Another Music Legend Has Died

Grammy-winner, Nashville Songwriter Hall of Fame member, Academy of Country Music Poet’s Award honoree, and fearless raconteur – Guy Charles Clark…. AKA… “Uncle Guy” died today. 

I am not sure if this is where I get my love of poetry, of songs, of writing and rhymes. I have always as far back as I can remember been a lover of words.  

When I was a child my dad remarried when my twin sister and I were almost 7. We had a new Aunt and Uncle and Cousins and even three Step Brothers. 

 Our new Uncle was Guy Clark.  

Fast forward many years and most of the world now knows the legendary Guy Clark too.  

Sadly, I awoke this morning to an email from my former step-mother Jan. She let me know that Uncle Guy had passed. I knew he was on hospice and was getting close and had been praying for them all-but that probably explained why I barely slept a wink last night and found myself praying most of the night. 

Although I had not seen Guy in many years, the flood of childhood memories flooded my mind as big tears streamed my cheeks. I remembered so many fun times growing up and one especially favorite memory was learning to dance by standing on Uncle Guy’s feet as he twirled me around the old hard wood floors. I remember being mesmerized when he would rattle off such amazing lyrics and rhymes while playing his guitar and telling such amazing stories.  

The world lost another musical great today.  
Go rest high on that mountain Uncle Guy! 

          ~XXOO Michelle Bollom 
                    Guy Charles Clark

November 6, 1941 – Tuesday May 17, 2016
Grammy-winner, Nashville Songwriter Hall of Fame member, Academy of Country Music Poet’s Award honoree, and fearless raconteur Guy Charles Clark died Tuesday after a long illness. 

He was born in the dusty west Texas town of Monahans on November 6, 1941. The family lived at his grandmother’s 13-room shotgun hotel; home to bomber pilots, drifters, oilmen and a wildcatter named Jack Prigg, the subject of Clark’s famous song “Desperados Waiting For A Train.” When Guy’s father returned from WWII and graduated from law school, the Clarks moved to the Gulf coast town of Rockport, Texas. Guy came of age in the pretty little beach town. As captain and center, Guy led the football team. He played guard in basketball, ran the 100-yard dash and threw discus in track and field. He won science fairs, joined the Explorer’s club, presided over the junior class as president, acted in school plays, excelled on the debate team, illustrated the yearbook, and fell in love with Mexican folk songs and the Flamenco guitar.

After a couple of false starts at university, Guy joined the Peace Corps in 1963. He trained in Rio Abajo, Puerto Rico, practicing water survival, rock climbing and trekking, followed by a month of book learning at the University of Minnesota. After turning down an assignment in Punjab, India, Guy moved to Houston, where he opened a guitar repair shop with his friend Minor Wilson. He played guitar and sang folk songs at the Houston Folklore Society, Sand Mountain coffee shop and the Jester Lounge, where he began life long friendships with fellow struggling songwriters and musicians Mickey Newbury, Townes Van Zandt, Jerry Jeff Walker, Kay Oslin, Frank Davis, Gary White and Crow Johnson. He married his first wife, folksinger Susan Spaw, and they had a son Travis in 1966.

In 1969, after splitting with Susan, Guy moved to San Francisco and again joined Minor Wilson in a guitar repair shop. Within a year, he moved back to Houston, met and fell in love with a beautiful dark haired painter named Susanna Talley. Susanna moved from Oklahoma City to Houston to be with Guy and after a few months, she sold a painting to fund the couple’s move to Los Angeles. Guy landed a job building Dobros at the Dopyera Brothers Original Musical Instruments Company. He played with a bluegrass band on the weekends and pitched his songs to publishing companies in between. 

He signed a publishing deal with Sunbury Dunbar and moved to Nashville in the fall of 1971. He and Susanna crashed on songwriter Mickey Newbury’s houseboat for a few weeks and then moved into a small rental house at 1307 Chapel Avenue in East Nashville. Guy and Susanna returned to Newbury’s houseboat on January 14, 1972 along with Mickey and Susan Newbury and Townes Van Zandt as best man; the five friends sailed up the Cumberland River to the Sumner County Courthouse where Guy Clark and Susanna Talley married.

