Writing About Guy Stuff : Clark Bases Songs on Personal, Particular Experiences and Raises Them Above the Mainstream

Duty comes before pleasure in a critic’s listening day, and on a recent shift in front of the stereo, I had the chore of hearing yet another uninspired mainstream country careerist sing another unadventurous would-be mainstream country hit about how the only constant in this life is change.

It was safe and familiar, qualities that dominate Nashville’s commercial mainstream as thoroughly and predictably as the NFC dominates the Super Bowl. It made such an impression that I can’t remember now who the singer was.

Pleasure is within reach, though, if you get lucky or know where to look. Duty and pleasure coincided as I listened to “Craftsman,” a recent two-disc compilation of three albums Guy Clark put out in the 1980s.

There was Clark, the veteran singer-songwriter from Texas, applying his nettled and crusty voice to that same tired business about change being the only constant.

But nobody worthy of “craftsman” as an honorific would submit tired work, and the song Clark was singing, “South Coast of Texas,” proved that with a keen eye for unfolding life, an idea that’s familiar and old can be cast in a fresh light.

In the cars of my youth

How I tore through those sand dunes

Cut up my tires

On them oyster shell roads

But nothin’ is forever

Say the old men in the shipyards

Turnin’ trees into shrimp boats,

Hell, I guess they ought to know

Nothing bland or familiar there. The theme is universal and well-worn, but it’s evoked with a slice of life that belongs to the man singing it and nobody else.

That individuality has made Clark one of the acknowledged deans of pop music’s Harvard of the West: the school of Texas-bred singer-songwriters who have tuned their guitars to a mixture of folk, country and blues while turning their craft to the task of being imaginative and fresh. Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Nanci Griffith, Michelle Shocked and many more point to Clark as an early leader in their calling.

As one who deals in particulars, Clark, 54, points to some particular experiences that formed him as a songwriter. His love of good lyrics can be traced back to childhood, where it was a family custom to read poetry aloud to pass an evening.

“It was pre-TV days. Maybe some nights we’d play Monopoly, some we’d read poetry,” Clark recalled in a phone interview from his home in Nashville (Clark plays tonight at the Crazy Horse Steak House in a duo format, accompanied by his son, Travis, on bass).

“It wasn’t an everyday ritual, but it was certainly an important experience in my life.” Spirited reading was encouraged, so those poetic renditions gave Clark his early experience in how to put across a lyric with telling inflections--a skill that has come in handy given his lack of a songbird’s voice.

Clark began playing the guitar at 16 or 17, under the unlikely tutelage of his father’s law partner, Lola Bonner, who taught him Mexican folk music. He later branched into the traditional English and American folk that was the currency of the late-’50s folk boom.

By the mid-’60s, Clark was in Houston, hanging out at the Jester, the only folk-music bar in town. There, in one night, he met two important fellow-travelers: Townes Van Zandt, who Clark says reinforced the idea that songs should have some of the qualities of good literature, and Jerry Jeff Walker, who temporarily became Clark’s roommate. In the middle ‘70s, Walker’s recordings of “Desperados Waiting for a Train” and “L.A. Freeway” brought Clark’s work to a wide audience for the first time.

After a fling in Los Angeles, where he built Dobro guitars but not much career momentum, Clark moved to Nashville and debuted in 1975 with the album “Old No. 1.”

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Every few years since, a new batch of songs has emerged for his cult-level following. The latest is “Dublin Blues,” which features a typical cast of Clark admirers in supporting roles--among them Rodney Crowell (one of Clark’s regular songwriting partners), Emmylou Harris, Kathy Mattea, Sam Bush and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott.

Clark has been willing to dig deep into some of his most intensely personal experiences for songs. “The Randall Knife,” originally recorded in the mid-’80s, but now redone on “Dublin Blues” because Clark wanted to give it a more intimate treatment, without drums, recounts how a prized heirloom blade served as a relic for mourning his father’s death.

“Desperados Waiting for a Train” was another song-as-eulogy, written for an oil driller named Jack Prigg.

“That one’s as true as I can make it, about a guy who was kind of like my grandfather,” Clark said. “He lived in my grandmother’s hotel [in West Texas] from the time I was born. During World War II, my dad was overseas, and he was the male figure around.

“[Grief] is a cathartic experience, and it’s worth writing about, I think.”

Clark is capable of sheer whimsy--”Baby Took a Limo to Memphis,” from “Dublin Blues,” is a funky blues that recounts how his wife and fellow songwriter, Susanna Clark, decided to take a 200-mile limousine excursion.

But his hallmark is the morally trenchant song of ethical wisdom that explores the values he would like to uphold--numbers such as “Stuff That Works,” about cherishing the enduring relationships and symbols in life: “Stuff that’s real, stuff you feel/The kind of stuff you reach for when you fall.”

“Mostly I’m talking to myself. I’m not trying to preach, I’m just trying to reaffirm what I think is worthwhile,” Clark said of his message songs.

“You basically have to be looking at yourself, talking at yourself, rather than somebody else,” he said. “You don’t put anybody down. And even in my most serious songs, there’s always a little chuckle in there, where you have to laugh at yourself. I like that in songs.”

Clark also likes it when a song he has written gets a nice ride on the commercial country hit-making merry-go-round. Every so often, a hit artist will record a Clark nugget.

Vince Gill (“Oklahoma Borderline”), The Highwaymen (“Desperados Waiting for a Train”), Rodney Crowell (“She’s Crazy for Leavin’ ”) and Ricky Skaggs (“Heartbroke”) have helped Clark reap what he calls “a nice bonus” from songwriting royalties on hot-selling albums.

“Jenny Dreams of Trains,” a song Clark and Grammy-winner Gill recently wrote together about Gill’s daughter, might make it onto Gill’s next release.

“I have access to [the mainstream] if I have something that suits it, but I don’t really write to that situation,” Clark said. “I’ve tried [to write with hit artists in mind], and I’m just not very good at it. Most of my success has come from writing songs from my point of view, songs that I want to do, and then having other people do ‘em after the fact.”

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In an ideal world, the Nashville mainstream would move away from formula songwriting--”it’s a little repetitive,” Clark says with understatement--and toward strong individual voices.

“If I knew the answer [to achieving that], I’d be wealthy,” Clark said. “It happens every once in a while, something slips through, just like Townes’ “Pancho and Lefty” was a No. 1 hit for Willie and Merle. That’s a pretty serious piece of work.

“Things like that do happen, but you can’t make it happen,” he said. “You can make it available to ‘em, but it doesn’t always sell soap on the radio, and that’s a fact of life.”

Clark’s latest recording deal, with Asylum Records, has lapsed, but he isn’t anxious about his next step.

“I’m in the process of writing for a new album and entertaining several offers to work with another record company. I can always get a deal, not necessarily with a major, giant record label. Until I have 10 songs I want to record, it doesn’t make a difference. If I could get [an album] done every couple of years, it would be great.”

With Clark, who has worked deliberately while turning out eight albums in 21 years, the timing of his output may vary, but the quality of craftsmanship is pretty much guaranteed.

* Guy Clark plays tonight at the Crazy Horse Steak House, 1580 Brookhollow Drive, Santa Ana. 7 p.m. $22.50. (714) 549-1512.