (Only one track, by Townes Van Zandt, is a cover.) Subjects range from the historical, in the gruesome yet stoic "Soldier's Joy, 1864," to reflections on more modern tragedies; in the spoken verses and weary-sung choruses of "Homeless," Clark captures the fatalism of living on the streets with vernacular eloquence. Clark turns the death of a beloved dog into a mordant lament on "Queenie's Song" and ruminates on simple, visceral pleasures on "Mud." In truth, no one track stands out; each reflects the care of a writer (or, on these songs, co-writer) and singer -- more than that, an actor for whom music is his stage, and whose high standards seem likely to persist for a long, long time. ~ Robert L. Doerschuk, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Cold Dog Soup follows Dublin Blues in its poignant observations of life, love, death, and all the states in between. Clark's voice may be a little worn, but his songwriting skills are sharper than ever here. He uses a group of musicians that revolve around longtime collaborators Verlon Thompson and Darrell Scott and the backing vocals of Emmylou Harris. Clark has become comfortable with co-writing in recent years and Cold Dog Soup's no exception. Three of the cuts were penned with Verlon Thompson, a pair with Jon Randall Stewart, and one with Shawn Camp, who is also part of his band. In addition, there are two new Clark songs and a trio of covers that are awesome and very different interpretations of the originals. There's Steve Earle's "Fort Worth Blues," written as an elegy for their late friend, songwriter Townes Van Zandt; there's a gorgeous read of Richard Dobson's "Forever, for Always, for Certain"; and the album closes with the old-time folk song "Be Gone Forever," written by Anna McGarrigle and Keith Sykes. Performed as a duet, it is one of the most traditional pieces of music Clark has ever recorded. The tragedy "Water Under the Bridge" feels a lot like the folk-blues of Bob Dylan's "Ballad of Hollis Brown," and in its own way is just as harrowing, with the mandolin fills floating around the guitar lines. "Bunkhouse Blues" is a cowboy blues complete with yodels that gets to the high and lonesome better than most bluegrass. "Men Will Be Boys" is a good-time anthem that could have been written and recorded during the Austin era with Jerry Jeff Walker and the rest. Ultimately, Cold Dog Soup is another fine Guy Clark album. He's been on a roll for nearly three decades and shows no sign of resting on his considerable laurels. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Keepers is the first live album Guy Clark has ever released. Recorded in 1996 in front of a small audience in an intimate venue (Daniel's Corner in Nash Vegas), it showcases Clark with a full band playing his best-loved songs. While that might seem like an easy way out for some, it's not for Clark, who pushes these songs -- despite his easy, laid-back demeanor -- to the breaking point in terms of meaning and emotional truth. With a band consisting of Verlon Thompson and Darrell Scott on guitars (Scott also plays virtually everything with strings except fiddle), Suzy Ragsdale (not only singing backup, but playing accordion), Kenny Malone, and bassist Travis Clark, Guy uses his material as a way of communicating something quite mercurial yet universally felt with his audience. Opening with a fine, drinking song rendition of "L.A. Freeway," Clark pulls out the stops from the word "go" and travels all over his career map, from "Texas, 1947," "Like a Coat From the Cold" (which is chilling in its amorous simplicity), "Heartbroke," "Last Gunfighter Ballad," "Better Days," and "Homegrown Tomatoes," before catching a breath -- though none of these songs seem rushed. Miles Wilkinson's live mix is spot-on and flat, allowing for the natural dynamics in the music to come across, and it translates well to CD. The second half of the program features "She Ain't Goin Nowhere," "South Coast of Texas," "Let Him Roll," "Texas Cookin'," a new track called "Out in the Parking Lot," and a few others, including a rousing, deeply moving rendition of "Desperados Waiting for a Train." In sum, it's a better greatest-hits record than any available, since all the songs come from one source, and it's a fine example of how live records should be made. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