In that first year in East Nashville Susanna and Townes wrote “Heavenly Houseboat Blues,” while Guy turned out “Desperados Waiting for a Train,” “L.A. Freeway,” and “That Old Time Feeling.” By the time Guy released Old No. 1, his debut critically acclaimed album for RCA Records in 1975, he had written several soon-to-be classic songs including “She Ain’t Going Nowhere,” “Let Him Roll,” “Rita Ballou,” and “Texas 1947.”

He jumped from RCA to Warner Brothers in 1978, scoring a number one song with Ricky Skaggs’s take on “Heartbroke” in 1982 and breaking into the Billboard country chart with “Homegrown Tomatoes” in 1983. Clark hit his stride when he signed with Sugar Hill Records in 1989, and then released a string of significant folk and Americana albums with Sugar Hill, Asylum Records and Dualtone Music Group during the next two-and-a-half decades: Old Friends, Boats to Build, Dublin Blues, Keepers, Cold Dog Soup, The Dark, Workbench Songs, Somedays the Song Writes You and his final 2013 Grammy-winning Best Folk Album, My Favorite Picture of You.

For more than forty years, the Clark home was a gathering place for songwriters, folk singers, artists and misfits; many who sat at the feet of the master songwriter in his element, willing Guy’s essence into their own pens. Throughout his long and extraordinary career, Guy Clark blazed a trail for original and groundbreaking artists and troubadours including his good friends Rodney Crowell, Jim McGuire, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Joe Ely, Lyle Lovett, Verlon Thompson, Shawn Camp, and Vince Gill.

His beloved Susanna died from complications of lung cancer in 2012. Due to ongoing health problems, Guy stopped touring and recording shortly thereafter. He is survived by his son Travis and daughter-in-law Krista McMurtry Clark; grandchildren Dylan and Ellie Clark; sisters Caroline Clark Dugan and Jan Clark; manager and friend Keith Case; caretaker and sweetheart Joy Brogdon; nieces, nephews and many, many dear friends, colleagues and fans.

Funeral arrangements are pending.  

        Obituary Written by Tamara Saviano 

Words Spoken Into Existence

From the beginning of time, words were used to speak things into existence.

And God SAID, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Genesis 1:3 ESV

There is a purpose for everything God created through His spoken word.

Words have power.  God chose His spoken word to connect His eternal spiritual reality to the physical world of our lives. Words release power over our lives and the people in it.

We often fail to understand how important words are. We are unaware of the power created by speaking them.

God’s full and good will was unleashed when he spoke his creation into existence, through His Holy Spirit. And it is that same Spirit that now also lives in us just waiting to apply that same power in our lives, according to the word of God.

Words have power, even negative ones.

I grew up believing the enemy’s lies. I wasn’t good enough. I was a failure. I was unworthy and unlovable. I would never be worthy of grace or love. On and on the enemy would ramble.

I believed every word. I was each and every negative defining experience I proclaimed into my life.

Little did I know, the words I heard, for my entire life, would dictate how I acted and how I responded. 

They defined who I was.

Negative self-talk becomes a negative life lived out, and the enemy would love to see nothing more than his lies alive in our heart.  

However, we have the opportunity to receive God’s Word into our life and change absolutely everything. Words create life and they also create death. They raise us up or tear us down. They guide and direct us into action. They define who we are and help us live life along the journey God lays before us.

The act of an all knowing, all loving God was spoken; love was formed into creation.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Genesis 1:26 ESV

God had a bigger plan. He had a purpose for you and for me. His Word creates a healthy connection, wisdom, and brings loving relationships into life. His Word establishes the truth and exposes the enemy’s lies. His Word creates new life through forgiveness and redemption. 

It creates love called into action. 

Jesus defines who we are by His words that are always in truth. Do you live by the defining nature of God?

Do you believe in God’s truth spoken about you?

Do you live life by the truth of His word?

Holy Spirit, come into our lives and empower us with the truth of Your Word. Allow our hearts to be open to the wisdom you have in each word spoken. Allow your word to protect and guide us with confidence. We want to live faithfully, in obedient reverence, glorifying you. Meet us right where we stand. Lead to the path you put before us. Remind us that your word is at the tip of our tongues. It is the spoken instruction you have laid upon our heart. Enlighten us with the power of Your Word.

In Jesus Name, Amen

~ Baring His Beauty,

Tiffany Thomas