Roy Clark

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Roy Linwood Clark (April 15, 1933 – November 15, 2018) was an American singer and musician.

He is best known for having hosted Hee Haw, a nationally televised country variety show, from 1969 to 1997.

Clark was an important and influential figure in country music, both as a performer and in helping to popularize the genre. During the 1970s, Clark frequently guest-hosted for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show and enjoyed a 30-million viewership for Hee Haw.

Clark was highly regarded and renowned as a guitarist, banjo player, and fiddler.

He was skilled in the traditions of many genres, including classical guitar, country music, Latin music, bluegrass, and pop.

He had hit songs as a pop vocalist (e.g., "Yesterday, When I Was Young" and "Thank God and Greyhound"), and his instrumental skill had an enormous effect on generations of bluegrass and country musicians.

He became a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 1987, and, in 2009, was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

He published his autobiography, My Life in Spite of Myself, in 1994.

Early life

Clark was born April 15, 1933, in Meherrin, Virginia, one of five children born to Hester Linwood Clark and Lillian Clark (Oliver). His father was a tobacco farmer. He spent his childhood in Meherrin and New York City, where his father moved the family to take jobs during the Great Depression. When Clark was 11 years old, his family moved to a home on 1st Street SE in the Washington Highlands neighborhood of Washington, D.C., after his father found work at the Washington Navy Yard.

Clark's father was a semi-professional musician who played banjo, fiddle, and guitar, and his mother played piano. The first musical instrument Clark ever played was a four-string cigar box with a ukulele neck attached to it, which he picked up in elementary school. His father taught Clark to play guitar when Roy was 14 years old, and soon Clark was playing banjo, guitar, and mandolin. "Guitar was my real love, though," Clark later said. "I never copied anyone, but I was certainly influenced by them; especially by George Barnes. I just loved his swing style and tone." Clark also found inspiration in other local D.C. musicians. "One of the things that influenced me growing up around Washington, D.C., in the '50s was that it had an awful lot of good musicians. And I used to go in and just steal them blind. I stole all their licks. It wasn't until years later that I found out that a lot of them used to cringe when I'd come in and say, 'Oh, no! Here comes that kid again.'" As for his banjo style, Clark said in 1985, "When I started playing, you didn't have many choices to follow, and Earl Scruggs was both of them." Clark won the National Banjo Championship in 1947 and 1948, and briefly toured with a band when he was 15.

Clark was very shy, and turned to humor as a way of easing his timidity. Country-western music was widely derided by Clark's schoolmates, leaving him socially isolated. Clowning around, he felt, helped him to fit in again. Clark used humor as a musician as well, and it was not until the mid 1960s that he felt confident enough to perform in public without using humor in his act.

The D.C. area had a number of country-western music venues at the time. Duet acts were in favor, and for his public performance debut Clark teamed up with Carl Lukat. Lukat was the lead guitarist, and Clark supported him on rhythm guitar. In 1949, at the age of 16, Clark made his television debut on WTTG, the DuMont Television Network affiliate in Washington, D.C. At 17, he made his first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry in recognition for winning his second national banjo title. By this time, he had begun to play fiddle and twelve-string guitar. He toured the country for the next 18 months playing backup guitar during the week for David "Stringbean" Akeman, Annie Lou and Danny, Lonzo and Oscar, and Hal and Velma Smith, working county fairs and small town theaters. On weekends, these acts usually teamed up with country music superstars like Red Foley or Ernest Tubb and played large venues in big cities. He earned $150 a week ($1,689 in 2021 dollars). After the tour, Clark returned to performing at local country-music venues. He recorded singles for Coral Records and 4 Star Records.

At the age of 23, Clark obtained his pilot's certificate and then bought a 1953 Piper Tri-Pacer (N1132C), which he flew for many years. This plane was raffled off on December 17, 2012, to benefit the charity Wings of Hope. He owned other planes, including a Mitsubishi MU-2, Stearman PT-17 and Mitsubishi MU-300 Diamond 1A business jet.

Personal life

Clark married Barbara Joyce Rupard on August 31, 1957. The couple had five children. They made their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the Roy Clark Elementary School was named in his honor in 1978.

Clark died on November 15, 2018, at 85 at his Tulsa home due to complications of pneumonia.