A mere three years after Boats to Build, Guy Clark offered Dublin Blues, a record filled with sizzle, inspiration, and his best batch of songs in years. Teaming with Miles Wilkinson for the third time and using in the studio for the first time his road band -- which includes über guitarist and singer Darrell Scott -- Clark delivers a batch of searing portraits, intimate observations, first-person narratives, and one dumb throwaway cut ("Baby Went to Memphis in a Limo"). As usual, some old friends return to the fold -- Rodney Crowell, Emmylou Harris, Sam Bush, Verlon Thompson, Kenny Malone, and Suzy Ragsdale -- but there are new faces as well like Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Nanci Griffith, and Kathy Mattea. The magic begins with the title track. Haunted Celtic melodies played on the fiddle and a mandolin with an acoustic guitar usher in a country song that could be from the countryside of Ireland. With Mattea on the backing vocals, the listener is transported between worlds in time and space. "Black Diamond Strings" is a friendly little number about what else: guitar strings! Its catchy hook and singalong chorus make it a Clark winner. "Shut Up and Talk to Me" features Scott playing the swinging blues as Clark counts off the music like a fierce memory. "Stuff That Works" is another of Clark's quiet observation tunes, where his words speak volumes and the instruments underline their meanings. It's a workingman's anthem sung seemingly from the workshop bench. But "Hank Williams Said It Best," "Tryin' to Try," "Cape," and "Hangin' Your Life on the Wall" are all tremendous in their scope and intimacy. They are full of dimension and depth, and Wilkinson gives them textures. The set ends with a re-recording of the spooky yet shattering elegy "The Randall Knife" Clark cut on Better Days. The difference here is age. The view Clark sings from is one of distance and age. "The Randall Knife" doesn't feel quite so spooky this time out, but it does resonate with empathy and even tenderness. As it winds to a close, the listener is left not in bewildered silence but in awe that such a bond exists at all. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
'Boats to Build'
Release Date 1/1/1992
Tracks 10
Label Elektra/Nonesuch
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What The Critics Say
Four years after the release of the tepid Old Friends, Guy Clark signed to the newly revitalized Elektra Asylum label seemingly dedicated to recording and marketing American roots music. Teaming once again with producer Miles Wilkinson, Clark delivered an ambitious, soulful, and state-of-the-art batch of songs. There is an all-star cast here, as per usual. Nonetheless Clark and Wilkinson solidified their vision, and here it works seamlessly, and virtually all of the musical arrangements and sounds serve the songs. Players and singers included Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, Verlon Thompson, Foster & Lloyd, Marty Stuart, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Suzy Ragsdale, Brian Ahern, and drummer Kenny Malone. The opener, a light country shuffle flavored with the blues entitled "Baton Rouge," is catchy in the same way that "Homegrown Tomatoes" was nine years earlier. The tile track, written with Thompson, is an intimate look at what goes on inside a man's mind when he works with his hands and the universe he encounters there. Douglas' slide guitar solo and the gorgeous Thompson harmonies deepen the impact. "Picasso's Mandolin," co-authored with Foster & Lloyd, is a lilting number with hand percussion, Bush's mandolin playing sad and sweet, and three-part harmonies by Clark with Foster & Lloyd. What strikes the listener in the first five tracks is how spare everything is, no matter how many or few instruments are on a given cut. Wilkinson sculpts the sound around Clark's stiletto fine lyrics. Perhaps this is best encountered on "Hey, Where'd You Get This Number." It's a humorous funky country tune with a quartet and no backing vocals, and Clark's wit sizzles in the mix, full of cruelty and irony. But it also comes through in the tender and moving "I Don't Love You Much Do I." Stuart's mandolin and Thompson's guitar wind around one another, framing Clark's creaking and elegant lyrics as he sings them in his usual slow, deliberate manner, getting every ounce of insight and emotion from the syllables. It took four more years to get another record out of Clark, but it's a winner all the way around. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Clark's finest moment. The production allows Clark to present his songs without any distractions. Sam Bush, Verlon Thompson, Michael Henderson, and Vince Gill blend with Clark perfectly, as do Rosanne Cash and Emmylou Harris. ~ Chip Renner, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
