November 17, 2018

Farewell Roy

This week, we say farewell to one of Country and Western’s greatest entertainers, Mr. Roy Clark. Roy was one of the greatest musicians of his time. He was a veritable master of the banjo and six and twelve sting guitars. I heard Roy Clark for the first time on my step-fathers’ 8-track tapes. Then I saw him on Hee-Haw, a show that my parents regarded as “wholesome entertainment.” Even as a child, I chuckled every time we watched it, because eighty percent of the women on that show were either Penthouse or Playboy models. Roy was a co-host of that show, along with Buck Owens, another pioneer of Country Music. I saw Roy live for the first and only time of my life when I was about eight or nine years old, at the Las Cruces Civic Center. He was loud, funny, and as good of a guitar player as anyone I knew of. The truth is, Roy Clark was an incredible musician, a smooth vocalist, and an all-around good joe.

Roy Clark was my single greatest influence as an early guitarist. I learned to play guitar using the “Roy Clark Big Note Guitar Songbook,” with numbered stickers that you placed on the guitar’s frets to denote chords. Yeah, there were others like Chet Adkins and Angus Young, but those came years after Roy taught me to play.

I will forever remember Roy Clark best for his English version or “Hier encore,” known worldwide after that as “Yesterday, when I was young.”

That song was awesome to me when I was 15; and is like a life anthem to me at 52.

RIP Roy Clark. You are forever missed, and never forgotten.

-Jim 

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