Guy Clark is the best country songwriter living. I feel confident saying that, since the passing of his contemporary Townes Van Zandt a decade-and-a-half ago. And he’s also one of the best-loved by his contemporaries and those he has mentored over the past few decades, in both Nashville and Austin. For Clark’s 70th birthday on November 6, 2011, a bunch of those folks got together and recorded a tribute, which was released just a couple of days after that birthday.
There aren’t many of those contemporaries left, and most of them are represented here. And they’re all of that generation of songwriters and singers who were mostly pigeonholed by the music biz as “folk” instead of country. And if they’re nominated for a Grammy these days, as Guy was for his album Somedays The Song Writes You in 2009, it’s usually in a folk category. Folks like Jerry Jeff Walker, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, John Prine and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, those are his contemporaries, and they’re all here. And then there’s the next generation of singers, whom he and his wife Suzanna nurtured along the way, including Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, Rosanne Cash, Joe Ely, Robert Earl Keene, Ray Wylie Hubbard. And yet another generation, such as James McMurtry, Ron Sexsmith, Hayes Carll.
This tribute has 30 tracks on two discs performed by 33 Americana artists, all friends and colleagues of Clark or musicians who have been influenced by him and his songs. They’re backed by a superb house band and a rotating cast of other players, recording in Nashville and Austin. Some of the proceeds will benefit the Center for Texas Music History at Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas.
Any compilation of this scope will have some tracks that work better than others – and of course that’s always a subjective judgment – but I think this one has a higher percentage of winners than most. No surprise, with material this good. My favorites today (with the exception of one which I’ll get to shortly) are a couple of catchy food-related songs, Ray Wylie Hubbard’s take on “Home Grown Tomatoes” and the spirited and soulful rendition of “Texas Cookin’ ” by Gary Nicholson, Darrell Scott and Tim O’Brien. I think the best rendition of any song on this collection, though, is Crowell’s heartfelt “That Old Time Feeling,” which leads off the first disc.
But this tribute is deep with excellent work. Lovett nails “Anyhow I Love You,” as does Ely with “Dublin Blues.” And Terri Hendrix with “The Dark.” Prine and Harris do an achingly heartfelt “Magnolia Wind.” I can’t think of any singers more perfect for “Desperadoes Waiting For A Train” and “Hemingway’s Blues” than Willie and Kris, respectively. I could also say the same of Walker’s album closer, “My Favorite Picture Of You.” McMurtry neatly handles “Cold Dog Soup,” and Clark’s long-time accompanist Verlon Thompson shines on “All Through Throwing Good Love After Bad.” “The Guitar” might as well have been written for Ramblin’ Jack, a great and underrated player of the titular instrument. Suzy Bogguss gets “Instant Coffee Blues” just right, that balance of poignancy and ironic wit. A couple of the covers seem to me to lean a bit too heavy on the poignancy, including Shawn Camp’s “Homeless” and The Trishas’ “She Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” and the arrangements on a few songs are a bit heavy-handed. But overall, this is a tribute worthy of its subject.
(Icehouse, 2011)
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