Search - Guy Clark :: Craftsman

On the great continuum of tough-but-smart, hard-but-sensitive country-western singer-songwriters, Guy Clark cut his notch after Jimmy Rogers, Hank Williams, and Johnny Cash, and, before Roseanne Cash, Lucinda Williams, and Lyle Lovett. Making a name more from his pen than his voice, Clark is cut from the same sun-parched and wind-chapped Texas realm that yielded Townes Van Zandt. And with a hint of a bohemian (if not quite hippie) sensibility mixed in with his L.A./Nashville new country glide, Clark's work suggests what might have come from Gram Parsons had he survived the '70s. Craftsman is a 2 CD reissue comprised of three consecutive records Clark laid down for Warner Brothers between 1978 and 1983: Guy Clark, The South Coast of Texas, and Better Days. The entire trilogymines a hefty 30 songs from Clark's most prolific, and most successful, period as a recording artist. For those who came to country on the Garth Brooks wave Craftsman sounds like it could have been recorded yesterday, or for that matter, forty years ago. There's bits of all country flavors on Craftsman: from the Jimmy Buffett easy adult sounds of Crowell's "Voilà, An American Dream" to the dry and scathing late-Dylanisms of "Fool on the Roof Blues," the country of "The Houston Kid," and the elegant western pop of "Fools For Each Other" and "Shade Of All Greens." No adolescent angst here, Craftsman is for listeners who've already grown up. --Roni Sarig