Guy Clark has made an indelible mark on Texas music. He may not have many #1 hits (just one, "Heartbroke," by Ricky Skaggs in 1982), but over three decades he has crafted an enduring catalog of poetic story-songs and directly influenced a legion of singer/songwriters — like Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, Lyle Lovett, Robert Earl Keen, and Charlie Robison, to name a few.

If you ask Clark about his impact on Texas music, you'll likely get a few sentences of genuinely humble deflection. But if you flip the question and ask about the impact Texas has had on him, then you'll get to know the real Guy Clark story.

He's lived in Nashville since the early 1970s, but "home" will always mean Texas.

Clark's first taste of home came in Monahans, where he was born on November 6, 1941. Asked to describe Monahans, Clark points out its ordinariness. "Ooh, it was flat," he says, and then laughs. "It was a small town just like any other town."

Yet Clark's childhood wasn't just like any other childhood. His grandmother owned a small hotel in town. With Pyote Air Force Station less than 20 miles away, he grew up around World War II–era bomber pilots getting ready to go to Europe or just back from combat.

While told not to make too much noise or get in the men's way, he nonetheless bonded with many of the guests. They gave him an Eisenhower jacket and medals to pin onto the jacket. After the war, they gave him a tour of the Enola Gay before it was transferred to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Clark enjoyed growing up among the servicemen, many of whom were lonesome and happy to find a young friend. "It was like a big family," he says.

While the Air Force was a major presence in the area, oil was king in West Texas, and Monahans was no exception. Jack Prigg, the "drifter and a driller of oil wells" immortalized in "Desperadoes Waiting for a Train," used to take Clark with him when inspecting oil derricks.

The Texas and Pacific Railroad passed through this oil-rich town. While most trains stopped at the Monahans depot to take on water and any awaiting passengers, that began to change with the introduction of express trains.

Clark memorialized the momentous shift in train patterns with "Texas 1947," in which he vividly captures the curiosity that accompanied the new engines — as well as the uncertainty.

For Clark, as for many listeners touched by "Texas 1947," it proved a watershed moment. "I've never forgotten that day," he says. "It was just something that had always stuck in my mind." Only it may never have happened. "My parents didn't remember the incident, but I don't think I made it up."

Clark's father enrolled in law school around 1950. The family moved to Houston, but left the claustrophobic campus housing and headed home to Monahans any time there was a break.

After graduating from law school, Clark's father would pile the family into the car and simply drive from town to town. "I remember driving all through Texas-literally," he says. These road trips served two purposes: to get out of the city, and to find a small town that needed a lawyer. "That opportunity finally presented itself in Rockport," Clark says.

Nestled on Live Oak Peninsula between Aransas and Copano Bays, about 30 miles north of Corpus Christi, Rockport is a small town of about 5,000 residents. There's not much industry in Rockport, but it was — and still is — a major hub for the Gulf shrimping industry. And for more than a century, it has also been home to a number of shipbuilders.

Clark and his family lived just two blocks from the coast. He could smell the briny water and see the boatsmen navigating the bay.

As a teenager, he worked summers as a carpenter's helper in the local boatyards. "These were the last of the guys building the great 80-foot shrimp boats," says Clark. "It's just a lost art." He has memorialized these craftsmen throughout his career, including songs like "Boats to Build."

"It was the greatest experience in my life," he says. No matter how far he lives from the Gulf today, coastal Texas remains a part of his soul.

It was also around this time Clark acquired his first guitar, a simple instrument from Paracho, Mexico. He soon began to disassemble and reassemble the guitar, then to craft his own imitations. Guitar building is a pursuit Clark continues to this day.

Besides studying the craftsmanship of the guitar, he of course also learned to play it. "The first time I saw people sitting around a room and passing a guitar around, I was hooked," he says.

Clark attended college in Houston, but he was drawn more to the city's burgeoning music scene than to its academic offerings. Specifically, he was attracted to the Houston Folklore Society, headed by John Lomax, Jr., son of the legendary folk music archivist. "They had gatherings in a park once a week," he says, "just 30 or 40 people sitting around playing songs."

It was through such gatherings and the contacts made there that Clark met Texas bluesmen Mance Lipscomb and Lightnin' Hopkins, as well as young folk singer Townes Van Zandt. The friendship between Townes and Guy would become the stuff of legends.

"When I met him he'd written about two songs, and he was maybe on the verge of writing one more," says Clark. "We were kind of on an even par." Both men were on the cusp of legendary careers, although each still struggled to find his voice and develop a unique point of view.

For Clark, the breakthrough came when he began tapping into his upbringing in Monahans and Rockport. "When I started writing some songs, those old memories just started floating back," he says.

Those songs took Clark to California, where he worked in a Dobro factory while trying to break into the music industry. He penned "L.A. Freeway" out of frustration and homesickness. And it was in California that he met wife Susanna, his muse of sorts the last 30-odd years.

The Clarks left L.A. and headed east, but not home to Texas. Instead they landed in Nashville, where both Guy and Susanna would find work as songwriters and build the tight-knit community of expatriate Texan musicians captured in the documentary Heartworn Highways.

While the Clarks still live in Nashville, Texas is never far from Guy's mind.

When asked if he ever thinks about moving back, he answers, "Every day." Where? "Texas. Anywhere. Just Texas."

For Guy Clark, Texas is more than just a fertile ground for songwriting material. No matter where he lives, no matter what he does, it will always be home.

Patrick Nichols (email)
This Is Texas Music
November 2005