GUY CLARK

The Dark

CD, Sugar Hill

Guy Clark is a working man. Not only the photographs on the innersleeve of this CD, which show him in front of his working-bench show that. It runs right through these wonderful, very traditional country-songwriter-songs, that vibrate with the best side of Nashville – the emotional, deep, old, wise side that won’t be found in the billboard charts, but in bars and cafés throughout the town (or so I imagine). Hopefully and with help of the rising fame of Johnny Cash in his old days, more people will get interested in this beautiful and real music and get to know Guy Clark. I have the feeling that “The Dark” just as Clark’s last album “Cold Dog Soup” or the legendary “Dublin Blues” will become a classic among fans throughout the world.

Darkness is an important metaphor for a lot of aging country-singers these years. From Johnny Cash covering Will Oldham’s “I see a darkness” via Bob Dylan’s “It’s not dark yet (but it’s getting there)” right down to Guy Clark’s new album, which also vibrates with the wise spirit of a settled, old man, who has seen a lot, thought about it for a long time and is now ready to make peace with the world and sing about what he knows. Guy Clark was always there, while Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson and all the others made big careers, he was there in the shade, no less talented, but not as much gifted with the necessary portion of luck. But he is still here, and that is maybe the core story behind “The Dark”.

The album spans a bridge from the first song “Mud”, which is all about the connection between men and the earth, the feeling of life and nature and all that comes with “mud to mud”, to the title-song, which comes last. And “The Dark” closes this ride with some fantastic lyrics. In-between there are a lot of great moments in the lyrics, some of them political - for instance the anti-war song “Soldier’s Joy” or the song “Homeless” - ,some of them beautiful love-songs such as “Magnolia Wind” or “She loves to ride horses”. The latter one in ¾-time and starting with the interesting line “Two shots of Wild Turkey puts the wind in here hair”. Guy Clark is definitely a genius in opening a whole story in one small line, putting so much in there, that the listener will get interested in the story of the song from the start. Take for instance the song about the death of his dog (which is a real story): “Queenie’s song” which starts with “Some S.O.B. shot my dog / I found her under a tree”, or when he describes a woman in “Arizona star” as “she was a pre-Madonna primadonna part time southern belle” and “she made mirrors she made smoke”. If you don’t see that woman in front of you right there, you ain’t got no imagination. Telling stories is of course the basic of the genre we call songwriters nowadays, but just as his good friends Steve Earle or Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark hasn’t forgotten that a song has to entertain as well, and so he writes them to please. Apropos, he pays tribute to the late great Townes Van Zandt by covering his “Rex’s Blues” in true traditional fashion.

Musically, Guy Clark and his musicians don’t stray anywhere from the traditional path, some chord-progressions are so well-known and well-used that there is really no surprises in there. But progressive expansion of the musical globe is not at all what this is about. A very old and traditional musical genre such as songwriters from Texas can’t and won’t do that, because it would destroy more than it might create. Moreover, Guy Clark is an old man, he turned 60 years already, and acoustic country fits his wisdom best. Which is of course a privilege that comes with age, if a young band stepped from more indie-rock-oriented songs to an album like this, they had to strife really hard to make it not seem either arrogant or ridiculous or both. With Guy Clark, this is what you expect and what is right. The arrangements are sparse, with the occasional drums, fiddles, dobro or mandocello thrown in, but there is always rather less than more – to leave space for Guy Clarks rough, worn-out voice and the words he pronounces. Sometimes he almost stops singing and let’s the story unfold, as in “Homeless”. If you let yourself get drawn into the magic of these songs, the stories behind them and the simple but intriguing melodies, you’ll have a beautiful time with all of them and you’ll understand the old saying of “less is more” as well as “true friendship is the most important thing”. Given all the tragedy and darkness and melancholia, you won’t easily find a record as intimate and intriguing as this one. “One way or another we are all in the dark.”

www.sugarhillrecords.com

11/2002