Guy Clark: Master Craftsman

Workbench Songs
Guy Clark
Dualtone
Release date: Oct. 17

It's tempting to begin a review of Guy Clark's new album, "Workbench Songs," by comparing his songwriting to another of his crafts � guitar building. It's also too easy.

Half of the review would be laid out for me already. The cover of the disc features a close-up of Clark clutching the headstock on one of his hand-built beauties. Flip the jewel case over, and there he is again, cracking a slight, smart-ass smile and strumming an E chord on what is likely the same instrument.

The lutherie analogy is appropriate. Clark's songs, which have been covered by artists such as Jerry Jeff Walker, Johnny Cash and Rodney Crowell among many, many others, are assembled carefully. They're free of flash and honest to the bone. Likewise, his guitars lack lavish adornment but are beautiful nonetheless. If you're a fan, you already know how great they sound.

The sound of the disc follows suit. Clark's weathered, well-worn voice is backed by only acoustic guitar, mandolin, fiddle and bass on most tracks, with touches of viola, cello and trumpet added for occasional color. The simple sound is perfect for the songs, which are full of emotion and wry observation but utterly devoid of pretension.

Suffice it to say that the 64-year-old Clark, who made this album while battling lymphoma, is a master in the Texas songwriting tradition, and many fine tunes have come forth from his Nashville workshop. The title of this disc is right on the money. He is, to cite the title of an earlier compilation, a craftsman, and these songs came figuratively and literally from the workbench.

There's another fitting analogy, though. In "Walkin' Man," the first track on "Workbench Songs," Clark praises some of those who boldly blazed trails. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is alluded to, and Chuck Berry, Gandhi and Woody Guthrie merit specific mention. Clark might not have "killed a fascist every day" (as he says Guthrie and his famous guitar did), but he too is a walking man, in the sense that he's been around and he's seen a lot. And, oh, does he have stories to tell.

A new Clark CD is like a long-overdue visit from your favorite Uncle Guy. Cigarettes are rolled. War stories are told. And when it's over, your mom breathes a sigh of relief because nobody lost an eye.

Clark surely can make up stories and characters to live in them, and he can turn a phrase in such a way as to bring a tear to your eye. But you know there's some basis in truth in the lines about a tornado that could "blow the tattoo off of your arm" ("Tornado Time in Texas") or sitting on the fender of a pickup in some dirt parking lot "drinkin' Old Crow whiskey and hot 7-Up" ("Out in the Parkin' Lot").

Whether they're fact or fiction, Clark fleshes out his lyrics with a novelist's eye for detail. Even if you've never been in that parking lot (or one like it), you still can imagine the "neon dancin' on the gravel," and hear the sound of the "pickup trucks come unraveled."

"Out in the Parkin' Lot," which was previously released on the 1997 live collection, "Keepers," is a co-write with Darrell Scott. Clark has co-written in the past, but really seems to have taken to it on "Workbench Songs." Nine of the 11 songs are collaborations, and the other two are a Townes Van Zandt cover ("No Lonesome Tune") and the traditional "Diamond Joe."

Clark's collaborators include Scott, longtime sideman Verlon Thompson ("Tornado Time in Texas," "Analog Girl"), Crowell ("Expose"), Steve Nelson ("Walkin' Man") and Gary Nicholson and Lee Roy Parnell ("Worry B Gone").

Clark and BR549's Chuck Mead are having a good year. They joined forces on BR549's "Lower Broad St. Blues" on that band's disc, "Dog Days," in January. On "Workbench Songs," they turn out "Cinco De Mayo in Memphis," a humorous tune about Mexicans landing in town and heading straight for Graceland.

Humor has a hand in a few of these songs, including "Tornado Time in Texas," "Expose," "Worry B Gone" and, just to prove the Clark and co-writer Thompson are hip to modern technology, "Analog Girl": "Ones and zeroes, zeroes and ones / She'll have none of that virtual fun / She's a real deal ol' fashioned analog girl / In a digital world."

Life's not always funny, though, and Clark touches on those times, too. The protagonist, somewhat ironically, of Clark and Ray Stephenson's "Funny Bone" is a rodeo clown whose gal runs off with the new bull rider: "Tears and grease paint will not mix / And old dogs will not learn new tricks / He's got that smile painted on, and we all knew what was wrong / She broke his funny bone." In Clark and Stephenson's "Magdalene," a restless soul tries to convince a pretty girl to run away with him, south of the border, where they can "be somebody else tonight."

Clark and Thompson close out the album with a dedication in the form of "a big ol' swing of the cowboy hat" to another traveler, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, with a home-recorded "Diamond Joe." The infamously despicable rancher, who "carries all his money in a diamond-studded jaw" and "never was much bothered by the process of the law," sounds like a character the meticulous Clark might have created.