First published in  Lonely Goat Print Magazine Volume III - #1

It's a Guy Thing
by J.D. Edwards (January, 2000)

Recently I had an opportunity to see one of my lyrical heroes, Guy Clark, up close and personal at the Carolina Theatre in Durham. Guy is on the road in support of his latest release, Cold Dog Soup, on the Sugar Hill label so naturally Durham was a logical choice considering the fact that it is the label's home base.

The small Bluegrass label surely signed a dandy with this Guy. He is a masterful songwriter and beyond that one of the few poets in the music biz. Like the true poet, he suggests more about a person or situation by what he leaves out as opposed to what he includes. The job of the poet is not to come right out and reveal what they're feeling but to suggest it through imagery and allow the reader or listener to draw their own conclusions. Guy is well versed at telling the listener just what they need to know and then leaving just the right amount of open space for imagination to take over.

He is also a downright magician with language - not just the evocativeness with which he describes everything but also his economy of language. He can capture so much emotion and character in the simplest of phrases. Lines like "I have been too proud to come in out of the rain" from "Dublin Blues" capture so much about a character with such a seemingly simple phrase that, in the context of the song, reveals layers of depth about that individual's personality and life history.

Actually Guy's greatest strength is his pinpoint characterization. He is able to pick up on the minute details, which convey so much about someone's whole life with just a few lines. His saddest song, "Let Him Roll," is about a drunkard who drops out of life because the woman he loves turns down his marriage proposal in favor of remaining a prostitute.

Guy nails down a vivid portrait with only two simple lines: "He was an elevator man at a cheap hotel in exchange for the rent on a one room cell/ and he's old years beyond his time, no thanks to the world and the White Port wine." The listener immediately understands where he lives, works, what he probably looks like, what his recreational habits are and can fill in a great deal from there. Even his choice of words is nothing short of perfect. The phrase "one room cell" is so vivid that the listener can picture the cracking ceiling plaster and water stains, smell the stale must of slovenly indolence and hear the hourly rumble of the "A" Train.

Still more revealing is Guy's portrayal of the same character's mannerisms; speaking in the protagonist's voice, he sings: "Every single day it gets a little bit harder to handle and yet...And then he lost the thread and his mind got cluttered, and his words just rolled off down the gutter." The information tells so much about the character's mind and the way he tells a story without having to come out and say it.

Consider a line from Guy's tribute to the power of imagination, "Flour Cape Song." The song revolves around a man who has possessed the ability to fly from childhood just simply because he ignored the law of gravity, suggesting that the only reason we fail to succeed is because we fail to believe. Guy ties the whole song together in the end with the lines: "All these years the people said he's acting like a kid/ He did not know he could not fly, so he did." The sentiment is so straightforward, so obvious that most never even consider its possibility. But Guy believes, and so should we.

Many of Guy's songs are quite personal and emotional, but he never gives in to those emotions by becoming sappy or self-indulgent. Instead he just presents a situation and allows his listener to feel the pain of missed opportunity or lost love. The powerful "Instant Coffee Blues" is about waking up in the morning next to a complete stranger. Lines like "He laid there and smoke his way through the final hour" and "She had to go work, he just had to go" vividly summarize the awkwardness of an unfulfilling one-night-stand without ever condemning them for their actions. Their own self-pity and uncertainty are punishment enough.

And for all his succinct philosophizing and sly spirituality, Guy can be as tongue-in-cheek and whimsically flippant as Jimmy Buffet. No where is his sense of humor more evident than on his handful of food-related songs such as the silly botanical tribute "Homegrown Tomatoes" or the regional slice-of-life "Texas Cookin." His repertoire also features a bevy of hilarious drinking-related songs like "Out in the Parking Lot" and "Ramblin' Jack and Mahan" which the observant listener can only discern comes from hard-earned life experience.

On stage, Guy isn't much of a guitar player and even pokes fun at that fact sometimes, but that's precisely why he lugs around master picker Verlon Thompson. It's Guy's commanding presence that enraptures, his wise old hobo persona, his no nonsense knack for narrative and his ability to deliver a knockout line in that raspy deadpan voice because these are his characters and he knows them best. Sometimes he's more of a storyteller than a musical entertainer.

He's also a consummate and polished concert showman but prefers to keep it loose enough to go with the flow, often including an audience participation section where members shout out requests and Guy obliges to the best of his recollection. He can also be counted upon to deliver at least one memorable one-liner per performance. Durham was no exception as he stated in reference to his Swiss-cheese memory: "My wife says I can hide my own Easter eggs."

The Carolina Theatre set had everything the die-hard fan could have wanted from a Guy show except for thoroughness. The performance was co-billed with the talented and engaging Jesse Winchester so they each received seventy-five minutes - no more, no less. Jesse was certainly entertaining in his own right, but on this particular evening he just wasn't the Guy. Also, one would have assumed that the two co-performers would have made some attempt during the long evening to share the stage. But the abbreviated set proved to be more of just a warm-up for something else.

And a few days later I found out exactly what that something was. The square yellow information filer form the Spirit of the Suwanee music festival arrived in my mailbox, and lo and behold Guy is scheduled for a return engagement under those stately oaks and mossy shadings. Actually the entire line-up looks like a fantastic mix of old-timey legends like Doc Watson, Ralph Stanley, Norman Blake, Tony Rice and Vassar Clements and songwriting gurus like Guy, Darrell Scott, Peter Rowan and Tim O'Brien along with perennial groove and jam favorites Donna the Buffalo and Blueground Undergrass. Who knows, maybe this year I will realize my hopes for that Darrell Scott and Guy Clark reunion set that eluded me at last year's Springfest.