He’s a Man of His Words

Guy Clark has a reputation as one of America’s finest songwriters. Among the many Clark fans who have recorded his starkly evocative songs are Johnny Cash, Jerry Jeff Walker, Emmylou Harris and Ricky Skaggs.

Yet Clark remains a cult figure who has never received much radio or TV exposure, although--with a face like a piece of stale beef jerky and a deep-toned voice that sounds like a cheap bourbon hangover--you’d think he’d be a magnet for movie scouts looking for grizzled-looking character actors.

His latest album, “Keepers,” a live recording released last week, sums up his career with lean acoustic versions of many of his signatures numbers, including “L.A. Freeway,” “Heartbroke” and “Desperados Waiting for the Train,” along with a couple of new tunes, “A Little of Both” and “Out in the Parking Lot.”

The one constant in his tales, which range from stories of outlaws and gunfighters to tender ballads and an ode to home-grown tomatoes, is the quality and potency of his words, which come from a combination of natural talent, a watchful eye and plain old effort.

“Inspiration is a wonderful thing, but it doesn’t just come out perfect all the time,” Clark, who performs Thursday at the Coach House, said in a recent phone interview. “There’s a certain amount of hard work you have to go through to wrangle those words around, or the inspiration for the piece of work doesn’t always come out full-blown.

“There’s usually some inspired thinking. I’m not good at just sitting down and writing from scratch, so I keep a backlog of bar napkins and notes and stuff. Something hits you, and you jot it down. That’s probably the biggest piece of discipline I adhere to--when you have one of those flashes, make sure you write it down because you will not remember it later.”

Clark, 55, came to his muse as a lifelong fan of poetry and folk music. As a boy, he read Robert Frost, Robert W. Service and Dylan Thomas. As a young man, Clark was swept up in the folk revival of the early ‘60s and was, in particular, a fan of Pete Seeger.

Those influences, along with country music, provide the foundation for Clark’s music--although the country influence is more subliminal than celebrated, a natural result of early exposure in Texas.

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On the new album, Clark introduces “Out in the Parking Lot” as “the antithesis of [Brooks & Dunn’s country-pop smash] ‘Boot Scootin’ Boogie.’ ”

“There’s an obvious country influence in my music, although I was never a fan of country music and don’t know that I am still,” he said. “It seems to me that that genre of line dancing and boot-scootin’ and all that stuff takes place inside the club. I had this idea that the real [stuff] goes on in the parking lot.”

The song is archetypal Clark in its snapshot-like lyrics and unapologetically macho subject matter:

Sittin’ on the fender of someone else’s truck

Drinkin’ Old Crow whiskey and hot 7-Up . . .

There’s a couple of cowpokes puttin’ up their dukes

Wasn’t much to it after both of them puked . . .

Oops, there’s a couple who could not wait to get home

They’re probably in love so let’s leave them alone . . .

I love to see the neon dancin’ on the gravel

I love to hear the pickup trucks come unraveled

Out in the parking lot.

Clark has dedicated “Keepers” to fellow Texas singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt, a man with a similar artistic bent and lack of commercial acceptance who died earlier this year.

“We were friends for like 35 years,” Clark said. “We started writing at just about the same time, right when I met him, and we were as close as you could be ever since then. The quality of his work was, to me, breathtaking. It was approaching literature--it was literature as far as I’m concerned. His songs always worked on paper, not just as songs. The place he was coming from still astounds me.”

Among other contemporaries Clark expressed admiration for were singer-songwriters John Prine, Rodney Crowell, Lyle Lovett and Dave Alvin.

And Clark’s best piece of advice for aspiring tunesmiths?

“Just write what you know about,” he said. “Truth is stranger than fiction, so write about stuff you couldn’t possibly make up.”

* Guy Clark, Gina Quartero and Bill Davis play Thursday at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. 8 p.m. $12.50-$14.50. (714) 496-8930.