Clark, Guy, 1941-2016

Guy Charles Clark (November 6, 1941 – May 17, 2016) was born in Monahans, Texas. His family moved to Rockport, Texas in 1954. After he graduated from high school in 1960, he spent almost a decade living in Houston as part of the folk music revival in that city. His wife Susanna Talley Clark and he eventually settled in Nashville, where he helped create the Americana genre. His songs "L.A. Freeway" and "Desperados Waiting for a Train" helped launch his career and were covered by numerous performers, including Steve Earle, Jerry Jeff Walker, Nanci Griffith, and Brian Joens. The New York Times described him in its obituary as "a king of the Texas troubadours", declaring his body of work "as indelible as that of anyone working in the Americana idiom in the last decades of the 20th century".

Clark had been a mentor to such other singers as Noel McKay, Steve Earle and Rodney Crowell. He organized Earle's first job as a writer in Nashville. In the 1970s, the Clarks' home in Nashville was an open house for songwriters and musicians, and it features in the film Heartworn Highways, an evocation of the songwriter scene in Nashville at that time.

Numerous artists have charted with Clark-penned tunes. "The Last Gunfighter Ballad" was the title song of Johnny Cash's 1977 studio album. In 1982, Bobby Bare made it to the Country Top 20 with Clark's "New Cut Road". That same year, bluegrass leader Ricky Skaggs hit number one with Clark's "Heartbroke", a song that permanently established his reputation as an ingenious songwriter. Among the many others who have covered Clark's songs are Vince Gill, who took "Oklahoma Borderline" to the Top 10 in 1985; The Highwaymen, who introduced "Desperados Waiting for a Train" to a new generation that same year; John Conlee, whose interpretation of "The Carpenter" rode into the Top 10 in 1987; and John Denver, who recorded Clark's "Homegrown Tomatoes" in 1988.