Roy Clark - great American guitarist and entertainer

[Bombadil]

I never framed my distaste for country and MOR music as 'prejudice,' though I suppose that is what it is. I've always seen it as being on one side of a cultural divide, and country, crooners, and all the rest were not on my side of the divide. Without getting too political here, I think my perception on that was accurate in general. For me, musical choice has always had an element of politics involved.

[Aloysius]

I always liked that type of guitar playing. It's not really country though. It's quite close to Django's Gypsy Jazz.

[digitalboytn]

I never framed my distaste for country and MOR music as 'prejudice,' though I suppose that is what it is. I've always seen it as being on one side of a cultural divide, and country, crooners, and all the rest were not on my side of the divide. Without getting too political here, I think my perception on that was accurate in general. For me, musical choice has always had an element of politics involved.

If you haven't lived in Nashville,you should do it !

It's a great town with some seriously hip hill billies

The talent pool there is astounding and some of the people who you think of as "lame", just might blow your socks off...

Everybody has to pay the bills and feed their families,so the product and public image is "tweaked" to present more commercial appeal...

Even the greatest idealism is tempered by the harshness of reality

[Aloysius]

... some of the people who you think of as "lame", just might blow your socks off...

Terrorists?

[digitalboytn]

... some of the people who you think of as "lame", just might blow your socks off...

Terrorists?

Absolutely terrifying !

Killer guitar players on every corner of every street in Nashville...

And the blow ins are the ones wearing the boots and the hats

[Aloysius]

Tourists.

[filkertom]

I admit I don’t understand this “less known” reference, especially since Harry-HH followed up with a nod to Roy’s extensive, very successful career. He’s not as well known NOW, maybe, but he’s been one of my heroes since first seeing him on Hee Haw in 1970. A few years after that, I got a cassette of him, performing live in Vegas (or someplace where he had a Vegas-style brass-heavy orchestra). The arrangements were kitschy as hell, but there were lots of sections where they’d drop out and Roy would PLAY HIS EFFING HANDS OFF. Truly, one of the legends of banjo and guitar.

[jancivil]

I never framed my distaste for country and MOR music as 'prejudice,' though I suppose that is what it is. I've always seen it as being on one side of a cultural divide, and country, crooners, and all the rest were not on my side of the divide. Without getting too political here, I think my perception on that was accurate in general. For me, musical choice has always had an element of politics involved.

Willie Nelson, though.

I grew up in the south. Yes, largely rednecks or shit-kickers are "conservative". You can't paint everybody with the same brush. I've tried to keep an open mind. All of commercial country sucks, IMO. OTOH I find Hank Williams SENIOR to be authentic af and the music soulful. His son can bite it.

Also out in the middle of the country the lonesome people there might be the ones to help you in a crisis.
The south, man, though... to say more is HPC land.

I had a country band in late 1986.

We seriously considered a chicken-wire fence. Talking about that kind of gig may be why we were on this bill.
"From Waco, TX." We had a whole myth. And tee shirts, awesome tee shirts which sold.
But we did Hank Williams Lonesome Whistle Blow straight.
(our pedal steel player was buying China White in Oakland, yo.)

AND Wichita Lineman. A long one with a guitar solo over the two chord vamp which is only an outro on the Glen Campbell record or whatever it was. AMERICANA.

[Harry_HH]

I admit I don’t understand this “less known” reference, especially since Harry-HH followed up with a nod to Roy’s extensive, very successful career. He’s not as well known NOW, maybe, but he’s been one of my heroes since first seeing him on Hee Haw in 1970. A few years after that, I got a cassette of him, performing live in Vegas (or someplace where he had a Vegas-style brass-heavy orchestra). The arrangements were kitschy as hell, but there were lots of sections where they’d drop out and Roy would PLAY HIS EFFING HANDS OFF. Truly, one of the legends of banjo and guitar.

Hmm... Maybe you understand, if you read your own comment. I'm writing this thread NOW, looking the situation from today's perspective.
Its not my invention, that Roy Clark is not often mentioned among the great guitarists, see e. g. this Rick Beato's, who I greatly respect, summary,
where he goes through about 100 guitar players between 1929-69.
And the same interpretation repeats in many other writings and analyses.
Why? Don't ask me, but history writing is not "fair".



