as he has explained in numerous interviews about this album, it was inevitable that earle would eventually do a tribute album to one of his two major mentors, the legendary guy clark. his grammy nominated 2009 release ‘townes’ was his tribute to the other one, townes van zandt. that is one of my favorite earle albums, and so i was anxious to hear what he would put together for this one.

earle’s friendship with clark started in 1974, shortly after he had arrived in nashville after hitchhiking from san antonio. he replaced rodney crowell as the bass player in clark’s band. nine of the sixteen songs are taken from clark’s two first albums, ‘old no. 1’ and ‘texas cookin”, so he knew much of the material from playing them relentlessly in his youth. as such, he claims that this was an easy album to make, and indeed it was cut in just a few days with almost no overdubbing.

after my first listen, my initial reaction was ‘this could have been better’. the production is a little rough, and i felt that his vocals were lost in the mix a bit. on top of that, he occasionally slips into his exaggerated southern drawl, which blurs the lyrics even further. this is important, because the primary strength of clark’s work has been his outstanding songwriting. my good friend dave agreed, but encouraged me to give it a few more spins, and he was right.

maybe i was comparing it to ‘townes’, but i think that this one is just different, and yet still a labor of love and admiration. on the last cut, ‘old friends’, earle is joined by a chorus of famous clark admirers – emmylou harris, jerry jeff walker, the aforementioned rodney crowell, terry allen, and a few others. if anything, ‘guy’ is a good introduction to guy clark’s work, if you are not familiar with him. earle is coming here to the kent stage soon, and i hope to see him do much of this material. see you there.