guy clark without getting killed or caught

While, personally, I’ve never quite understood why so many people put up with Townes Van Zandt’s antics and addictions (although many certainly did), Saviano paints a very different picture of Guy Clark: a warm, caring, loyal, talented and generous individual who knew how to write a song, paint a picture, build a guitar and have fun. It would certainly seem that Clark shared many a bottle, joint and young lady with Townes Van Zandt, up to and probably including Clark’s wife, Susanna Talley, who took to her bed upon Van Zandt’s death and never really arose from it. Friends Billy Joe Shaver, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Kris Kristofferson, Vince Gill, Joe Ely, Bobby Bare, Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt and protégés Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell surrounded Clark in one way or another his whole life. Guy Clark newer outgrew his Texas roots, and both his music and his posse reflected his origins, despite the decades spent in Los Angeles and Nashville where he earned a living as a songwriter.

Van Zandt (“Pancho and Lefty,” “If I Needed You,” “Marie”) has several biographies under his tombstone, but now writer, PR representative and record producer Tamara Saviano has produced the first American Clark biography, which, while notably friendly, seems definitive. Freeway” and “Baby I’m Yours” spent much of his life in the company of-and to an extent, the shadow of-his dear friend and fellow hard-partier Townes Van Zandt.

Guy Clark, the handsome, charismatic and poetic Texan who penned such memorable tunes as “Desperados Waiting for a Train,” “L.A.

Guy clark without getting killed or caught