My thread is a modest tribute for Roy Clark, and that salutation should be hard to twist to anything else.

[JasonSpatola]

I had a country band in late 1986.

We seriously considered a chicken-wire fence. Talking about that kind of gig may be why we were on this bill.
"From Waco, TX." We had a whole myth. And tee shirts, awesome tee shirts which sold.
But we did Hank Williams Lonesome Whistle Blow straight.
(our pedal steel player was buying China White in Oakland, yo.)

AND Wichita Lineman. A long one with a guitar solo over the two chord vamp which is only an outro on the Glen Campbell record or whatever it was. AMERICANA.

You played a show with the Mentors? That's amazing. Duuuude.

[Aloysius]

Led Zeppelin stole all my songs.

[jancivil]

It looks like to me the 'greatest' lists celebrate cultural icons and like that rather than virtuosity on the instrument.

Jimmy Page?

[Bombadil]

I never framed my distaste for country and MOR music as 'prejudice,' though I suppose that is what it is. I've always seen it as being on one side of a cultural divide, and country, crooners, and all the rest were not on my side of the divide. Without getting too political here, I think my perception on that was accurate in general. For me, musical choice has always had an element of politics involved.

Willie Nelson, though.

I grew up in the south. Yes, largely rednecks or shit-kickers are "conservative". You can't paint everybody with the same brush. I've tried to keep an open mind. All of commercial country sucks, IMO. OTOH I find Hank Williams SENIOR to be authentic af and the music soulful. His son can bite it.

Also out in the middle of the country the lonesome people there might be the ones to help you in a crisis.
The south, man, though... to say more is HPC land.

I had a country band in late 1986.

We seriously considered a chicken-wire fence. Talking about that kind of gig may be why we were on this bill.
"From Waco, TX." We had a whole myth. And tee shirts, awesome tee shirts which sold.
But we did Hank Williams Lonesome Whistle Blow straight.
(our pedal steel player was buying China White in Oakland, yo.)

AND Wichita Lineman. A long one with a guitar solo over the two chord vamp which is only an outro on the Glen Campbell record or whatever it was. AMERICANA.

I agree, and as I said, my perception was 'accurate in general.' Reality is never so black and white, cut and dried, something that can be difficult for a teenager/angry young man to grasp. Now, I can certainly appreciate talent when I hear/see it, though, ironically, as I've grown older, I have a harder time separating the art from the person, and I've observed that a lot of my 'heroes' when I was young were assholes in real life. But, I had the delusion that I was part of the vanguard that would sweep away all the crap from the past, and it was the music I loved that was showing the way forward. I think it was Lennon's murder that finally, completely, disabused me of that notion.

[Harry_HH]

I had a country band in late 1986.

We seriously considered a chicken-wire fence. Talking about that kind of gig may be why we were on this bill.
"From Waco, TX." We had a whole myth. And tee shirts, awesome tee shirts which sold.
But we did Hank Williams Lonesome Whistle Blow straight.
(our pedal steel player was buying China White in Oakland, yo.)

AND Wichita Lineman. A long one with a guitar solo over the two chord vamp which is only an outro on the Glen Campbell record or whatever it was. AMERICANA.

You played a show with the Mentors? That's amazing. Duuuude.

Yes, respect.
(BTW, I speak English as a foreign language - but do you really call lady a dude? Nothing against dudes, of course.

[jancivil]

everyone is a dude in Ermerika

Particularly here at the KV and R.
I remember a girlfriend of mine in the car with some Indian guy, I think it was his car; she knew the guy from fixing her car... he kept calling her 'bro'. She's a pretty feminine 'chick', too. Finally she spoke up. He didn't care. We laughed our asses off at that one.

Actually we were on that bill w. Mentors and Short Dogs but didn't make it due to an accident. Which helped the myth because it got turned into me losing a whole finger.
I was out of it for three weeks due a sliced tip of my left middle finger. Protecting others, instinctively; from a broken glass window between offices at a work party. f**king partiers. But I found Tom Pitts talking about a tour and teh chicken wire fence just now finding that flier jpg. He writes novels now.

I had all kind of animosity towards rednecks. I was really close to a girl for almost all of my teens whose parents were classic 'necks.
Worse, 'necks with money. They sent her into the mental hospital to separate us.