“The bridge between now not lower than three generations. He was in actuality happy to fragment the pleasure with these round him”: W. C. Clark – the ‘Godfather of Austin Blues’ who mentored Stevie Ray Vaughan and an awfully good deal of others – has died weak 84
W. C. Clark – the influential Austin musician who had an indelible affect on the town’s blues scene and mentored just a few of its most important exports – has died weak 84.
The ideas was reported by primitive Austin Account columnist and music historian Michael Corcoran, who relayed info equipped by Clark’s supervisor, Vicky Moerbe, in an editorial posted to his Substack.
Fixed with Moerbe, Clark checked into Seton Sanatorium after his exhibit at Giddy Ups – a venue the put he held a residency for the closing six years of his existence – on February 20: “It all took location so snappy,” she said. “He was acting inconsistently, now not feeling bask in himself.”
“Now we salvage lost judicious one of many correct masters,” mirrored Carolyn Wonderland, a musician whose band progressively opened for Clark’s salvage. “W.C. was the bridge between now not lower than three generations of Austin musicians. He was in actuality happy to fragment the pleasure and the spotlight with these round him.”
As alluded to by Wonderland, Clark was a vastly impactful member of the Austin blues scene, and had a technology-spanning impression on the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan and his brother Jimmie Vaughan, the primitive of whom he played alongside as a member of the Triple Threat Revue.
Throughout his existence, Clark selflessly gave helpful steering and recommendation to up-and-coming blues guitarists (he furthermore taught guitar to Will and Charlie Sexton), which earned him the nickname “the Godfather of Austin Blues”.
Long sooner than he was anointed that title, even though, Wesley Curley Clark grew up in Austin, and picked up guitar within the early ’50s after having received publicity to gospel music by plot of choirs.
His first paying gig got here on the age of 16 (when he played with T.D. Bell’s band, the Cadillacs) and by the time he was later tapped by Joe Tex for his first tour within the late ‘60s, Clark had already developed a vital touch for the blues and past.
Clark’s system was one who blended the supreme of elephantine-out Texas blues with a supremely soulful touch that carried an air of Memphis about it. It was a sound that can permeate by plot of his solo releases – including his vastly neatly-liked Texas Soul file – as neatly as the music he played with his peers.
Upon returning to the Texas capital after the tour, Clark was greeted with a altering blues scene – one who was being outlined by the likes of Jimmie Vaughan, Doyle Bramhall and their contemporaries.
Exhibiting his versatility and suppleness as both a musician and a band member, Clark furthermore played the bass guitar, and notably held down the low-live as adeptly as he played the guitar whereas section of James Polk & The Brothers. Genuinely, his skillability on the bass made him a highly in-inquire sideman throughout his occupation.
By 1975, SRV had gratified his mentor to quit his job, and just a few years later the pair were playing together – along with Mike Kindred, Freddie Pharaoh, Johnny Reno and Lou Ann Barton – below the Triple Threat Revue umbrella.
All the plot by plot of his time with the community, he co-wrote Cool Shot with Mike Kindred, which can per chance journey on to turn into judicious one of Vaughan’s supreme cuts.
“Americans are progressively writing about how I taught Stevie and Jimmie, however I without a doubt realized as noteworthy from them as they realized from me,” he as soon as mirrored of the Vaughan brothers (by plot of Michael Corcoran’s Overserved). “The No. 1 element these young cats taught me was patience. As lengthy as the folk are coming out to scrutinize you, you play as lengthy and as laborious as you’re going to also every night.”
When Stevie disbanded the community to begin Double Wretchedness, Clark himself remained busy with a community of his salvage, the W. C. Blues Revue. Clark would live end to SRV over time and continued to fragment the stage with him as soon as in a whereas, including an Austin City Limits performance taped in 1990.
Formal recognition of Clark’s provider to blues music, nevertheless, wouldn’t attain until later. In 1994, on the age of 55, he penned his first file deal with BlackTop, and sooner than lengthy he had scored two W.C. To hand Awards – in on the present time and age identified as the Blues Music Awards.
His most telling award arrived in ‘98, when he was formally named Artist Most Deserving of Wider Recognition. For a musician whose occupation is outlined by his provider to the wider community, the title is severely becoming.
A One year sooner than, Clark’s occupation almost got here to an live following a tragic accident that ended in the loss of life of his fiance Brenda Jasek and drummer Pete Alcoser Jr.
“I used to be sitting on a commode, of all areas, and I made up my mind to live feeling sorry for myself,” Clark as soon as said. “I stared at my hands, which had been hurt within the accident, and I seen that it be all in God’s hands and what he put me here to invent was recount and play guitar, so what was I looking ahead to?”
“He said playing kept him young,” says Anna Bosworth, the frequent supervisor at Giddy Up. “W.C. was progressively very collaborating throughout his presentations; answering the listeners’ questions or telling glorious experiences about his existence and songs that he wrote.”
Clark is survived by his daughter, two brothers, and sister.
