This One's For Him: A Tribute
to Guy Clark
Various Artists
As presents go, it’s hard to beat
what Guy Clark’s friends got him for his 70th birthday. An all-star collection of
buddies, road partners and fans got together and recorded 30 of his songs and
called it This One's For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark. It may
be for him, but thankfully, it’s also for us.
The guest list is elbow to elbow with
folks like Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Rodney Crowell and Vince Gill;
Texans like Lyle Lovett, Robert Earl Keen, and Ray Wylie Hubbard; Verlon
Thompson, Steve Earle and John Townes Van Zandt II. The core Nashville band of Shawn Camp,
Thompson, & pianist Jen Gunderman recorded these tracks live in studio with
the help of Lloyd Maines, Mike Bub and Kenny Malone and are consistently
flawless throughout. Camp co-produced
with Grammy-winner Tamara Saviano, who is working with Guy on his
much-anticipated biography.
The highlights are stunning: Patty
Griffin pulls The Cape around her
like it always belonged there; James McMurtry’s take on Cold Dog Soup is chilling; Camp delivers the best version of Homeless I’ve ever heard; and the duet Emmylou Harris and John
Prine make out of Magnolia Wind make
the record worth owning. And while no song is a clunker, too many add
clutter. Given the number of songs Guy has written, and the artists he’s
influenced, the record could easily have been twice as large. But a better record would be half this size.
The fact that I can complain about
the record being too big while silently listing three or four songs I wish had
been on here tells you what kind of songwriter Guy Clark is, what an American
treasure he is and why these artists lined up to be part of this.
Curtis Lynch
December 2011
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