Sugar Hill
1975
Old No. 1
About This Album
Though Guy Clark recorded only two albums for RCA, the label was fortunate to have him at all at the beginning of his career. If only every country songwriter could release a debut album as auspicious and fine as this one. Houston's Guy Clark, well known to the outlaw movement for his poetic, stripped-to-the-truth songs about ramblers, history, the aged and infirm, the drunken, the lost, and the simple dignity of working people who confront the darkness and joy of life quietly, issued Old #1 when his compadres had already been making waves with his songs. Jerry Jeff Walker had already cut "L.A. Freeway" and other tunes by Clark, as had Gary Stewart, Billy Joe Shaver, and others. But the definitive versions come from Clark himself. On this disc with help from Emmylou Harris, fellow Houstoners (a young) Steve Earle and Rodney Crowell, guitar wizards Chip and Reggie Young, Mickey Raphael on harp, pianist David Briggs, fiddle boss Johnny Gimble, and the angel-voiced Sammi Smith, Clark executed a song cycle that is as intimate and immediate as it is quietly devastating with its vision of brokenness and melancholy, loose wild times, and unforgettable characters. The opener is the up-tempo Texas swing of "Rita Ballou," a woman out for all she can get and then some; the outlaw's statement of love's determination on "L.
Track List

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