An Interview With Songwriting Legend Guy Clark
For those of you unfamiliar with Guy Clark, he's a number of things: a folk musician, a guitar designer, and most of all, a songwriter. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Foundation's Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004, earned Americana Music Association's Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting in 2005, and received the honor of being named the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum's 2006 Artist-In-Residence.
Gearwire's Patrick Ogle had the great opportunity to sit down with the songwriting legend in Clark's guitar studio in Nashville. Guy shows off a guitar that he not only crafted himself but also prefers to play over acoustics with famous names.
Check out Guy Clark's guitar and hear what he has to say about it by watching this video, and be sure to stick around for more conversation with Clark.
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PATRICK OGLE: Well, you're saying that you don't build for any. You've given guitars.
GUY CLARK: Yeah.
PATRICK OGLE: Three guitars away.
GUY CLARK: Yeah.
PATRICK OGLE: But you don't -- You just build them for yourself. Now, how would you honestly rate your guitars compared to like the kind of Martins and stuff that you've played?
GUY CLARK: Oh, I think they're much better. I mean I played that thing. It's such a subjective question, you know. I mean it's not a contest. It's like this guitar sounds great to me today, you know, and I love it, and I bet if I put brand new strings on my Martin or that hiding that this guitar would be better to me.
PATRICK OGLE: It's your mood. It’s about your mood.
GUY CLARK: Well that and having a really good tool. I mean that's setup that just does everything in tune and sounds good, you know, so that you're not fighting this instrument to try to do something creative with so that, you know, I mean having a guitar that plays in tune is like a whole other thing than any guitar you buy off the rack.
PATRICK OGLE: Right.
GUY CLARK: You know.
PATRICK OGLE: Now when was the last time -- What was the last time you played something which just was an off-the-rack kind of guitar? I mean it's that like a shock when you're -- I mean because I've talked to other --
GUY CLARK: I have a Martin. Basically that is. You know, I ordered it from Martin but --
PATRICK OGLE: But you fix that guitar?
GUY CLARK: Oh yeah.
PATRICK OGLE: Yeah.
GUY CLARK: A bunch.
PATRICK OGLE: Now, do you -- When you get a guitar like that, do you always fix it? Do you always change something like that?
GUY CLARK: If I intend to play it, I mean I'll fix whatever needs to be fixed, and it's usually personal. It's usually the intonation. I've kind of gotten into -- Well it's nut intonation where you compensate up here as well as down here at the saddle, you know, so that this guitar does not play out of tune at the first fret or first position.
PATRICK OGLE: Okay.
GUY CLARK: You know how most guitars you'll pick up and you'll play a G chord and A chord, and then you hit the D chord and, you know, make you do like that. This guitar will not do that if it's intoned to begin with.
PATRICK OGLE: So, this is one of yours.
GUY CLARK: Yeah. This is what I've been playing on stage. It's got the Richard McClish pickups.
PATRICK OGLE: Is that what you use on everything? The McClish one? The McClish pickups? This is I think is great here, the low profile.
GUY CLARK: Yeah.
PATRICK OGLE: Because that just. It just -- It just looks nicer.
GUY CLARK: Oh yeah.
PATRICK OGLE: And it's just -- The other [OVERLAPPING]
GUY CLARK: On the other hand, it makes me cringe to see those on any guitar.
PATRICK OGLE: The big horrible plastic ones.
GUY CLARK: Yeah.
PATRICK OGLE: If you think you have a nice guitar in there, you --
GUY CLARK: Yeah.
PATRICK OGLE: And you'll hold onto it.
GUY CLARK: I believe it. You don't have to convince me. It makes me pee.
a great interview, thank you
interesting
Great Interview
alas these were not
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