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Career

Jimmy Dean, the Tex Wildcats, a rising country music sensation, asked Clark to join his band. Clark, the lead guitarist, appeared on Dean's "Poo Country Time" program on WARL-AM and on WMAL-TV (since the show went from radio to television in 1955). Clark appeared on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts in 1956, becoming a variety show on CBS. It was his first television appearance, and he came in second place. Dean Clark was fired in 1957 by him, who feared punctuality among musicians in his band, but not for excessive tardiness. Clark left Washington, D.C., and never returned to D.C. Clark never set out to be a country guitarist during his time in Washington, D.C. Rather, he played when he liked and made him feel well, and never intended to begin a recording career or appear on television. Clark appeared on George Hamilton IV's short-lived television series in Washington, D.C., in the spring of 1959.

Clark moved to Las Vegas, where he spent as a guitarist in a band led by former West Coast Swing bandleader Hank Penny. He was also prominent in Wanda Jackson's backing band during the latter portion of her rockabilly period in the early 1960s—also known as the Party Timers.

Jimmy Dean was asked to guest-host the show during Jack Paar's brief absence from The Tonight Show in early 1960. Clark was drafted to appear on the last night of his guest-hosting stint, and two of his songs featured Clark. Clark made his solo debut on The Tonight Show in January 1963.

Clark appeared on The Beverly Hillbillies as a recurring character — actually two — as he played businessman Roy Halsey and Roy's mother, Myrtle. Clark performed a blistering version of "Down Home" on Saturday evening in an episode of the Jackie Gleason Show dedicated to country music. Later, he appeared in a episode of The Odd Couple, where he played "Malague."

He co-anchored (along with Molly Bee and Rusty Draper) of a weekday country variety series called "Swingin' Country," which was cancelled after two seasons in the mid-1960s. Clark and Buck Owens debuted as hosts on Hee Haw, a syndicated sketch comedy program that aired from 1969 to 1997, putting Clark and Buck Owens in danger of stardom. Clark appeared in a number of comedies during his tenure as a member of the Million Dollar Band and appeared in a number of comedies. Arthur Fiedler conducted Evening at Pops with Roy Clark and the Boston Pops Orchestra in 1976. Clark opened the Roy Clark Celebrity Theatre in Branson, Missouri, in 1983, which was the "first venue to be permanently linked to a well-known entertainer" in the resort city.

Clark also played in Branson in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1992 (now owned by the Hughes Brothers and renamed the Hughes American Family Theatre) he sold the venue and resumed to a light touring schedule. Clark used to appear with Ramona Jones and the Jones Family Band in Mountain View, Arkansas, as the Clark family's annual tribute to Clark's late Hee Haw co-star Grandpa Jones.

Clark began touring with rockabilly actress Wanda Jackson in 1960 and also on various of her albums as backup guitarists. Clark met Jim Halsey through Jackson. Clark signed with the Halsey Agency, which represented him for the remainder of his career. Jackson appeared at the Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas during this time. Clark had made a name for himself in Vegas within two years and appeared on television in the 1960s and 1970s.

Clark's back-up for Jackson attracted the attention of Capitol Records, bringing him right into his attention. In 1962, Clark signed to Capitol and released The Lightning Fingers of Roy Clark, his first solo album. Fans expressed mixed reviews for the album, with some even going "above average" for the album. Clark was the highest-paid country music celebrity in the United States by the 1970s, earning $7 million ($48,800,000) a year.

He went to Dot Records and scored more hits. He later worked with ABC Records, which had acquired Dot and MCA Records, the latter of which was allowed to use the ABC mark.

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Awards

• 1970 – CMA – Comedian of the Year
• 1972 – ACM – Entertainer of the Year
• 1973 – ACM – Entertainer of the Year
• 1973 – CMA – Entertainer of the Year
• 1975 – CMA – Instrumental Group of the Year (with Buck Trent)
• 1976 – CMA – Instrumental Group of the Year (with Buck Trent)
• 1977 – CMA – Instrumentalist of the Year
• 1978 – CMA – Instrumentalist of the Year
• 1980 – CMA – Instrumentalist of the Year
• 1982 – Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental Performance for his recording of Alabama Jubilee