Guy Clark

Looking For The Words: Live at the U of H Coffee House features Guy Clark performing solo acoustic versions of early originals and illuminating covers Let’s travel back to October 30, 1970: A week before his 29th birthday, Guy Clark is performing on the University of Houston campus. Back in his home state after a short stint in California, Clark is still a couple years away from moving to Nashville, where his career as a songwriter would flourish. On this night, he delights a small coffeehouse audience with 12 original songs plus a half-dozen covers. And, as it happens, a reel-to-reel tape recorder is running. The tape was lost until 2021 when the opening act for that night, John Kunz, found the tape stuck in a cavity behind a storage tray.

Looking For The Words: Live at the U of H Coffee House features Guy Clark performing solo acoustic versions of early originals and illuminating covers Let’s travel back to October 30, 1970: A week before his 29th birthday, Guy Clark is performing on the University of Houston campus. Back in his home state after a short stint in California, Clark is still a couple years away from moving to Nashville, where his career as a songwriter would flourish. On this night, he delights a small coffeehouse audience with 12 original songs plus a half-dozen covers. And, as it happens, a reel-to-reel tape recorder is running. The tape was lost until 2021 when the opening act for that night, John Kunz, found the tape stuck in a cavity behind a storage tray.

Guy Clark, channeler of the human condition, plainspoken poet, master luthier, seasoned painter and damn fine guitar player, was above all a man. Probably the closest thing to Hemingway Nashville - or the Lone Star State - would ever see: lean prose, gut strings ringing and a hard-won dignity that embraced tenderness as the ultimate manifest of toughness.

We’ll never know exactly how humans discovered song. Maybe cave dwellers howled along with wolves until melodies came out. But it’s a good bet that as soon as they began uttering words, songwriters became storytellers. And so we have an unbroken line (or, better yet, circle) that draws us directly to Guy Clark. His latest, Songs and Stories, is simply Clark doing what he does best: relating life’s joys and sorrows, from “Homegrown Tomatoes” to “The Randall Knife,” in song.

We’ll never know exactly how humans discovered song. Maybe cave dwellers howled along with wolves until melodies came out. But it’s a good bet that as soon as they began uttering words, songwriters became storytellers. And so we have an unbroken line (or, better yet, circle) that draws us directly to Guy Clark. His latest, Songs and Stories, is simply Clark doing what he does best: relating life’s joys and sorrows, from “Homegrown Tomatoes” to “The Randall Knife,” in song.

Guy Clark, live at the Great American Music hall, San Francisco on 15th October 1988. Although he was never a prolific recording artist, the legendary Guy Clark was one of the most esteemed singer-songwriters of his generation. Originally broadcast on KSAN-FM, this superb live set includes material that spans the length of his career, including several songs from his recently released Old Friends album.