Home‎ > ‎The Pantheon‎ > ‎Somewhat Appreciated Items‎ > ‎

Roy Clark

ROY CLARK
 
 
Roy Clark  (born April 15, 1933) is an American country music musician and performer.  He is best known for co-hosting Hee Haw, a nationally televised country variety show, from 1969 to 1992.  Roy Clark has been an important and influential figure in country music, both as a performer and helping to popularize the genre.  Clark is highly regarded and renowned as a guitarist and banjo player, and is also skilled in classical guitar and several other instruments.  Although he has had hit songs as a pop vocalist (e.g., “Yesterday, When I Was Young” and “Thank God and Greyhound”), his instrumental skill has had an enormous effect on generations of bluegrass and country musicians.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
Wanda Jackson became the “queen of rockabilly” when Elvis Presley himself encouraged her to sing rockabilly when she toured with him in 1955-1956, but she began moving toward pure country when she had an early hit song with the title track “Right or Wrong” on her 1961 album Right or Wrong.  Near the end of the arc of her rockabilly career, she recorded one of the songs on my All-Time Top Ten, the sublime “Funnel of Love” with her hot new band, the Party Timers that featured a young Roy Clark.  This was yet another song that was introduced to me on a Born Bad CD.
 
(May 2011)
 
*       *       *
 

It is difficult to describe “Funnel of Love”; it is not a traditional rockabilly song, that’s for sure, and I have heard Roy Clark’s innovative guitar technique that more or less mimics a sitar on at least one other track of hers.  The mood is spooky and almost psychedelic – all the more so for having several kinds of background singers and a strategically placed “ting” of a triangle from time to time.  It is definitely a one-of-a-kind record:  Wanda Jackson never recorded another song quite like this one, and no one else ever did either. 

 
(June 2013/2)