No one can accuse Guy Clark of rushing. 1983 saw the release of his fifth album since 1975 and his first in two years. Not exactly cranking them out at Waylon's and Willie's pace, Clark is far more concerned with his conception of quality. And Better Days proved two things: not only that Clark was a writer of fine songs that other people had hits with, but that he was a viable commercial entity on his own. Once again produced by Rodney Crowell, who had struck pay dirt with his productions of Rosanne Cash's hit records and his own Diamonds & Dirt, Better Days was a Clark record that set and broke the mold simultaneously. Back in Nashville after recording South Coast of Texas in L.A., Crowell assembled a crack team for the set, including Vince Gill, who not only was making his name as a vocalist but also as a fine guitarist. Gill holds down the lead chair on this set by himself. Crowell, Johnny Gimble, Emory Gordy, Hank DeVito, and Reggie Young also helped out as did the late Larrie Londin on drums. Clark scored his first hit single with "Homegrown Tomatoes," a radio-friendly, easy-drawling, silly little catchy tune that Clark liked despite its relatively light weight. But it was enough. Like "Rita Ballou" in second gear, the plucked steel strings, the muted percussion, and Clark's elegant phrasing make it the most summery tune he's ever written. But there are better songs here such as his cover of Townes Van Zandt's "No Deal," the title track, "Supply and Demand," and the chilling, deeply moving, hunted "Randall Knife," an elegy for Clark's father. The song had been part of his live repertoire for some time but until now hadn't been recorded. It closes the record with the most astonishing silence, one that roars in the listener's ears long after the record is over and haunts her for the rest of the day. By Better Days, Clark, who was already a fine and polished songwriter, had arrived at the full possession of his power as a storyteller, ironst, and musing philosopher of song. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
'The South Coast of Texas'
Release Date 1/1/1980
Tracks 10
Label Warner Bros.
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What The Critics Say
Guy Clark's Warner Brothers album The South Coast of Texas was issued in 1981. Rodney Crowell, Clark's Houston running partner, produced. It was before Crowell struck pay dirt producing his then wife Rosanne Cash or landing his own platinum records, which made this a big record for both men. Recorded in Los Angeles instead of Nash Vegas, Crowell was trying something that would affect his career in a very positive way when handling the production duties on Rosanne's records. The South Coast of Texas boasted a new slew of studio masters including Emory Gordy, Richard Bennett, Hank DeVito, Glen D. Hardin, the late drummer Larrie Londin, Rosanne Cash, Ricky Skaggs, and Pure Prairie League frontman and guitarist Vince Gill -- completely unknown in Nash Vegas. Moving toward a more basic but electric approach, Crowell and Clark ran through a deck of songs that reflected Clark's attention to minute, even painstaking detail. The pair recut "Rita Ballou" from Clark's first album, making it sizzle and pop with a run of guitars and pedal steel. In addition, Clark's version of his own "Heartbroke" appeared here. While it received airplay, it wasn't until Ricky Skaggs recorded it a year later (he sang backup on the original) that it was a hit, going to the top of the country charts. The Clark/Crowell co-write, "She's Crazy for Leavin'," was among the most commercial songs Clark ever wrote, but it was also one of the most poignant. (Crowell hit pay dirt with it in 1988 on his own record.) "Crystelle" with Rosanne Cash is a stunner with its cascading chorus and haunting refrain, and "New Cut Road" is classic Clark, all masculine and unsentimental yet nonetheless reflecting a kind of folky tenderness that lies at the heart of his best work. South Coast of Texas was a transition album toward the mature Clark style, one that was first to emerge on his next album, Better Days. It's not a landmark in his catalog, but neither is it anything that could remotely be considered a failure. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
